OCR Text |
Show Coffee Drinkers Preferred Page 200 of 307 they loved to play act. The voice of God himself is supposed to come through the man who delivers the priesthood blessing. I had delivered plenty and I had known each and every time it was my own brain moving my lips. I spent my life playing along with all this nonsense and played along even now. Pusillanimous or polite? I confess that I was looking forward to the moment when they stopped yattering and I would open my eyes and everyone present would forever feel as though they had been in the presence of a priesthood miracle. I felt the bishop pour just a little consecrated olive oil on my head. Wow, they were bringing out the big guns. I hadn't been anointed with oil since I had mono in the tenth grade. That was before Nauvoo committed suicide. "Nephi Allred." This is the first part of the formal blessing. As though God needs to be reminded of the sick person's name. "By the authority of the holy priesthood, I anoint you with this consecrated oil." It went on and on and there were great appeals for wholeness, health and freedom from these afflictions and so forth. "We ask also that your attraction to men in the perverse and carnal way that has led you to this condition be removed from you and that you be lifted out of the pit into which you have fallen." |