Casting bread upon the storm waters

I had a semi-ambitious idea for this week's Sunday School blog, but I had to abandon it once Hurricane Sandy hit. Fortunately, the Frankenstorm's only impact on me was having to work some overtime, helping people whose flight plans were disrupted. And there are thousands of people whose problems are much worse than those of stranded travelers or overworked airline employees. If you'd like to help them, here's a great way to do it and even get something for yourself in return.

(As always, even though I work for JetBlue, and the company would certainly approve of me promoting our recovery efforts in this space, I am solely responsible for the content of this blog.)

So, rather than write my own blog post, I'm going to use someone else's work. Over a decade ago, I was introduced to "The Sugar Beet," a website that was basically the Mormon version of "The Onion." Most of the fake news stories were just okay at best, but there was one piece--an account of an event that created a small scale version of hurricane-like havoc--that I still consider one of the funniest things I've ever read. The site no longer exists (though it appears it was briefly resurrected as a blog), and I can't find any record of this particular article online, but luckily I had the foresight to print a copy back in July 2002, and I've typed it up below. (I chose to feature this today because part of this week's Sunday School lesson is on the sacrament.)


Two Deacons Collide During Administering of Sacrament
By Benson Dastrup

CHICAGO, IL--Local deacon Sammy Thomas collided with Rich Larsen while passing the sacrament on Sunday in the Chicago Hyde Park Ward. Larsen, who had traveled from Utah to visit his sister, was thrown to the ground, spilling the contents of his tray. It wasn't immediately clear what caused the accident, but Larsen blamed Thomas for not following the new Standard Sacrament Protocol, or SSP.

Sacrament passing routes have traditionally been created on an ad hoc basis, making it very difficult to keep track of competing methods and regional variations. The SSP was published last year by the Orem Utah East Stake in an attempt to establish an industry standard. The code fully utilizes all the latest passing and formation technologies and was designed to be extremely cheap to implement. Despite initial skepticism, the SSP was widely adopted along the Wasatch Front last fall.

[The article even included an awesome multi-color diagram of the SSP, including a "grassy knoll" at the top, just behind the organ. Alas, my copy is in black and white.]

Larsen, who participated in his home quorum's Subcommittee on Safety and Reverence, said, "The SSP was supposed to prevent exactly this type of accident." When asked why he thought the standards had been largely ignored outside of Utah, Larsen threw up his hands. "I just don't get it. Maybe something like this has to happen to get people to wake up."

Enough bread remained after the incident to complete the ordinance without a second prayer, but an awkward moment followed the collision when two-year-old Timmy Cannon shoved three fistfuls of bread into his mouth from the floor. It was decided after consulting the Bishop's Handbook that Timmy was not in need of any medical attention.