O Great Whopper In the Sky

I have consumed my yearly Burger King Whopper, chocolate shake, and french fries. I do this annually after fulfilling my responsibilities as the Test Supervisor for the SATs. As non-fun as the SATs are for students, I assure you that they are exponentially much less fun for me. I get stressed because this one test does much to determine the path that students take after high school and I want to make sure that the administration goes well. So much is riding on it. 

But, I do get paid and that helps ease the pain. Why I punish myself more to eat fast food is hard to fathom. I must hate myself...

I am not sure how I got into the ritual of doing the BK run after the SATs. I think it may derive from when I was a kid and my dad would take us once a year to Burger King and then we would head to a Phillies game. The Whopper developed almost mythic proportions in my child's brain. Like Rosebud in Citizen Kane. The Burger Grail. I no longer deify Whoppers, yet it does seem appropriate to gorge myself once a year. Last year I had a Double Whopper with Bacon, supersized my fries, and had a large chocolate shake. I calculated the calories like an SAT math problem and it was over 2,000. Hence, why it is once a year. I think I turned the corner a couple of weeks ago on last year's Post-SAT meal. Probably why my appendix burst.

Favoring BK as a kid (and now, I am at least happy they got rid of the weird commercials with the Burger King character who acted like a lecher, psychopath, and just plain creepy, creepier than Mitt Romney), made me contemplate brand loyalty. Here are a few. Burger King over McDonald's, Keds over Converse, Skippy over Jif, Coke over Pepsi,  Chevy over Ford, Crest over Colgate. I even preferred Catholic over Protestant. My best friend took me to his mainline Protestant Church for Sunday School once and it was like play-time. I think in my Catholic Sunday School were were reading through Exodus (no joke).  I remember thinking, "Where is the guilt?" Catholics are great at guilt.

To this day I would rather be an Orthodox Catholic versus a wishy-washy middle of the road mainstream Protestant. Fast food faith. Here is hoping that the Catholic Church finally in the 21st century repents and reforms and returns to the Scriptures rather than its Vodoo. The Catholic Church never answered the Reformers instead decided to use the stake. Now, the stake is though its own heart. Mainstream Protestantism no longer stands for anything so it is hard to be against. It is wordlier than the world. May the next Pope heed the death-rattle and move his church back from the edge of destruction.

I had a dude down at Temple one time try to persuade me once that the Protestant Reformation was the worst thing that ever happened to Christendom. I decidedly disagreed. I instead think that the Reformation forced the Roman Catholic Church to curb its most venal and egregious sins and thus helped preserve the Holy See. Now, Catholicism is collapsing from within. It is rotten to the core but as a Reformed Christian I take no joy in seeing it falter. I pray for its health. May God be gracious yet again to all of us in the faith. Amen.