7.30.2008

Office Oddities: Weird Mail

So I’ve gone four posts without receiving any comments, which, for a temperamental blogger like myself, is hard to swallow.

Maybe my infrequent summer posting is beginning to take a toll on my readership, or perhaps my recent posts just haven’t been very good. Or maybe they’ve been so good that you haven’t even been able to comment, and instead just sit back in stunned silence.

Or it may just be that you, like me, have been quite busy, and reading blogs (even blogs as interesting and important as The Doc File) has taken a backseat to other activities.

Whatever the reason, I will soldier on and (shockingly) continue a series that I began some time ago.


One of the interesting things about working at a church building is that the daily mail occasionally contains delightfully bizarre pieces of correspondence.

I guess the reason for this is that, when it comes to religion, people have some especially unusual viewpoints, and they’re always interested in sharing those viewpoints with local churches.

Today, we received such a letter. Well, it wasn’t exactly a letter—it was a hand-addressed envelope (no return address) containing a handwritten card which proclaimed in block letters:

“THE TRUTH IS IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH. (MATTHEW 12.40)”

In case you, like me, don’t happen to know Matthew 12.40 by heart, here is what it says:

“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
At this point, I have to confess that I have absolutely no idea what message the author of our card was trying to convey. I get that the “heart of the earth” comes from the passage, and I get that in the passage, Jesus was comparing the time following His death and preceding His resurrection to the time Jonah spent inside the big fish, but I have no clue what point our mysterious mailer was trying to make.

Any suggestions?

10 comments:

MrsDockery 7/30/08, 1:01 PM  

I for one, have not left comments due to a lack of clever things to say - not a lack of reading your blog and being fascinated.
And I have no idea what your piece of mail may be trying to communicate.

TWD 7/30/08, 3:33 PM  

Plainly, it's a reference to Bush opening up oil drilling in ANWR. Either that, or the anonymous writer is encouraging you to read an old H. Rider Haggard adventure story.

Luke Dockery 7/31/08, 11:00 AM  

Mrs. D,

I understand the feeling—cleverness eludes me routinely.

By the way, I dreamed last night that you and Will had decided to changed Thill's last name to "Rembrance". This distressed me.

Luke Dockery 7/31/08, 11:04 AM  

TWD,

That must be it. Everything is about oil these days after all.

Although maybe I should check out the Haggard book. I read King’s Solomon’s Mines, and while I didn't necessarily find it to be the purveyor of any great truths, I enjoyed it a lot.

Anonymous 7/31/08, 2:34 PM  

Have you no shame, sir? Have you no decency? Have you really stooped to self-pity in order to get blog comments? Wish I could say I'm surprised.

Luke Dockery 7/31/08, 4:07 PM  

Rachael,

You really shouldn't be surprised; since when am I not open to pity?

MrsDockery 8/1/08, 12:31 PM  

Speaking of Haggard, you should read "She." A bad book for feminists, but I've enjoyed it several times.
And Rembrance? What does that even mean?

Luke Dockery 8/4/08, 9:12 AM  

Mrs. D,

Thanks for the book recommendation. I will likely check it out.

And are you really asking me to explain to you why I dreamed what I dreamed? Who am I, Sigmund Freud?

Anonymous 11/10/08, 2:01 PM  

luke,

I work at a church in bentonville, Ar and received the EXACT same note with no return address as well. Did you ever find anything else out about it?? So weird I just googled the phrase in google and it sent me to your page.

Luke Dockery 11/11/08, 10:22 AM  

Anon,

That's funny. I never heard anymore from our anonymous mailer, and never figured it out either.

The fact that you got it to makes me think that it this particular “interesting” individual must have just sent out a bunch of cards to local churches.

Which I guess is better than my church being specifically targeted, but it’s still strange.

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