For Episcopalians only

     You'll know you're an Episcopalian

if when you watch Star Wars and they say "May the force be with you", you automatically reply "And also with you";

if someone says, "Let us pray" and you automatically hit your knees;

if you recognize your neighbor, or rector, in the local liquor store and go over to greet him/her;

if you have totally memorized Rite I, Rite II and the first three episodes of The Vicar of Dibley;

if you know the difference between a surplice and a cotta...and the appropriate use of each;

if hearing people pray in the language of "jesuswejus" makes you want to scream;

if words like: "vouchsafe", "oblation", "supplications", "succor", "bewail", "wherefore", "dost" and "very" (in its archaic sense) are familiar to you even if you don't have a clue that they mean.

if you can rattle off such tongue twisters as: "..who made there by his one oblation of himself once offered a full and perfect sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the world" and "Wherefore, O, Lord and Heavenly Father, we thy people, do celebrate and make here, with these gifts which we offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make..." without missing a beat;

if your choir director suggests discussing something over a beer after choir rehearsal;

if you catch yourself genuflecting or bowing as you enter a row of seats in a theater;

if you can pronounce "innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same";

if the word "Sewanee" puts a lump in your throat;

if you ever find yourself saying, "Oh, but we've never done it that way before";

if, when visiting a Catholic Church, you are the only Ah-men amongst a sea of Ai-mens;

if your covered dish for the potluck dinner is escargot in puff shells;

if you know that a sursum corda is not a surgical procedure;

if you don't think Agnus Dei is a woman;

if your picnic basket has sterling knives and forks (entree, fish, salad and cake);

if you know that the nave is not a playing card;

if your friend said "I'm truly sorry..." and you replied, "and you humbly repent?";

if while watching the movie "The Madness of King George" you're able to recite with the King, when he undergoes "surgery," the Collect for Purity;

if you know that the Senior Warden and the Junior Warden are not positions in the local prison;

if you think the most serious breach of propriety one can commit is failure to chill the salad forks;

And finally...

if you reach a point when you're not sure about anything theologically, but you still feel completely at

home at the altar rail and somehow know you're meeting God there, even though you can't begin to

understand how.