JESUS ON MY TEA TOWEL
[ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES TODAY. NEW BLOG TOMORROW!]
Recently a woman in
Coventry (UK) took a tea towel out of the dryer to find a brown stain on it
resembling a long bearded man. She and her husband claim the image within the
stain is none other than Jesus Christ himself. The woman claimed the stain was not
there before the dryer but after the load finished, she took it out and,
presto, there was (call me crazy, but something tells me her dryer is too
hot and may burn the house down if she’s not careful) an image of the holy man himself.
Of course they have been
mobbed with requests from the uber pious hoping to make a pilgrimage to
her kitchen of piety to gaze upon her tea-stained tea towel. I’m sorry, I
realize my jaded side is showing through in technicolor, but I just never get
on board with this type of stuff. Perhaps because I just fundamentally don’t
trust humans or their eyesight.
I suppose my first question
is why do people always insist it is Jesus imprinted upon their food items,
linens, lining in the cat litter box etc. I’ve seen the photo of the tea towel and
between you and I, I can’t even make out a face, let alone the face of Jesus
Christ. Not to mention, if one can make out a man with a beard, could that not
be a likeness of the guy that delivers circulars to the neighborhood, or the
former house owner that died in that very kitchen fifteen years before, or even the local bus driver. Why is
it always Jesus? Why don’t people see Elvis or Kurt Cobain or dead political
figures? Now that would be a miracle. Holy shiz, there is an image of JFK
inside the King’s nappy. Now that would get me believing in something (a diet
change for the King perhaps).
I realize these days
everyone is searching for a miracle of some sort, but I have a hard time
believing that Jesus would appear on a towel in some woman’s house in Coventry.
Okay, for those not jaded like myself, I suppose your answer is, why on earth
not. I just have problems with believing a stain isn’t more than a stain and
often a sheer trick of the eye. The King’s entire wardrobe is littered with
stains and unidentifiable blobs, but I’ve yet to see a man staring back at me from his trouser leg. [Although, I could swear his hoodie has an image of Johnny Depp sprinting across a bridge naked, then again, perhaps that's just my active imagination]. Trust me, if I did, I’d have confirmation that a year and a half without proper
sleep can drive you definitively mad. But then again, maybe that’s why I don’t
get Jesus appearing in my house, cause he knows it would go right over my head
and out the window.
Ms. McCourt, the tea towel believer, is now
insistent that this is a definitive sign from God, and of course this event has
strengthened her faith. Apparently another resident of this same area claimed
Jesus appeared to her on a drainpipe. [I’m not even sure how one sees Jesus on
a drainpipe?] Clearly in this town, something deeply religious (and
hallucinogenic) is in the water.