Irreverends

Due to the same archaic niceties that lead us to refer, inexplicably, to the "Honorable Justice Clarence Thomas" or to Mitch McConnell as the "distinguished Senator from Kentucky," I am now known, in a certain small circle, as "Reverend Murr." In a sensible world, I would be "Irreverend Murr" at best. Nevertheless I take this as a great honor bestowed upon me by my neighbors Beth and Dean, and also the internet. Beth and Dean wanted to get married and, for reasons known only to them, mine was the name they came up with when casting about for an officiant. They trusted me to come up with suitable oratory for the occasion. Did they know what they were getting into?

"Just don't mention poop," Beth said.

They knew.

There were several outfits willing to ordain me as a minister with no muss, fuss, or money, and I selected the sturdy Universal Life Church, hoping it would allow me to pretend to sell insurance, too. The Universal Life Church has been up and running for over fifty years. They're not big on dogma, and neither am I. The Church believes in "the rights of all people...to practice their religious beliefs...be they Christian, Jew, Gentile, Agnostic, Atheist, Buddhist, Shinto, Pagan, Wiccan, Druid, or even Dignity Catholics."

So it's the Holy Church of Whatever.

The state of Oregon is fine with all this. The state of Oregon does not have the resources or desire to probe officiants for holiness. So I'm not sure why the state of Oregon even cares if an officiant is a legally ordained minister or justice of the peace. Seems like it could be anybody. The mailman, say.

Because when it comes to matters of God, I am officially without opinion. I am an Apatheist. I don't believe, or not believe, or wonder. I just don't care. When presented with a slather of splendors from duck dicks to spittlebug farts, I'm all "ooo! Ooo!" not "author,  author."

None of this bothers Beth and Dean. Beth and Dean are grownups in love, and they know what they're doing, and it's just a small step beyond their mature regard and devotion for each other into the state of Wholly Matrimony. If Oregon is fine with my contribution to this event, that's all we need.

Super profile pic.

So God didn't make it into any of the vows or pronouncements, either, by intelligent design. No one associated with the wedding believes this is a miscalculation. God is busy. Not busy busy, just busy the way all the rest of us are. He joined Facebook on August 6, 2010, and probably hasn't gotten much done since. So far he's gotten 3,332,975 "likes," which is a lot, but not nearly as many as Eminem has. Someone has posted on His page that "God needs a 'love' button. Click 'like' if you agree."

Shoot, everybody needs a love button. I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

Anyway, Facebook isn't having it, and that's why there is also no "love with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind" button either.

Meanwhile, the foremost saint in my pantheon, Mark Twain, has only 397,294 "likes." If I and the Church of Whatever have any influence, those numbers are going straight up.

Congratulations, Beth and Dean.

A Hare Under 5'4"

Says here they tried to reintroduce a population of bunnies into central Washington and it didn't take. They put twenty little pygmy rabbits out there in the sagebrush and got nothing for it. Nineteen of the bunnies fell to predators and they rescued the twentieth after a brief debate with a creationist over the likelihood of immaculate conception.

It's hard for me to imagine trying and failing to achieve full bunny saturation. This is not a moonshot. It would be like swinging a bat in Portland and not hitting a barista. But fail they did.

The problem, as I see it, was with the bunnies themselves. They were very small and cute; nuggets, they were. The biologists might as well have thrown out a handful of popcorn. Apparently the local coyotes found them utterly adorable, all the way down.

I've banked on the notion that small equates with cute all my life. I remember being the smallest in the class the entire time I was growing up. That, and having a name that started with a "B," kept me in the front row, where I had to develop skills not required of more easily hidden people. But I had hope. We got measured every year against the kitchen door frame, and I could see a positive trajectory in pencil marks. My mother was short; my father was short; my paternal relatives were uniformly tiny and had to develop curmudgeonliness, scowling, and, in some cases, seizure disorders just to scare away predators. My great-grandfather was barely five feet tall. He was a popular author who did a lecture circuit with Mark Twain. The poster for the tour featured the two under the title "Twins Of Genius." The "twins" part was a joke because they were such different heights. Also, way different genius, but we won't get into that. Anyway, when it came to verticality, I looked at my heritage and figured: hey. I'm due.

Unfortunately, there is no chromosome for being due. After an exciting couple years when I made progress measurable in actual inch fragments, the pencil mark intervals went into millimeter territory until the last one, which is very dark from having been drawn over and over. When you stand to get your height measured, you give it all the stretch you've got, but it never makes a dime's-width of difference. Your eyebrows fly up and your ears pin themselves back but there is no more height to be gained. I was ready to begin phase two of the Brewster growth pattern, all of which is lateral. It makes sense, evolutionarily. We go for a lower and fluffier center of gravity to guard against tipping injuries.

Still, I never felt terribly short. I felt more on the low end of average. Then, as an adult, I got a mail route that included a high school. Walking down the halls towards the office, I navigated a swarm of adolescent giants plumped from birth with high-fructose corn syrup; I bobbed along a trough in a sea of tits and armpits. It's disconcerting.

It only just occurred to me that we could dedicate another door frame for yearly measurements again. I could have visual proof of having approached five feet from both directions. It could be interesting. I'm fine with it as long as I'm adorable all the way down.