Boise Ed sends this in. “I’m unfamiliar with church practices, but it appears that the customer is envious of the priest’s abundant hair, and has asked the priest about using placebo and “alternative reality.” But then why would the priest have to remind him of his baldness? My question: what’s going on here?”
Comics I Don't Understand 
He’s got a combover. He’s trying to make it look like he has hair, but he’s bald in reality.
I am very familiar with church practices, especially those where the clergy wear collars, but I am not sure what is going on here. My best guess is that the bald man stood up asking for a miracle healing and the priest/pastor is pointing out that there are limits to faith healing. You are bald, God has nothing to work with… Something like that.
But such healings don’t usually happen in those sorts of congregations (although not never). A couple of other “church” observations: The man in the background standing seems to be holding the offering plate. If this were a time for a healing service, the offering would not be concurrent. Also, the cross on the pulpit is what we call a “chi rho” cross (from the first two Greek letters of “Christ”) and is most often (but not exclusively) seen in Presbyterian churches. The large cross at the back is a “Celtic” cross, also most common in Presbyterian churches. Again, not exclusively, but more often.
Finally, is the clergyman supposed to have a pony tail‽ I know plenty of long-haired, pony-tailed graying priests/pastors, but the lack of texture on that little nub at the back makes me wonder if it is miscolored.
Thanks, Targuman. I also noticed the chi-rho, and although I didn’t get from there to Presyterian specifically, there is plenty about the scene to place it in a “high church” context — which I think you were getting at with “those sort of congregations”. But I can’t take it any farther in making sense. Probably write it off as typical Vic Lee shaky targeting.
Before you read too much into the juxtaposition of the collection plate in a healing service, please remember that this is Pardon My Planet, which occasionally reuses a generic piece of artwork for a completely different gag.
P.S. As I recall from back when I used to go to church, Chi-Rho decorations were not unknown in Catholic settings, but then there would have been a corpse hanging on the big crucifix.
Looks like Pete has it to me.
@Kilby-
By definition, a crucifix has Christ’s body hung on it. In Catholic churches, that is required, and from what I recall, it is frowned upon in may Protestant churches. Not sure about the Orthodox church stance.
Looks like a religious discussion to me, and the “pro supernatural” side is responding with an ad hominem. Nothing funny other than . . . Here’s my argument . . . Oh, yeah? Yo’ mama!
Targuman (2): To me, that looks more like a mullet.
We recently went to Robert’s younger niece’s confirmation ceremony (Roman Catholic). Yes, things seemed a bit different than when last we went, in person, to a (holiday) mass before Covid.
I had been concerned about wearing slacks, but I did not really feel like wearing a skirt, panty hose, etc., but I was surprised that so many were in jeans – especially since it was a special mass for the occasion, not a general mass. (Catty comment – his sister and her family were of course overdressed as if it was a Saturday night wedding.)
He is not one to go often to church – before Covid it was Christmas and Easter. When Covid hit I suggested he look online for mass to attend for the holidays – I have been “attending” Jewish High Holy Day services for decades on a service from Manhattan which is shown on TV and online (apparently around the world). (I had started attending same for the anniversary of my dad’s death to say Yizkor for him even before Covid as getting out to the religious services is not easy when Robert always wants (wanted) to go out Saturday during the dayand we eat dinner too late for me to go to services Friday night for same. ) The main rabbi is a Korean woman.
So I looked online for him and found that our local Diocese runs the mass on its cable TV channel and I let him know. In the interim he had found a mass from Australia which better fit his (our) late night time schedule and he liked it better than mass as done locally. (I am posting this at 1:20 am early on Wednesday am while I wait for him to come down to have snack before we go to bed around 3 am). This past Christmas I joined him in “attending” a mass from Puerto Rico (in mixed English and Spanish) on our small, big screen TV.
So churches and how things go are not completely the same as they were “before”.
Dressing in your “Sunday best” to go to church hasn’t been a thing in quite a while. The Catholics were still doing it, before COVID, but the Protestants dropped it a long time ago. It used to be you showed respect for God by dressing up, but now God accepts you however you are.
There are probably entire dissertations about dressing up and not dressing up in various situations. Look at all the suits, ties and hats in old movies.
People used to dress up for flying on airplanes and going to sporting events.
When I was 4 years old I broke my collar bone. (I remember it in complete detail from 2 different points of view.) My parents would rent a bungalow at Rockaway Beach for the summer near the one my grandparents/uncle rented.
Rules were different there than at home. At home jumping up and down on a bed was forbidden – but okay in Rockaway. My crib was in their bedroom. I remember being on my parents’ bed with my dad while mom was getting my clothes from the dresser at the foot of the bed. I jumped up. I came down and missed the bed. A short time later that day it no longer hurt me and we let it go. But my mom and grandmother did not like how my arm “was hanging” and we went the next day to the doctor who had an office every summer in his bungalow. Sent for X-rays.
X-rays were explained to me as being like photos. I insisted on dressing up – in my Shabbos best – for the photos. (Broken collar bone. Sometimes it still acts up and is stiff – some 65 years later.) I remember it all in detail and the jumping and fall I remember from 2 different points of view.
Mark in Boston – Robert’s sister tends to overdress (and overdo everything). She was in an evening gown with large corsage. She also puts on makeup as if she was a clown as she thinks it all to be glamorous.
After the ceremony which involved all of the children in niece’s confirmation class being confirmed together, we spent another 45 minutes after everyone else had left, maybe an hour, with the photographer she had hired taking photos of niece, the rest of the family – even a couple with us, in them. Sort of like (but beyond) the photos taken during/after bar/bat mitzvahs. The church employees were trying to get us out so they could close up.
When I make comment about her, Robert replies with a line from her favorite movie – “The Godfather” – “That’s my family (Kay). It’s not me.”