Cary speaking

Cary, pictured above, who delivered the sermon for my ordination, ministers at Mountain Brook PCUSA in B'ham (the official name of the city in 50 years when the next great vowel shift in the language occurs - where English fractures into ten dialects and today's American Standard English is used mostly for official documents, reminiscent of the Church's use of Latin in Italy ca 1500). Cary preached a sermon where he used the story of the Monkey God and the Buddha. I told Shannon (who came and sang) that Cary had piqued my interest in this Monkey God and that I'd like to investigate this Monkey God some more.
Let's be clear about one thing: monkeys are not chimpanzees. I was looking at my notes from when I did my internship at Mountain Brook supervised by Cary 3 summers ago and a man who grew up among missionaries in India and worked with primates was very emphatic that chimps and monkeys are two different species. But a monkey is a primate: just like the Pope is the primate of the Roman Church. I love the fact that primate signifies such diverse things: what if one day a monkey might be elected Pope or perhaps the Curia might be sighted swinging from vines and grooming each other clean from lice and fleas. Ahh Monkey God, you'll always be, one sweet primate to me.
And what is a primate. Primate stands for first or perhaps final; then penultiMate should stand for second or as a prelude to the end. There could be postmates, trimates, quadromates - a regular mating ritual. Middlemate would be that that stands (or sits or reclines) in the middle, media res - in the media resting, wresting.
So if the Monkey God meets the Buddha coming through the rye - as opposed to the road where the Buddha must be killed, which seems harsh - but instead meets coming through the rye, which could be a great teen coming of age story, a picaresque, a gambol, a rollicking thrill ride for the summer like a Separate Peace: say the Monkey God goes to college and rooms with the Buddha, but the Buddha runs out of deferments and gets drafted and the Monkey God helps him escape to Canada, and they gin their way rye vermouth, and coming upon a camp of gypsies or counter culture communitarians or prophylactic presbyterians (it could happen: check back to my comment on Dan's comment on Gaye's comment on Jami's comment on my ordination paragraph where I talk about zombie presbyterians: it could happen); but this Monkey God and Buddha and the hippies or dead heads or simple farming folk create a utopian society only to have the cutlery division still running after 100 years (think about it: Oneida cutlery was the going concern of a utopian community dedicated to open marriage and educational and societal experimentation - but no one thinks about that when they're cutting their steak).
I think the Monkey God is the last best hope for America. We've aped sentient creatures long enough.