I am attending my wife’s little brother’s retirement party this weekend. It seems like yesterday I was hoping that dude would go to his room and leave 17- year-old me alone with his sister. Nowadays, I just hope he has beer in his fridge when I stop by. Life comes at you fast, don’t blink.
Just so everyone is clear, I am not a candidate to be the next Pope. I’ve been critical of the Catholic religion in the past and the church probably will not be able to overlook those transgressions of my youth. I’m also not Catholic, don’t look good in white and hate smoke, so it all seems obvious that I am not a good fit.
Don’t be offended by my comments if you are Catholic. It is one of my favorite religions and I’ve been critical of most religions, the others just don’t have a Pope, so they get overlooked sometimes. I’ve always admired the amount of beer at Catholic events and been a big fan of that confession thing. The thing that confuses me about all religion is that there is going to be a huge percentage of people who find out they were wrong eventually. That seems problematic but carry on.
The next Pope is chosen/elected by the College of Cardinals, composed of cardinals under 80 years of age. Wait. The church does not want people over 80 even weighing in on their next leader, yet we chose as a country to trot out two 80-year-olds to lead our country for four years. I love 80-year-olds and want to be one someday, but this seems like a telling fact.
Just so you know how to keep score once they convene to elect a new Pope at the Vatican. White smoke indicates a new pope has been elected; black smoke means no decision has been made. The smoke color is created by chemical additives. This seems contrary to their environmental stances, but the church has been known to be a little contradictory on issues in the past. A little “do what we say and not what we do” policy sometimes squeaks out. The geographic transferring of bad actor Priests comes to mind, but that’s just me being negative, I suppose.
In case you have a scorecard going at home, 31% of the world claim to be of the Christian faith and 24% to be Islam. That is like 2.3 billion and 1.8 billion, respectively. I’m not an expert but both of these groups can’t be right. Going to be a lot of disappointed people.
Don’t email me about religion. I am obviously not qualified to have an opinion on such matters. These are musings, not opinions. A musing is simply a “reflection or thought,” I’ve just gone to the trouble of writing them down, sending them to Foley and putting them in print for you. You’re welcome.
My brother-in-law’s retirement is from various military positions over the last forty years. I suppose we will sing Lee Greenwood most of the night, toss on some night vision goggles, maybe pitch a tent and other fun stuff, not really sure though. I am in the first stages of my “retirement party” part of life. This is my second one this year. Coincidentally, both have been government employees that made it to the “retirement stage” first among my peer group. Maybe that’s not a coincidence.
(Guy Speckman’s musings are not debatable, only observable and marginally readable)
