Private Audience

A few weeks ago, Ben and I had a garage sale at which we escaped from the bondage of approximately 3/5 of our worldly posessions.

You should see the sales pitch Ben gives on every item--he actually convinced 4 teenage guys who had been casually walking down the street (i.e. in no way interested in their grandmothers' favorite pasttime of buying Important Stuff from other people's yards) that they needed one hat each. Three walked away with some of our old baseball caps and beach hats; the fourth purchased a fake tiara with a veil of tule attached (bachelorette party fare) because Ben convinced him it was a "chick magnet".

But this was not the most amusing part of our Great Adventure in Garage Sale-ing. Oh no. We additionally had a private audience with the Pope.

That's right: Pope Michael I, came all the way from Delia, Kansas to our garage sale. I won't go into the entire history of his claim on the papacy, as you can read it in the embedded links. What I will share with you is what he bought from us:

One of these that was from a retreat I attended, and had "EMILY" written in bubbly multi-colored marker handwriting on the side of the book, opposite the binding, as well as many personal notes to me scrawled on the first several pages of the book. And one of these and one of these (which even we didn't know to what it belonged), as well as one of these (half-used). We also tried to sell him a holy water font, but he said he already had too many. His mother, who was with him, bought Ben's mom's shoes for 25 cents.

Just think--his next encyclical might be drafted by candlelight in his new white binder, drawing from the sweet words of a note-laden Bible by some girl from Kansas City. He may never find a use for that adapter...

In the end, after a good laugh, we pray for him and his followers, and for the reunification of all Christians.