I assume you can sprinkle the latter on your meal and have Apocalypse Chow.

Richard, in one of the booths at the annual Christmas crafts fair in Union Square, the one with the stuffies in the likeness of Freud, Woolfe, Marx, Einstein, and asst'd other intellectual icons, they also sell little tins of post-therapy mints. I think this is a fine idea, but they should be called Pentimentos.

Anita, a full-size billboard version of that thing has got to be weird when you're just trying to get through your morning commute. Huggy Jesus looks like a Braveheart Beanie Baby, or maybe the soft-sculpture version of a tennis-playing Scot. I have sent e-mail to Gadgets for God apprising them of Huggy Jesus' existence.

Just to let everyone know: This morning, the spirit moved me to rewrite the south end of this post.

I don't care if it rains or freezes
Long as I got my plastic Jesus

Over on the Malibulist website, at http://www.malibulist.com/gmlog/00000085.html I make reference to Religious Health Food from the House of David and the wonderfully named jesuschristsuperstore.com.

And I haven't even mentioned the View Askew and Archie McPhee folks.

After you open all those cool Christmas presents, you can have a Biblical feast with your family.

MKK

But not weird enough for me. I want a little statue of Ganesh helping a little brahmin kid learn how to ride a two-wheeler. Or of a mounstrous many-mouthed skull-necklaced Krishna helping kids learn to play Cricket.

That would utterly rock.

To approximately quote Anne Lamott out of context, it's enough to make Jesus fall to his knees and drink gin out of the cat dish.

While there, I also saw a picture of Kali-ji that turns into a picture of Shiv-ji depending on how you hold it. Also some kitchen thingie (I think it was a ceramic trivet) with the Sanskrit word "OM" and, in small Roman characters, the notation "Om, om on the range."

I swear I'm not making this up.

Jesus Christ
Superstore
Shop with the Lord and you'll save much more.

Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
He's got it all at the lowest price.

The only store where you can Save and Be Saved at the Same Time!

[Can't claim that's new; it's run through my head every time I hear the song from JC Superstar for *years*. Never thought anyone would have the nerve to actually call themselves JC Superstore...]

Jordin

Newbury Comics stores (Mass., NH) have the Job action figure. Sackcloth, ashes, bleeding boils. Just what your five-year-old needs.

My cousin Heidi lives in San Diego, and we got
together when I was out at Smofcon.
Her boss's family is Mormon, and we
all know how pro-family Mormons are supposed to be.
However, she said that her boss (and two of his sons) were not allowed to attend the actual marriage service of his daughter because he had some sort of falling out with the church. He wasn't excommunicated or anything, just not allowed in the sanctuary (tabernacle?).

I don't really understand this. My in-laws are
Catholic, yet we non-believers have always been
welcome to weddings, funerals, et.c. It seems to me that a religion that claims to promote the
family would encourage families to attend important
events like weddings.

Basically, Mormonism is a church with two levels of initiation, and rumors of a third. Profession of faith, baptism, and confirmation (which are rituals anyone can attend) just gets you into the first level. After that you can attend or participate in rituals that take place in the temple if you have a temple recommend, which you can get from your bishop (trans.: your pastor) after an interview in which you swear that you've been behaving yourself like a good Mormon and paying a full tithe. Temple recommends have to be renewed at least once a year.

Temple rituals include full-scale Mormon weddings, sealings, baptism for the dead, and the Endowment ceremony, which last marks the second level of initiation. In a canonical Mormon life, a man would go through the Endowment ceremony before going on his mission, and a woman would do it before getting married. After you've been through the ceremony, you're supposed to wear temple longjohns for the rest of your life, unless you're bathing, swimming, or participating in a sporting event. There's some disagreement as to whether you and your spouse should take them off in one other set of circumstances.

But I digress. Back to the question of weddings. Bottom line: no temple recommend, no admission, no matter what. I was the Maid of Honor at my sister's wedding, but since I was already in dubious standing with the church, I wasn't allowed to attend the ceremony. I was less upset about that than I might have been.

If you've followed me so far, but are thinking that can't be right, since by that logic it would follow that someone who:

has been a devout Mormon all his life,

but has recently suffered financial reversals,

and consequently has failed to give the church its full 10% off the top this year,

and who doesn't have enough weasel-nature to lie to the bishop about it,

(and who definitely doesn't have enough weasel-nature to print out one of the facsimile temple recommends certain godless websites have mischievously made available to the public)

could therefore wind up being excluded from his own daughter's wedding--

Perhaps you're now wondering about that episode where Christ drove the money-changers from the temple. Don't worry; it'll never happen in a Mormon temple. With that beard and haircut, He'd never get past the front door.

Liberal Protestants have things like baptism and
confirmation, but you can always attend any church
function.

About ths only similar thing I can think of in
mainstream Christian sects is you can't take
Communion in certain instances. In most Christian churches, you can't take Communion until you've
been confirmed (Protestant) or had First Communion
(Catholic). Also in Catholicism, if you haven't been to confession or if you've been divorced, you're not supposed to take Communion. But you can still go to mass.

You can even still attend church if you aren't dontating money. They might try to make you feel guilty, but they don't forbid you from attending.

Each one of was small enough to occupy the central role in your own dashboard nativity scene, and had "MADE IN CHINA" stamped on its back.

*sigh*

Jesus wept.

And the above coming to you from a Jewish Quaker.
(Who knows the second verses to most Christmas carols. AND the descants. Go figure.)

Jane