The priesthood is equally entertaining as it is intense.
            Your people are amazed, for example, to discover you in ordinary places, as if they had discovered a fish swimming in the desert sand.
            Wait a second…is that Father in the grocery store? I didn’t realize he had to eat!           
            Then, like a teenage boy who wants to see inside the girl’s locker down the hall, seeing the contents of your grocery cart become the object of ultimate concern. What does he eat? No...Lucky Charms!? I didn’t think priests believed in luck…
            Sometimes, they even say it out loud.             The other day I was invited to a restaurant in town, a bar and grill type place with a number of beers on tap. The waiter walked up to take my order. He didn’t notice the collar.
            “What would you like to drink?”
            “I think I would like something dark, one of those fancy beers.”
            “Oh, I have just the beer for you, it just came in this week. It’s called Stripper Dust…comes from Abilene.”
            I grin. “I hope that refers to the machine for cotton.”
            He looks up from his notepad. His eyes widen and his face turns red.
            “Uh...I mean, one of my favorites is the Trappist Ale out of Massachusetts.”
            “I’ll let you decide.”
            As I get up to leave after the meal, the owner walks up to the table and stops me.
            “Mr. Preacher, umm, one of my waiters told me you were here. Before you go, I just gotta ask you a favor.”
            “Ma’am?”
            “I’m sorry, but this is just too good to pass up. Can you follow me over and take a picture pointing at our burger menu that is hanging up over there? I need something new for our Facebook page.”
            At the bottom, next to some crying eyes, the menu reads: “Burger from Hell”.
            I create a face of confusion as I point at the board. The camera flashes.             Coffee steams from ceramic cups sipped by the crackle of the wood-burning stove.
            I look over at Fr. Luke. “Man, what did you put in that pasta last night?”
            “I was wondering the same thing! You go first.”
            “It was a nightmare! Bishop transferred me to Austin, no questions asked. If that weren’t bad enough, when I arrived, the pastor told me to celebrate the mass, then he took off. When it came time for the opening prayer, I could not, for the life of me, find it in the book. I was flipping all over the place! Couldn’t find it! After waiting like 15 minutes for me, the congregation all walked out of the church on me, grumbling. When I woke up, I was sweating! But hey, at least I didn’t have to give a worthless homily.”
            “Oh, that’s nothing. Get a load of this: I was visiting a priest at another parish and, right before processing up the aisle at the start of Mass, the pastor insists that I bless a jumbo TV. We get into a very heated discussion over it and he stomps off as I try to explain my position: ‘I will not, I cannot, bless that thing. You know I don’t have a TV, you know I don’t like TV’s'....I was left with my hands open, begging for help. Then I woke up.”
            Fr. Luke shudders. “I’m glad it was just a dream. But you know what? What really gets me is that, like, every man is not a priest. Isn’t it the most fulfilling and interesting life? Way better than TV. That’s just cheap entertainment. What we get to experience is astronomically better. Better than fiction."
            Yes. Better than fiction. Better than a dream.