Bro Gary Hawkins 22: The Church of Random and Unnecessary Capitalization

[Xan]

My feeling is that older, rural Southerners will make gravy out of anything.  For example, once when I was visiting my late mother years ago, she made bologna gravy.  She fried the bologna and used flour as a thickener in the grease.  Then she added milk.  Nasty doesn't begin to address how it looked.  I begged off with an iffy stomach.   I think she, like Gary, would have used anything with a little grease to make gravy to put over biscuits.

[FiveAcres]

46 minutes ago, Xan said:

My feeling is that older, rural Southerners will make gravy out of anything.  For example, once when I was visiting my late mother years ago, she made bologna gravy.  She fried the bologna and used flour as a thickener in the grease.  Then she added milk.  Nasty doesn't begin to address how it looked.  I begged off with an iffy stomach.   I think she, like Gary, would have used anything with a little grease to make gravy to put over biscuits.

I've never thought of my paternal Grandmother as being a southerner but she could make scratch gravy from anything and taught me how. If you have some drippings, it's a cheap way of making other foods, especially carbs, more palatable, at least if you were raised on it. Gravy is rarely seen in this household, but I tend to be the person drafted to make gravy on feast days in other households. 

[thoughtful]

I once went to a birthday party for someone who had moved to the northeastern US from the midwest. Their spouse had given them a birthday card, which they loved, with a joke about putting gravy on birthday cake. I don't remember the exact joke, but it was something along the lines of that being the quintessential midwestern treat.

I think my gravy-less childhood probably came from some combination of regional, ethnic and just family tradition. Nobody in either side of my family ever thickened the liquid from cooking meat.

So I guess we were au jus Jews. 😁

 

[Xan]

@thoughtful - ""au jus Jews".  I laughed out loud.   Chef's kiss on that one.

[FiveAcres]

1 hour ago, thoughtful said:

I once went to a birthday party for someone who had moved to the northeastern US from the midwest. Their spouse had given them a birthday card, which they loved, with a joke about putting gravy on birthday cake. I don't remember the exact joke, but it was something along the lines of that being the quintessential midwestern treat.

I think my gravy-less childhood probably came from some combination of regional, ethnic and just family tradition. Nobody in either side of my family ever thickened the liquid from cooking meat.

So I guess we were au jus Jews. 😁

 

What I cannot do is make a reduction. I don't know if its the altitude or just a lack of patience on my part, but I have a tendency to want to add a little cornstarch after a few minutes of watching nothing happen. 

[AmazonGrace]

I could take gravy or leave it but I think Gary just takes somewhat unaesthetic food photos... He doesn't crop the garbage cans out of it or already  messed up the plate, or something.

[thoughtful]

23 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

I could take gravy or leave it but I think Gary just takes somewhat unaesthetic food photos... He doesn't crop the garbage cans out of it or already  messed up the plate, or something.

The salad resting in his crotch was very, very Gary.

The berry bowl and bible (I assume) still life was a whole other aesthetic - not as gross, but with a certain quality about it. Was he going to eat them all in one sitting, while reading? Did Becky reach around him affectionately to plop the bowl down between him and God? Were the book and berries on display (they appear to be on a table, not Gary's lap, unlike most of his food pics)?

[AmazonGrace]

Berry stains in a book make the pages stick together nicely.

[Alisamer]

10 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Berry stains in a book make the pages stick together nicely.

That's a potential benefit! If he sticks together enough of his tried and true Bible passages maybe he'll be forced to actually attempt to read other parts of the Bible!

I'm sure he claims to have read the entire thing, most likely, as it's a fundie point of pride. But anyone who claims to have actually read those long lists of names in there is lying, IMO, unless they are a scholar making a chart or a fundie looking for a name for baby number 18. I think "skimming" is what most people do with large chunks of the Bible, particularly the KJV. 

[thoughtful]

I think Gary misses preaching.

Don't forget, folks: "You at what GOD used in the Bible days and even the old timers."

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Hey, he used sow and reap correctly, and got the three parts of the sin quip in order, which is more than he ever does when saying them out loud.

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

This is wild. I was just thinking as I clicked over to this thread. "Bro Gary has been kinda depressing lately. No weens! Maybe I'll quit checking in"

 

BINGO! 

and ewww... so gross. What is even that weird rubbery looking bottom edge?!

[thoughtful]

21 minutes ago, WatchingTheTireFireBurn said:

What is even that weird rubbery looking bottom edge?!

I think it's a puddle of the ween gravy.

[thoughtful]

Gary doesn't want to play.

I saw Becky and Gary at the beginning of the video from last night's service, before it went to a close-up of the pulpit. When it pulled back at the end, Becky was gone, and Gary was talking to this woman:

Spoiler

After her chat with Gary, she went to the front, then down the center aisle, and I saw the rest of her outfit:

Spoiler

I'm surprised Gary hasn't posted about shameful hussies coming to church NEKKID! Maybe she's new and hasn't been "discipled" yet. But I bet he's had plenty to say about her, behind her back.

[thoughtful]

So, does anyone think Gary is being understanding about addicts here, rather than pissy and judgmental about cell phone use?

Spoiler

 

Becky posted some generic thoughts:

Spoiler

 

[AmazonGrace]

Gary you love it when people on their phones amen the posts you made from your phone

 

 

 

[thoughtful]

Becky posted again:

Spoiler

So, everyone should keep a posse of Christian friends for purely selfish reasons?

Comments under Gary's phone addiction post show various levels of understanding addiction, phones, and the "good old days" when fellas played with hoses on their bikes :

Spoiler

 

[thoughtful]

Becky and Gary did not go to church this morning - looks like they watched it via the Internet. Becky reposted the video of the service, and Gary commented "Great message."

So, Gary, if this happens again and again, and you need to get your church fix electronically more and more often, will you start to understand the people who have explained to you why they also do it, due to chronic pain, or will you continue to be pissy about it?

[thoughtful]

No Hawkinses in church this evening - Gary "liked" the video, but neither of them commented. I skimmed through the prayer requests (well, blessing requests - the pastor had asked to hear about good things, so who knows if someone wanted prayers but didn't dare ask) in the service, but didn't hear anything about them.

[AmazonGrace]

Quote

So, everyone should keep a posse of Christian friends for purely selfish reasons?

If their faith helped the water change into wine you could save a lot of money at dinners.

17 hours ago, thoughtful said:

So, Gary, if this happens again and again, and you need to get your church fix electronically more and more often, will you start to understand the people who have explained to you why they also do it, due to chronic pain, or will you continue to be pissy about it?

He will continue to be pissy about it.

When Gary misses church it's because he had a compelling reason. When other people miss church it's because they're not good enough Christians.

[postscript]

9 hours ago, thoughtful said:

No Hawkinses in church this evening - Gary "liked" the video, but neither of them commented. I skimmed through the prayer requests (well, blessing requests - the pastor had asked to hear about good things, so who knows if someone wanted prayers but didn't dare ask) in the service, but didn't hear anything about them.

Not that a request for good things only would stop Gary from putting in a less positive prayer request. The man is incredibly tone-deaf. 

This makes at least twice they’ve missed in-person church recently. We know Becky’s health problems, and we’ve seen Gary on the knee scooter. Those don’t seem like sufficient issues to keep gung-ho Gary from his beloved church. Does he perhaps have some other health problem that affects his ability to attend in person? 

Edited July 3, 2023 by postscript

[thoughtful]

24 minutes ago, postscript said:

Not that a request for good things only would stop Gary from putting in a less positive prayer request. The man is incredibly tone-deaf.

I was listening to find out if someone who was there mentioned whatever it was that kept Becky and Gary away from church and asked for prayers for them.

I don't know if it would occur to Gary to ask for prayers in a Facebook comment. I have noticed that people who are watching this church's services online very rarely ask for prayers via Facebook comments. It makes sense that, if someone local is staying home because they or a loved one is ill or in pain, that they'd post to ask prayers for that person, and that happens pretty often at other churches.

I haven't watched enough to know if this is a pattern, but I'm wondering how much Pastor Baker encourages focusing on the positive and praising the church's programs and results, rather than asking the church for help, support or even prayer. He certainly only wanted to hear "blessings," specifically positive stories about the camp they run, in this service. I've watched a lot of IFB church, and this part of the service is almost always open for blessings, testimonies, or "asking prayers" for a hardship or illness of some sort. He just kept saying "blessings, blessings," as someone walked around the church with a microphone.

The captions had a problem with one young man's description of his experience. He said he went out soul-winning with someone named Janessa, but elided "soul-winning" so much that this happened:

Spoiler

           

 

53 minutes ago, postscript said:

This makes at least twice they’ve missed in-person church recently. We know Becky’s health problems, and we’ve seen Gary on the knee scooter. Those don’t seem like sufficient issues to keep going-ho Gary from his beloved church. Does he perhaps have some other health problem that affects his ability to attend in person? 

 

It may remain a mystery, unless Gary decides to whine about whatever is going on.

I think that some of Becky's health issues are the kinds of things that could flare up and suddenly endanger her seriously. Of course, we know that, in the past, she often went to church with a migraine or other pain, and even on a morning when she had passed out into a bathtub only a few hours earlier.

She may be standing up for herself and her need to take care of her health more these days, or maybe Gary has a cold, and actually lives up to his claim that he stays home when he has something other people can catch. Since they watched both services, and Becky even posted one of them on her Facebook page, it doesn't sound like either of them were in the hospital fighting to stay alive.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall to hear the discussions of why both of them are staying home, especially if only one of them is having a problem.

 

[thoughtful]

Gary sings the praises of his bible - it talk to him, there has been books like it, but there never will be, and things jump out of his bible at you. It's a live, and he GOD for the one's that paved the way.

And yet, despite all of this magical power, including things so deep they are incomprehensible, he needs to tell people to leave it alone - apparently, it can't defend itself.

Spoiler

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by thoughtful
adding something

[AmazonGrace]

Why do things jump at _me_ when Gary is reading? 

[thoughtful]

Gary clearly saw some issues with that post, and edited it. Can you spot the difference?

Spoiler

Spoiler

That's right - all he did was add the word "know" to the first sentence. He thought everything else was just fine, it seems.

 

[thoughtful]

Becky and Gary missed church again, but were watching - under the video, Gary commented that he knew the guest preacher:

Pastor Baker did ask for prayers tonight, not just blessings, but didn't send around a microphone. As far as I could tell, nobody asked for prayers for Becky or Gary, so why they are not there is still unknown.