Prits…Even Christian love has its limits
On The Spit is a firm believer in Christian love and understands that there has been a longstanding division between those who believe that the dispensation of Christian love is unconditional and those who believe that the dispensation of Christian love is conditional.
This has came to mind following a recent report on Greek television about the Greek Orthodox Bishop of Kalavryta and Aigialeias, Ambrosios.
Ambrosios has taken issue with the Armed Forces for not lending him a jeep to move an icon of the Virgin Mary for a service he was organising.
All of this while coming out and praising the head of the local fire fighting service for providing an immediate solution and lending Ambrosios a jeep.
On The Spit wonders whether jeeps have now become the measure of Christian love in the Orthodox Church, given Ambrosios came out and said: ‘ We , from our position of religious leadership wonder how pro-Christ Greek Armed Forces are and how can we pray for Christian army, sea and air personnel?”
Like all fair-minded bush lawyers On The Spit put on the thinking cap and reflected on the logic of the Bishop’s statement.
After few well-chosen moments of reflection we came to the conclusion that what Ambrosios is saying is this:
You give a jeep and you are included in the prayers and blessings of the Church or you don’t give a jeep and you are excluded from the Church’s prayers and blessings.
Which begs the question of whether the Church now has a Jeep index which acts as a measure of one’s entitlement to Christian love?
Will we see now see Goldman Sachs develop sophisticated derivative products to allow the Greek Armed Forces to offset the risk of not being loved by the Bishop of Kalavryta and Aigialeias?
Will these derivative product, known as “Se agnoo”, end up being traded across the major international financial markets and prove to be popular with German investment bankers, UAE investment agencies and Chinese industrial conglomerates?
But wait there’s more zoumi (juice) in the story……
Ambrosios finishes off his public statement by saying “Our Virgin Mary will protect the nation and the members of the fire fighting service.”
Now On The Spit may not be smart but we know this reeks of that old kindergarten rhyming couple I’m the king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal.
The positing of the good fire fighters who are protected by the Holy Mother with the bad members of the armed forces who are condemned to misery, eternal damnation and a lack of Christian insurance is a chesimo of epic proportions.
This is a wilful up yours by the fair bishop.
You didn’t give us a Jeep? Then, pritz, if we will include you in our prayers.
Melbourne Storm demise friendly reminder of the luck of St Mammes
The wall that the Melbourne Storm rugby league club struck when it got caught out for having cooked the books is a sad affair.
Finding a way to pay the players $1.7 million over the salary cap in a five year period needed lots of cash money, two sets of books, players and player managers willing to take part in the deception.
While the self-righteous finger pointing has been a tad overdone (read massively overdone) given they were salary cap breaches and not match fixing or embezzlement, it got ON The Spit wondering whether Greece might be able to develop a major new export market in the areas of tax and remuneration consulting.
At a time when the Greek economy is crippled by its bloated levels of debt, maybe it can leverage all that knowledge and experience of tax avoidance and working in the cash economy to generate much needed export euros for the Greek economy.
On The Spit believes all of those years of running two sets of books, taking cash and not issuing receipts, setting up offshore companies in Cyprus and Romania to take advantages of their more lenient tax regimes and of spending cash taking in the bars, brothels and casinos in consort with Eastern European escorts will make Greek tax and remuneration consultants a very attractive proposition for sporting clubs and businesses looking to maximise their return and blame the government for their poor service provision and public administration.
Maybe their slogan should be ‘We know. Ask Angela Merkel.’
