The Waye and The Way

The Rev. Dr. Randall Nathan, [Retard], is filling in for Pastor Patty this Sunday while she is attending her 20-year high school reunion. They met at The Mills of The Gods Coffee Shop & Orthopedic Clinic to exchange notes before she left.

"Say Hello to Mandy for me," Randall said to The Rev. Patricia Niebuhr.

"Mandy? How do you know about Mandy?" gasped Pastor Patty.

"It's well-known that every class from 1979 through 1998 had at least one Mandy," he said. "That's what Claire says." [Claire is Randall's wife and a retired high school teacher.]

"Mandy Waye..." Pastor Patty mused. "I haven't thought of her for 20 years. She was the star of all the school plays. We called her The Great White Waye."

She didn't get to finish, because Brother Bowater of The Bowater Baptist Church Over Troubled Waters was walking by and overheard, sort of.

"Way? Did you say Mandy is the Way? No, Jesus is the Way. He said so himself."

Pastor Patty tried to protest that she had said "Waye," not "Way," and furthermore... but Randall Nathan shook his head. "This should be good," he said.

Brother Bowater was on a roll, while eating a cinnamon bagle, which gave extra spice to his words.

"Jesus himself said, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life, so we know it's true. It wouldn't be true if he hadn't said it himself."

"But Brother Bywater," said Randall, "Jesus surely did not say that about himself. That was what people called him after they realized who he was. Wouldn't it be more true if his followers said it about him, than him saying it himself? Did Lincoln call himself The Great Emancipator? Did Washington say of himself that he was 'first in war and first in peace and first in the hearts of my countrymen,' or did he call himself The Father of His Country? Did Wayne Gretzky call himself The Great One?"

"Well," Pastor Patty mused, "Ali did say, 'I am the greatest.' And Helen Hayes was the first one to refer to herself as 'The First Lady of The American Theater."

"You're not helping," Randall Nathan whispered.

"Wouldn't it be more powerful if I said you're the best preacher in the county, than if you said it about yourself?" Randall asked Brother Bywater.

"Oh, do you really think so?" said Brother Bywater.

Pastor Patty smirked. "Now you've gotten yourself into it," she whispered to Randall Nathan.