{"id":40,"date":"2006-01-18T22:27:41","date_gmt":"2006-01-19T03:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/?p=40"},"modified":"2006-01-18T22:27:41","modified_gmt":"2006-01-19T03:27:41","slug":"frank-gilbreth-on-preachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/18\/frank-gilbreth-on-preachers\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Gilbreth on Preachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m reading my kids the book _Cheaper by the Dozen<\/a>\"\"_ by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. It’s the story of their family, but really a memoir of their father, Frank Gilbreth<\/a>.
\n
\nAnd a fine book it is. (I haven’t seen the movie<\/a>, nor the “remake<\/a>” and its sequel, so I can’t comment on them.)<\/p>\n

Tonight, however, as we were reading, I came across this quote from Frank Sr., regarding clergymen: “They give me the creeps,” he said. “Show me a man with a loud mouth, a roving eye, a fat rear, and an empty head, and I’ll show you a preacher.” (67) That’s amazing candor, given that the book was published in 1948, and the statement was made sometime before Gilbreth’s death in 1924–possibly before WWI. I don’t agree with him, of course, but it’s a data point if you think that the clergy has only recently come into disrepute<\/a> as America has dechristianized.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gilbreth goes on to explain his opinion as having been formed on a transatlantic voyage carrying a delegation to a minister’s conference. “They crawled out of every argument by citing the Lord God Jehovah as their authority. I was asked on an average of eight times a day, for eight miserable and consecutive days, to come to Jesus, whatever that is. And a stewardess told me that her behind had been pinched surreptitiously so many times between Hoboken and Liverpool that she had to eat off a mantelpiece.”<\/p>\n

\nHe used to drive Mother and us to Sunday school, and then sit outside in the car, reading The New York Times and ignoring the shocked glares of passing churchgoers.<\/p>\n

“You might at least come in where it’s warm,” Mother told him. “You’ll catch your death out here.”<\/p>\n

“No,” Dad replied. “When I go to meet my Maker, I want to be able to tell him that I did my praying on my own, halted by neither snow nor sleet nor icy stares, and without the aid of any black-frocked, collar-backwards cheerleader.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m reading my kids the book _Cheaper by the Dozen_ by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. It’s the story of their family, but really a memoir of their father, Frank Gilbreth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paRqpr-E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accretiondisc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}