Catch 22

By Joseph H

I don’t know how many have read this old novel written many seasons ago. Other than its length, it is such an interesting read. In some place, we have the chaplain ask

Had the almighty God in all his infinite wisdom, really been afraid that men six thousand years ago would succeed in building a tower to heaven?

Or the comment by Dunbar

Didn’t it seem improbable that the answers to the riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall?

And then the Chaplain’s reflection about presiding at funerals. The author writes, and I think many of us who have attended funerals would agree

The chaplain felt most deceitful presiding at funerals and it would not have astonished him to learn that the apparition in the tree that day was a manifestation of the almighty’s censure for the blasphemy and pride inherent in his function. To simulate gravity, feign grief and pretend supernatural intelligence of the hereafter in so fearsome and arcane a circumstance as death seemed the most criminal of offences.

I am loving this book!