I find that as a person who works with youth, I seem to acquire a lot of unwanted things from other people.Case in point: when I returned from my vacation I found a giant box filled with various stuffed animals, candles and Ikea products in it. It took me two days to get a confession from the pastor that he was the one who left it in my office; he thought they would make good prizes for the youth group.
Not to pick on the pastor alone -- this is not the first time I have acquired things I don't need or want. Everyone seems to think "Youth ministry could use it!" But the find from the pastor was pretty amusing. I finally went through the box today. Besides various candles, two stuffed toys, a T-shirt with a monkey on it in a tin, a couple of Ikea lamps, a clock that swings, a mouse sculpture, a monkey fridge magnet and a candle holder featuring a removeable swinging dolphin, I found a couple of absolute favorites: a Piyo Piyo (Japanese duck, pictured) glass that proclaims: "We're live in the fields!" (I laughed out loud and quipped, "Better than dead in the fields, I guess!") and a set of four wine glasses.
What is an 11-year-old child supposed to do with wine glasses? What kind of message would I be sending by giving those away? Given I broke two of them in my recent move, I made an executive decision to keep the wine glasses myself, rather than pawn them off on some poor child and consider them my Christmas bonus from the pastor. I think that is a much wiser choice than giving them to a child and reading about my firing and the laicization of the pastor in the mainstream media for corruption of a minor the next day...
What is an 11-year-old child supposed to do with wine glasses? What kind of message would I be sending by giving those away? Given I broke two of them in my recent move, I made an executive decision to keep the wine glasses myself, rather than pawn them off on some poor child and consider them my Christmas bonus from the pastor. I think that is a much wiser choice than giving them to a child and reading about my firing and the laicization of the pastor in the mainstream media for corruption of a minor the next day...
2 comments:
I have a story about how my husband & I helped a new pastor with settling into his new rectory.
The elderly pastor that was retiring and leaving for Orillia left a ton of stuff. He was moving in with his sister & her family.
This was a huge rectory and he lived in it for about 25 years.
Our priest friend need to get a dumpster! I dealt with the kitchen/dining room/3 walk in closets on main floor/mian floor guest room.
One closet was LITERALLY filled with Christmas gifts that were given to the now retired priest over the past 25 years and some were even older that he brought with him from the previous parish as well. Many still had partial wrapping paper on them. Two orange fondue pots - which really dated the items - those were sold in the 70's! I cleaned many items and the CWL made a killing in that year's Christmas Bazzaar. LOL!
I snagged a brand new - in the box family bible - with Pope Paul VI in the inside cover!
People should give priest cold hard cash not just stuff.
This priest had two fridges - one with desserts filled to the brim (mainly P/C items) and one with some meals from the local restaurants and the rest with more desserts. His cupboards has 23 boxes of Decadent Choc. Chip Cookies.
You are lucky that was all you got!
LOL!
Pax Christi,
Teresa B.
I am glad that is not the case here, indeed!!
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