Ezra's Essays

Category: Religion/Atheism

  • A FOUNTAIN PEN AND KEEPERS OF BROTHERS

    Preachers, politicians, poets, and the surgeons who perform autopsies remain clueless as to the location of the soul in the human body. Evangelical enthusiasts such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson claim that the soul is located in the heart. Every Fellow of the American College of Cardiologists will deny this as junk science. They…

  • A HANDFUL OF PREJUDICES

    On Friday night, the players for the World Series crown were moving from Yankee Stadium to the ball park in Philadelphia. There was not much to listen to on the radio, and so a recording of a work by Franz Schubert was played. I have nothing against serious music but in this case, Herr Schubert’s…

  • DIVINE PROVIDENCE

    Around the middle of October, the Roman Catholic Pope in the Vatican made a very surprising announcement. On that occasion he invited the Church of England, which had been separated for 478 years from the Catholic Church, to rejoin his flock. As an inducement, the Pope said that married preachers could remain married and, after…

  • A REPRISE ON THISA AND THATA

    Those of you who read Ezra’s Essays may recall an essay on Ben Bernie. He was a popular orchestra leader from the 1920s through the end of the 1950s. When he was pleased with the performance of his orchestra, he would say, “Yousa, yousa, yousa.” And when he was going to play a variety of…

  • A THOUGHT OR TWO ABOUT “THE GIFT OF CHASTITY”

    There are two or three thoughts that must be established before we proceed into this essay.  The first has to do with vows that Catholic priests embrace, saying that they will live a life of poverty, obedience, and chastity.  Secondly, your old essayist has never claimed to lead a life based on these three concepts. …

  • THE WRATH OF GRAPES

    Those of you who shop for produce may have noticed over the years that grapes never come from Arab or Muslim countries.  The reason for this is fairly simple.  The petroleum reserves in those countries are so great that they tend to rise to the surface, which proves infertile to the grape-growing industry.  And so…

  • SEX, SEX AND MORE SEX

    It may seem unseemly for a man of my advanced years to write an essay about sexual matters.  On the other hand, it also seems to me that I had no choice in the matter.  If my mother were to reprimand me for having thoughts about ungodly matters, I would be forced to tell her,…

  • A LITTLE MORE OF THISA AND A LITTLE MORE OF THATA

    Ben Bernie was the subject of a previous essay distributed recently.   Bernie was a very popular band leader who led an orchestra from the 1920s through the 1950s.  You may recall that when his orchestra pleased him, he would say, “Yousa, yousa, yousa!”  And when he would introduce a variety of songs, he would call…

  • IS THE POPE NOW NEARING HIS DOTAGE?

    There are some observers who might regard the heading of this essay as a provocative statement.  However, to Pope watchers such as myself, the statement is justified by a sharp drop in the Pope’s voltage which may be due to a short circuit.  Two particular statements have led me to conclude that this octogenarian Pope…

  • IN PRAISE OF BRIGHT, INTELLIGENT PREACHERS

    There is an oxymoronic quality to this essay which I hope will meet with your favor.  The oxymoron has to do with a writer whose belief is in non-belief, who then publishes an essay in praise of preachers.  But that is what I intend to do in this essay about preachers. For more than 66…