Out to Pastor: A wonderful chocolate fantasy

A wonderful chocolate fantasy

Dr. James L. Snyder

Within the confines of our blissful domicile, an ongoing controversy has all but come to an end. I like it when things are solved and I happen to be right. This time I was right. After all, if it is on TV it must be right!

Controversies are not really that bad unless somebody is a sore loser. Nobody likes a whiner or a sore loser. Of course, I have come close many times to be a sore loser. Fortunately, I have chosen to be just a loser. It makes for quietness in the home, if you know what I mean.

For as long as the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and Yours Truly have been married the one reoccurring controversy is in the state of chocolate in our home. According to one side, chocolate is bad and shall not be brought into this house.

The other side, and I am not stating exactly which side I am on, says the chocolate is delightful and wonderful and should be a regular consumption item in the house.

No matter how eloquently I presented my case, the house rules were simply this; no chocolate in our mansion.

This has caused me a great deal of pain in trying to smuggle in the delicacy without getting caught. Apparently, someone in our house can smell chocolate 13 blocks down the street.

I tried some experimental strategy in this area. On my wife’s birthday, I would always get her a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and then have 13 candles on it. For several years, all she could focus on were the 13 candles. I love it when a plan comes together.

Finally, she caught on and that plan had to be trashed.

One of the busiest times around the parsonage is Thanksgiving. All of the family in the area comes in for a delicious dinner as well as several friends who have nowhere else to go. On these occasions, I go out of my way and order a large chocolate cake with chocolate icing with a miniature turkey on the top. Everybody is focused on that miniature turkey.

After a few years someone in the house caught on to my plan, kept the turkey, but threw out everything underneath that turkey. As she was doing so, she looked at me with one of those looks.

Back to the drawing board again.

I did have some reprieve when the grandchildren were visiting. Everybody knows grandchildren love chocolate and need chocolate to boost their energy level. For some reason, Grandma knew exactly when the children had consumed chocolate of any amount.

“You do not have chocolate,” grandma would scowl at the grandchildren, “do you?”

As all good grandchildren do, they looked at grandma with chocolate all over their phase and said as cute as possible, “Oh, no grandma.” It took a lot of practice for me to get them to that point of thespian excellence. I usually awarded them with another piece of chocolate, of course behind grandma’s back.

I cannot tell all of the pain and agony I have gone through in this area of chocolate. Then, some medical research geek solved all of my problems in this area of chocolate.

According to some medical research, there is something in dark chocolate that is beneficial to our health. I do not know the details, but that is all I needed to know to bring my case to our home.

I knew I had to present this in a manner that would be irresistible to my wife. She is big on healthy eating. Every time we eat there is so much green on my plate that I am not sure if I am eating grass or what! She calls them vegetables; I have other names for them, which cannot be published.

I knew I had to make the initial presentation a great presentation. Chocolate just would not do and I needed to come up with some kind of medical name. Then it suddenly struck me. I knew exactly how I could present it.

I purchased some special chocolate, dark chocolate that is, to bring home and make the presentation. As soon as I got into the house, the question reverberated throughout the halls.

“You do not have chocolate, do you?”

It was the question I was waiting for. I have heard this question for as long as we have been married. I never knew quite how to deal with that question, until now.

“No, my dear,” I said parsing my words very carefully, “this is Medical Chocolate.” I presented it to her with the biggest smile I could slap on my face.

Before she could respond to that presentation, I began explaining to her all of the medical and health benefits to chocolate. I quoted the doctor who claimed chocolate had some mysterious and wonderful medicinal properties unnoticed before now.

It is hard to argue with a doctor even one on TV. Before she could respond, I presented her with a piece of this ravishingly delicious dark chocolate.

I was rather proud of myself and I was reminded of what old King Solomon said in the Old Testament. “Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?” (Ecclesiastes 8:4).

Not every word is good and trustworthy; but every word of God can be trusted and has the power to lift me up into the heavens and delightful worship and praise.