Not Too Pastoral

When I was studying at the theological college in Oxford, some of us would get together a lot to watch television or videos. When a character would do or say something inept or insensitive or really, truly obnoxious, we'd chorus, "That Wasn't Very Pastoral!!"

Well, here's something that surely fits the description. This week Mathilda*, the elderly, stroke-paralyzed mother of my friends Hannah* and Frieda* and their sister Gretchen*, is in respite care at an area nursing home. Mum usually lives with Gretchen* and her husband, but this week they have to go out of town. And Gretchen* has asked me to come in evenings to be with her.

So Tuesday night I arrived, and what did they have running around the extreme care floor? A woman with pretentions of being a ventriloquist, and her dummy was--an outsized and extremely ugly vulture! She was assaulting the residents lined up in front of the nurses' station with it, then parading it around to the patients' rooms.

Lord have mercy! A humongous carrion bird puppet as entertainment in an extreme care facility? Poking it into sick old folks' faces and having it ask, "Do you want to marry me??"

No. No-no-no-no-no!

Not too pastoral. Not pastoral At All.