Why it Really is Good to Pay Attention in Seminary
You may (or may not!) have noticed a couple of Rev Ben Atherton-Zeman’s posts from his recent adventures in prank-replying back to spam texts, such as…
Now. If there’s anyone a prankster loves to prank, it’s another prankster.
So, we (me, Liz, and my son, Anthony) texted Ben’s wife, Lucinda, with: “Hey there… Would you mind sending me Ben’s number so we can prank him?” She texted back instantaneously with one word: “Cool”. And Ben’s cell number.
And we were off.
After much deliberation, Anthony and I settled on an opening. One that sounded like a spam text, but still left lots of room for Ben to steer things towards a biblical reference:
Now, we were already well off the rails in a couple of ways:
1) Wrong Mary. I went to UU seminary, and we spent way more time on Mary Magdalene, who is frankly a bit more of an interesting character.
2) He has steered way hard into direct biblical references, while we are trying to play dumb like a spammer would
and most of all
3) OH NO NOW HE THINKS HE IS BEING WEIRD WITH A CONGREGANT.
We had to come up with something that would make it absolutely clear to Ben that he hadn’t run into us in real life, while simultaneously acting like a normal spammer and giving nothing away.
Me <to Anthony, behind the scenes>: Oh crap! He went with the wrong Mary! Quick. Google facts about Virgin Mary.
Anthony: Mom! You went to seminary for, like, seven years!
Me: I found a “facts about the Virgin Mary” page.
Anthony: Great.
Me: Oh dear. The first two are that she was a virgin.
Anthony: Yes, I got that from her name. What else?
Me: Next is that she was born without sin, which of course according to Universalism all people are—
Anthony: LESS THEOLOGY TANGENTS, MORE FACTS.
Me: She appears to have very little identity of her own, beyond her role as an instrument in…
Anthony: LESS GENDER ANALYSIS, MORE FACTS.
Me: She ascended into heaven. Which basically means she’s dead, right?
Anthony: Yes. The mother of Jesus is not currently alive. Can’t you do any better than that?
Fortunately, Ben quickly steered us into Jesus territory, which is a bit more my home ground. I was very excited when the conversation turned to my “son” having gone away for a trip, because we were pranking Ben on WEDNESDAY. We could say that our son would be back FRIDAY.
Anthony: I don't get it.
Me: Jesus’ resurrection! He died on Ash Wednesday, and returned two days later on Good Friday!
Anthony: Really? Because—
Me: Dude. I went to seminary for seven years, remember?
It turns out that Jesus was actually crucified on Good Friday, which is very morbid, if you ask me. Ash Wednesday, Anthony explained to me once he had googled it, marks the start of Lent.
<4 photo from travel through Wednesday to Friday to fast trip>
Anthony: What's this about a cave?
Me: They rolled back the rock and Jesus’ body was missing.
Anthony: That was a TOMB, mom!
Me: Well, you misspelled desert!
Fortunately, Ben got us back on track.
Meanwhile, I am worried about us being outed, because Ben and Lucinda were out for date night, and I was worried she will blab.
Anthony: No way is she going to sell us out.
Me: How do you know?
Anthony: Because she was so quick to sell HIM out. It took her three seconds to send you that phone number. She is on our side.
I, of course, found this statement hilarious and sent it to Lucinda immediately. She said “Omg, that’s you?” Ben was apparently reading things to her as they came in, and they were both laughing hysterically. With her, of course, laughing just a little harder than he was.
So, now, they were spending date night with Anthony texting Ben and me texting Lucinda, who was sending live reports.
Lucinda: HE IS GOING TO POST THE WHOLE THING TO THE HYSTERICAL SOCIETY! HE HAS NO IDEA IT’S YOU!
Me: I AM GOING TO GO APPROVE IT RIGHT NOW.
Which I did. Then, I went to the comments on the post and added my own screen shots.
Ben: How do you have access to my texts?
Me: Ask your wife.
Lucinda <to me, via text>: He just turned to me and said “ask your wife”.