Thanks to hunger and sheer happenstance, Christa and I stumbled onto (not into, or out of, by the way) a pub in Kensington, England. It was a.m. and we were hungry.
The pub—Churchill Arms, so named because Sir Winston Churchill used to give his wartime speeches to the nation from this tavern; a call to arms with a microphone circa 1941, froth in hand. That’s the lore anyway. As you can see, it has a leafy exterior.
Oddly enough, the elderly chap who runs the place looks just like Winston Churchill. And the more sips of Guinness you take, the more he looks like Winston Churchill.
"Has anyone told you that you look just like Winston Churchill?" I asked him when he came near our table.
"All the time," he beamed. "Every day, actually."
"Glad to know it wasn't just me."
They also serve brilliant Thai food. I know, I’m not sure the causal connection between the eminent prime minister and Tom Kha Kai soup, but there you go. Anyway, while Christa and I were waiting for our lunch, I wandered toward the bar and ordered a pint of Irish beer. Hanging on the wall behind the bar was a wooden sign, entitled “The Beer Prayer.”
I took the liberty of writing it down, word for word. This prayer may or may not offend you—it probably will.
“Our lager,
Which art in barrels,
Hallowed by thy drink,
Thy will be drunk (I will be drunk)
At home as in the tavern
Give us this day our foamy head
And forgive us our spillages
As we forgive those who spill against us
And lead us not into incarceration
But deliver us from hangover
For thine is the beer, the bitter and the lager
Forever and ever,
Barmen”
I spent the rest of my pint transcribing this poem/prayer into my floppy red notebook—the one the size of a small waffle.
Now I’ve blogged about other people’s prayers before. The last one was an entry entitled “A Pre-prayer Prayer,” inspired by a quip from C.S. Lewis: “May it be the real I who speaks, may it be the real Thou that I speak to.”
I’m not sure the “Beer Prayer” meets the two criteria of Lewis—the implied author is a lush and the implied reader is a barfly and the implied “god” is distilled barley and hops—but I like it all the same.
The first time I read it I wasn't sure how I felt about it. Was it sacriligious? Was it mocking a prayer that I hold dear? Then I finished my pint and I read it again. This time I laughed. And I think Jesus incarnate would have laughed too.
Not far from this sign on the wall was another sign hanging from the wall, which read: “Guinness is good for you.”
So there it is. I'm just reporting what I see.
Next up, the Eurostar and a shell game in Paris….
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