The parson was in the back corner of his favorite diner, reading his morning paper on the Kindle and sipping a decaf, when Stanley Kausman entered. He saw the parson and headed his way.
“Morning, Parson,” he said. “Where were you last night?”
“I was taking a nap with my wife if you have to know.”
“Oh, funny, Parson. The meeting. You were not at the meeting.”
“There was a meeting last night? When did they announce that?”
“Right! You didn’t know a thing about a meeting.”
The parson sipped his coffee. Stanley sat across from him.
“How was the meeting?”
“The meeting was crap,” said Stanley. “It was boring as hell. And then, on top of that, they handed out the denominational asking for next year. That was far from boring. It was infuriating.”
“What’s the rub, Stan?”
“Oh, let’s see. My church is being asked to meet a raise what we pay to capital funding, not for our church mind you, but for the conference, a mere 63%. And I suppose because we are such dedicated folks who have trimmed staff hours to meet our responsibilities we are being asked to increase what we give to the conference administration a small amount of 51%. I tell you parson I looked at those figures and decided these folks just didn’t know how to manage their budget, but then I saw that they are asking us to increase our giving to that retreat that’s been bleeding money since it was started by 41%.”
Stan rubbed his head with both hands in frustration.
“It’s insane, Parson. When did this kind of thinking start?”
The parson smiled and said, “It started forty-five years ago last June when I arrived at my first church.”
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