People for the Ethical Treatment of … Dragons?

Thursday, July 26th started out like any other day …

That is until 10:30 AM.

I live and work in Houston, Texas. My parish is St George. And it was on that day, Thursday, July 26th, that I must begin this week’s Podcast …

As I said, it was like any other day … except for the Big Black SUV that pulled into St George Church parking lot at approximately 10:30 AM. From my office window, I only noticed that I did not recognize the man emerging in the dark RayBan sunglasses. That’s nothing unusual; it’s a big city, big parish … and sunglasses in Houston? Common.

Things got a little curiouser when the secretary, Diane, yelled back: “Fr Joseph … a Mister Mister here to see you.”

Having survived the 80’s I’d heard of Mister Mister … they’d only had a couple hit songs in the — “Broken Wings”, the chorus of which was later sampled on the 2Pac single “Until the End of Time”. They had several number 1 MTV videos and headlined the first MTV Spring Break show in 1986. Mr Mister had several Grammy Award nominations including the 1986 Grammy for “Best Pop Band” (which ended up going to the “We Are the World” people).

During this time, Mr. Mister toured with other popular acts including Don Henley, The Bangles, Eurythmics, Adam Ant, and Tina Turner …

They even had a song called “Kyrie” — probably my first exposure to Greek Orthodoxy … though I had no idea.

But, I digress …

I replied: “Who?”

“A Mr Mister,” she said.

Oh well … though I’d thought they were a group, stranger things have happened.

So I walked out into the foyer and greeted Mr Mister: “Hello, I’m Fr Joseph …”

“Mister Mister,” he replied. “I represent the People for the Ethical Treatment of Dragons … got a place where we can sit down?”

Listen to the Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.