Buddhists Offended not Included in Judeo-Christian-Muslim-Hindu Worldview

PARMA, OH: It started innocently enough: an inter-faith prayer breakfast. No mixture of meat with dairy products, no bacon, no eggs or gluten once the Wiccan priestess signed up, and no tofu once a fringe group of evangelicals said they were coming—the type of men who haven’t come indoors since the last Promise Keepers rally and/or latest edition of John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart.  Here’s a picture of what was served:

The spiritual nourishment was similarly bland.

“Not to make this political,” started a priest, forgetting that such phrases really meant, “Let’s quickly magnify all of our awkward differences.” “Our Judeo-Christian heritage is under attack!”

“Those are two different heritages,” stated a rabbi calmly, but his hand strayed close to a Torah to illustrate his point, if necessary.

“Nonsense, Abraham is Father to us all,” replied the Muslim Iman, not quite as calmly.

“The trees are Father, and the forest streams our mother!”

The druid’s triumphant statement launched a fierce debate about fly fishing among the Wild at Heart Clan.

“I have an idea,” said a Hindu monk once the clamor subsided. “First of all, let’s put these new bumper stickers on our cars. They’re far more pretentious than ‘my child is an honor student’ and it’s the least we can do after enduring this terrible breakfast.

Secondly, let’s expand the ethic to a Judeo-Christian-Muslim-Hindu worldview. After all, we all believe that people should often be nice, right?”

The Wiccan and the druid rolled a twenty-sided die to confirm the decision, and everyone left the meeting happy. And also starving.

The token Buddhist was gardening that morning. She considered writing a passive-aggressive email to everyone once she heard the news, but the prayer breakfast already had a member representing the faithful cult of “My children are awesome and I do multi-level-marketing and I’m pretending to be nice but need to speak to a manager.” The offense was great, the hurt was real, but after quiet meditation, the Buddhist finally grumbled, “Maybe I’ll come back next life as somebody who cares enough to eat a plate of water for breakfast.”

Reporter: Dripping Ether