The Fax of Life

I'm told on good authority that historically wherever Christianity goes, literacy follows. Christians are word people. We love words because the God of the universe chose to reveal himself through human words found in the Bible. We believe that the universe was created by God's word. We believe that the Word became flesh in the person of Jesus. Christians are undoubtedly people of the word.

Above this general desire to discover the God who has revealed himself through words, I personally have a great love of forms of self-expression which play around with words and wordforms. Now this is not my normal blog fodder but I want to share some classic wordplay from one of my favourite comedians, Paul Livingston better known as Flacco.

I'm currently reading the book Flacco's Burnt Offerings which is a collection of short musings from this master of the pun. If you love words, you'll love Flacco. To give you a taste the chapter headings include such gems as "Demeaning of Life", "Shopping Maul", "A Fete Worse Than Death" and "Let There Be A Lighter"

Written below is a section of Flacco's musing titled "The Fax Of Life - An Open Letter to God"

Dear Almighty Creator of Perpetual Munificence.

How goes it, omnipotent one?

Having recently read your engaging collection of short stories, I was hoping you might make some time (as indeed is your wont) to respond to my humble queries.

Does the epistle of the apostle
Of St Peter at the altar
Alter Paul's apocalyptic
Episodic paradigm,
Involving David and Goliath
Whose old testament relyeth
On the strength of Moses' tablets
And a brightly burning bush.
And was it that your son had farted
That the waters dear departed
Of the fallacies of Pharisees
Whose Phallocentric fantasies
Have paraphrased the epithet
Believe to which we are thus led
That catechisms of Cathology
Whose entepistemology
Declares quite categorically -
I have on good authority,
The immaculate conception - 
That your son was born a lamb!


If that's not enough Flacco for you, here's a clip from Good News Week on the 27th Letter of the alphabet.