Thing 289 Be Ordained

I'm aware of the difference between fiction and reality, in case you're wondering, all I'm saying is that if this guy can become a Minister, then so can I. It's not just Joey from Friends you know. Barney from How I Met Your Mother gets himself ordained as well. And who says kids don't mimic what they see on television?

So you may call me Reverend Dan Mooney from now on. Or just Rev if we're friends. Many people have been mocking my ordination since I signed up, but I spare them no thought. If they'd paid the fifty dollars and spent fifteen minutes of their precious time signing up online then they wouldn't be slagging. Minister school was hard for me. Mostly it was hard because I maxed my credit card recently and had to borrow my mother's in order to get ordained... it was quite the spiritual journey.

Seriously; for the princely sum of fifty dollars and about fifteen minutes of your time, you too can be legally ordained to practice whatever faith you like in the United States. Here's the skinny: The first amendment of the US constitution and the same constitutions declaration that anyone can practice any religion of their choosing means that if you establish a church in the US, and it's registered, you have the right to ordain ministers in that church as you please.

On top of that, it's completely legal, and no one has the right to say that you're any less of a minister than a man who spends seven years at minister school and gets a first class honours degree in Ministering from the Head Ministerer. Which means I can now legally perform weddings, funerals, baptisms and house blessings in the United States.

All thanks to a registered Church called Universal Ministries, who have the power to appoint a Minister, and exercised the power to make me Reverend. Very Reverend actually.

I'd nearly travel to the United States just to be the man who ties the knot for someone. There has to be someone over there who wants a short, weird Irish guy to perform the biggest ceremony of their lives?

In a day of highs-and-lows, I was immediately disappointed to learn following my ordination, that facebook don't want people changing their titles to Rev. I don't know why they don't like this, but what's the point in me making a fifty dollar spiritual quest if I don't get to show off. Surely the main point in being a man of the cloth is that you get to show off right? Or am I missing the point?

If anyone asks me what church I represent, I'm going to tell them the Jedi Church, then I'm going to wave my hand in front of their faces and tell them that these are not the droids that they're looking for. I should probably start dressing like a Jedi too...

Look, we all know this isn't real, it's a fraud. While I am a spiritual person, and I have my faith, this Ministry is legal in the US but means nothing in the eyes of anyone with faith. Having said that, I'd love to go back to my old Primary and Secondary schools and tell some of my teachers that I became a Reverend. Heart attacks all 'round.

Now to start working on a sermon to issue to the lads of a Sunday, and see how long it takes Pony Boy to try punching me in the face.