Catholic Ragemonkey

Racist Coffee Additives

For the few that attended the Marriage and Family Life conference in Hennessey, OK held last Friday, it was an engaging and interesting weekend. As Fr. Mason observed, the Church started out with simply 12, and this work of ours starts the same way. Hopefully, as we go along, more parishes will be inspired to do these sorts of things. In rural Oklahoma, access to formation opportunities are limited in the extreme, but the people are hungry just the same.

Apparently, Fr. Hamilton took umbrage at my referring to his lecture as water skiing through the history of the sacrament of marriage. What would you call it when he covers, oh, approximately 4000 years of history, three levels and sources of the Church's teaching and then applies that teaching to various aspects of the life of the married couple? I also wanted to reconnect the listeners to my impending one hour lecture by connecting them with the topic, namely we were only going to cover the Sacred Scripture. Oh, well, if I offend, I am sorry.

I also found in the parish hall an amusing sign of how the times have changed. In general, most people make coffee too weak and therefore the coffee is bitter. Interestingly, more grounds concentrates the flavors and reduces bitterness, but that is the subject of another post. So, whenever I am at a parish function, my hand strays to CoffeeMate or the nearest quart of milk. In Hennessey, the product being used is called "Coffee Whitener." When I looked closely at the packet, I burst out laughing. I can only imagine the protests that folks like Al Sharpton might raise in front of the SingleServ company who produces said whitener.

As I drove home from the conference, I began to amuse myself with other funny names for non-dairy creamers, such as Coffee White-Out, although that sounds like the coffee should be getting darker. Coffee Blizzard was pretty okay as names go. This shows you what is on my mind when I drive ... nothing!