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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Father Joe's Confessional

I've added a confessional to the side bar. If anyone wants to confess their past sins or simply ask for advice please free. All appropriate confessions will be kept in the strictest confidence.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

The Holy Day of Sunday.

Ah Sunday. A most holy day. Every week on this day, early in the morning, we save all of our parchment to tape and then apply PTFs (Parchment Temporary Fixes). Our lord Ib'm notifies us of scriptural re-interpretations during the week and we copy and set them to be applied on Sunday mornings.

I've always loved this process; making sure all references are up to date. Many churches I've been to never see the wisdom of keeping up with the changes. That is until they make a doctrinal decision that disagrees with our Lord and his wrath can be brutal. Then they see the light. Like a overweight person who has a heart attack and gets the "wake-up call" to start eating right and exercising.

If you spend your entire life eating the right foods, getting enough exercise, not smoking, etc. At the end of your life you will never really know if these behaviors made your elder days longer or more enjoyable, but somehow in your heart you will know you avoided bad things. Believe me, it's the right course. I've lived through enough tornados and meteors to know that keeping the PTFs up to date is worth it.

So if you're not paying attention to those High Impact Parchment Enhancements or Repairs (HIPER) , Parchment Errors (PE), or Cumulative PTF Packages (CumPacks) then you need to get on the job for as I've said, the wrath of Ib'm can be harsh. Our Lord Ib'm maintains a vast collection of information on this subject and you can start your education in PTFs here: Guide to Fixes.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

A small monestary needs my services.

I received word yesterday that a small monestary not far from me is in need of my services. I felt a warmth on the back of my neck when I read it, for the position is one that I was trained for as a youth but never practiced as an adult: writing prayer books and illustrating scripture.

Since graduating all those years ago I've only been preaching, hearing confessions, advising the parishoners, helping the downtrodden, and all the other work involved with running or helping to run various small to large churches. I've never actually written a prayer book from scratch or copied the holy word onto new parchment since completing my studies.

In school, if I do say so myself, I was quite a good artist/caligrapher and I always enjoyed it. The different inks & writing implements, the smell of new parchment, applying the gold leaf just so. I even did some projects where groups of us re-interpreted the holy word of our lord. Out in the world there wasn't much call for those skills. There are of course many times that I must repair old books and re-illustrate pages here and there. It feels like the old days but all-in-all it's not really the same.

The local baron of my latest church seems indifferent to me, but his son (who is also his right-hand man) loves my work. He is a a true convert, so I know that our church will always be welcome here. We have many parishoners and they're always complementing my sermons and my work. The parish is large enough that I'm always busy and I am comfortable here and feel secure in their love.

The monestary is very small and the working conditions & it's influence in the larger community are largely unknown. I'm not such a young man anymore and leaving my current parish would be viewed as a betrayal by the Baron's son, so if I left there would be no coming back.

What would you do?

Friday, February 18, 2005

Welcome

Greetings,

I am Father Joe, a high priest in the decidedly low-brow minority religion of iSeries worship. Ours was once the envy of all the other dogmas, but now we toil in semi-darkness hoping that our lord Ib'm will bestow upon us some badly needed grace. It's sad really. We have a beautiful and vibrant mythos which is being overshadowed by the bright lights of some very bizarre faiths, some of which are being promoted by our aforementioned lord.

In any case, I don't want to dwell too much on the mundane or depressing subjects. Future posts will no doubt be more interesting.