Out of the Ordainary

My brother doesn't surprise me much.

It's not that he’s mundane, he's not. He is the polar opposite of mundane. He is, shall we say, very much his own person.

In some ways I envy him. He is blissfully unburdened by the expectations of others. He is comfortable enough with himself that he is able to act as he chooses. When he felt like having a unique style, he didn’t go down to Hot Topic to pick up the current version of uniqueness that everybody else has, he shaved three-quarters of his head and braided the remaining hair. He personifies the notion that those who matter don't mind and those who mind don’t matter.

I got a call from him Saturday night. He wanted to know if I'd heard the new Weird Al CD and if I'd heard the original R. Kelly song "Trapped in a Closet" and, oh, by the way, he just got ordained.

Screech!

OK, he surprised me with that one.

So my brother – the octopus head – is now clergy. He's now part of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

Some would say he’s not really clergy because he got his ordination on-line. But I doubt my brother is bothered by their scoffing.

Faith is like that, you know. Besides, Tyler Durden says we should let that which does not truly matter completely slide.

Later in the call, after the conversation had shifted to a few different topics, he mentioned that he was going through his collection of adult-oriented videos.

"Oh," I said. "Is this part of your ministry?"