As BUGSERS you are very familiar with the fact, if you make any profound statement, people will grab it by the wrong end and totally foul it up.

As a child in the Bible Belt, I had a little white New Testament with Jesus’s words in red, and even then I realized that even the preacher — ESPECIALLY the preacher, never quoted Jesus’s words in context.

As I remember, Jesus gave us The Lord’s Prayer not as the Perfect Prayer to be repeated endlessly but as an illustration of the fact that, when talking to God, “It is enough to call a fish a fish.”

The Lord’s prayer says flatly that one wants to be provided for in this world and saved in the next.

A fish is a fish.

Two times Jesus answered, “I don’t know.”

One time was when his disciples asked when would be the Day of Judgment.

He told them that that is known only by the Father.

The best example was when he said that a rich man had as little chance of salvation as a camel had of going through the eye of a needle.

As everyone who has used the simple truth of the Mantra would predict, the result of this quote has been an endless discussion of, in the time of Jesus, exactly what a needle was.

I have heard lengthy and learned discussions, perfectly serious ones, that for those In the Know, and there were decorations called “The Needle’s Eye” that Jesus referred to and which a camel might get through.

I have heard Learned Discourse on what Jesus theoretically meant by “camel.”

In short, like all BUGSERS, I have learned that if you feel like listening to a long, hilarious, pseudo-intellectual dialogue, the way to do is to state a simple truth.