Coming Down to the Wire

Next Sunday, June 1, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Pottstown, PA, the first public presentation of the Jellybean Mystery will take place during the 10:00 Sunday Service. The public is invited to attend; please sign the guest book.

That Sunday is also their Pledge Drive and they're having a pot luck luncheon after the service. Since I don't really expect anyone else to be there, I'll no doubt attend that and enjoy conversations and maybe even some philosophical discussion with their members. I've been running their nursery on Sunday mornings for a couple of years now. There's a slim chance that my POR church takes off quickly, and I won't really be able to keep doing UU nursery every week. If so I will miss it. But chances are much better the Jellybean Mystery will take quite a while to become popular enough that it is no longer possible to keep doing child care. Even once I start holding Sunday Services here at the New Church, as described in the Missive, The POR rituals will be early enough to give me time to get to Pottstown, and if there's demand I would do a High Mass ceremony later Sunday afternoon.

Or just keep doing what I'm doing now. My point is that I'm looking forward to finding out what happens, no matter what it is that happens. Even if nothing happens. I would prefer something happen, but of course I'd much prefer something good happen. We'll all just have to see; such is life. But the plan is that after CJ sees the Mystery again, she'll set up a kind of 'road show' church-raffle type thing were we (I) can set up a table and run jellybean contests at fairs and firehouse picnics and such. Participants pay a couple dollars for a chance to guess, and the winner gets a fat payout, and the Church gets to keep and distribute the rest charitably after paying off the venue and expenses. A win-win-win.

The beauty of POR as a personal religion is that it doesn't rely on a false existential certainty in order to possibly produce inner peace, it provides a genuine existential certainty and so it automatically results in inner peace. I am contented and excited, anticipating without anxiety whatever it is that will happen when I start telling people in person that I've got a new religion and they should, too. I'm willing to take my chances when I DEMONSTRATE the truth of my religion with this simple mathematical trick with the jellybeans. It is unquestionable that some people will be convinced, and really hate me for it. Others might also benefit, but it is the ones who truly despise me for claiming that because the Jellybean Mystery works, therefore my explanation of life and human consciousness is true, and their's is not, that are the ones to be concerned about. Those who can discount my claim will, but the ones who get upset by it are going to be interesting to deal with, I think.

Still, it doesn't matter how it turns out, if I eventually am forgotten as a lonely loser, or widely recognized as an independent individualist, if people think I'm crazy or people think I'm brilliant, if "reason" becomes a new buzzword or an embarrassing joke. I'm going to be doing exactly what I'm doing until I'm done doing it, irregardless. Wish me luck?