Faithless Jews And Catholics Poem by gershon hepner

Some Catholics declare they’re lapsed
when they have found their faith’s collapsed,
while Jews start breaking Moses’ laws
once they have put their faith on pause.
The tea I like to drink the most
is Lapsang Souchong. Buttered toast
with Dundee marmalade can mix
like faithless Jews and Catholics.
If there should be an afterlife
I hope that God will let my wife
serve this to me, though my prognosis
is worse than Peter, Paul or Moses.

Inspired, after drinking a pot of Lapsang Souchong that Linda prepared for me after one of her usual inspired fish meals, by Christopher Buckley’s response to one of Debra Solomon’s questions in her interview published in the Sunday NYT magazine on October 25,2008:

As an only child, did you find one of your parents easier to talk to than the other? My mother. She got it. He often didn’t get it.
What didn’t he get? Religion.
He was a practicing Catholic. What are you? I am post-Catholic.
As opposed to a lapsed Catholic? I am probably more of a collapsed Catholic.
Do you believe in the afterlife? Alas, no. But I find myself wondering at the oddest times: So, Pup, are you in heaven? Is it true after all? If he is there, I hope he is debating with St. Peter about letting me in when my time comes, and I hope he is winning.


10/28/08