A sister blogger referred recently to her coffee addiction, and this reference, of course, made me think of silly religious systems. Why? Thought you’d never ask….
While in Greeley, Colorado, I had the pleasure of working one day a week with the Greeley Children’s Chorale as accompanist. There were two choirs, and my counterpart in the other choir was a Mormon. We invited her and her husband over for dessert and coffee one evening and were reminded that Mormons aren’t allowed to (perhaps this is a regional/bishop-of-the-ward decision, like the decisions made by some Amish bishops relative to telephones and transportation once in a while) drink coffee or tea, but they do drink hot chocolate. I asked about herbal, decaffeinated tea. No, they can’t drink that, either.
Apparently–and I can think of no other reason–the bishops don’t understand the difference between tea and herbal “tea.” Herbal tea is not really tea, has no caffeine, and as such, could have no addictive qualities. On the other hand, chocolate does have caffeine, and could conceivably be mildly addictive. So why can they drink that?
Religious systems are often too big for their britches (and a mite silly, to boot). They seem to feed off their own power and sillinesses. The system in which I myself was reared is less silly but can still be downright silly. They’re pretty much all silly.
P.S. I had a really slow, unproductive, fairly negative day on Tuesday. I had no caffeine all day. I had a better day Wednesday, plowing through many peripheral tasks and actually getting to the core of my work for maybe an hour or an hour and a half. Caffeine, I’m sorry to have to acknowledge, seemed to assist–at least in my determination.
P.P.S. Have you heard that one of our country’s leading Republican presidential candidates is a Mormon?
Earnestly Speaking 