Explaining the world using Cheerios.
Words.
Perhaps because I worked in a supermarket …
… during high school and college, I have done the weekly shopping in our house for lo these many decades.
I say this not for self-aggrandizement (found in aisle four) or with superciliousness (aisle seven, near the spices) or even as an attempt to salvage the reputation of men (aisle ten, with the humorous birthday cards.)
It just is, so let’s move on, okay?
It is not often that something on the shopping list throws me.
I’m not one of those rookie men shoppers, dazed look, on the phone to his wife, standing beside the hamburger, asking where the meat department is. Oh no. I can home in on hard-to-locate things like Nigella seeds, birthday candles, or silver polish like I stocked the store myself.
So when Cheerios showed up on the list over the weekend, I didn’t give it a second thought. I simply headed down the cereal aisle, building up a head of steam as I passed the Cap’n Crunch, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, and Kix scanning for a Cheerios box.
Here is what I found.
And I was stopped dead in my tracks. Where are the Cheerios?
Now I must back up here and explain the reason why Cheerios were on the list. Our seven year-old granddaughter and her parents were going to be with us for the beginning of school vacation week. She is a delight to be with, has a sunny disposition, makes up songs while she’s coloring and then has us sing along.
But here was my thinking: if Cheerios are on the list, that’s what she’s eating for breakfast now. And, as we know, it was a five-year old fussy* eater from Dayton, Ohio who coined the advertising phrase:
“Accept no substitutes.”
[*My granddaughter, Nora, is not a fussy eater. She eats things I wouldn’t go near.]
Problem was, everything I looked at seemed to be substitutes for the OG, the Original Grain.
I simply wanted the Cheeri-Os, O as in round, made of oats, floats on top of milk, sticks to the floor like epoxy. Those Cheeri-Os.
I didn’t want them heart-shaped, or smothered in honey by bees, maple flavored or, god forbid, crunchy. I didn’t need them in a Medley, or in Ancient Grains (a real thing), or fruity.
CAN I JUST GET A BOX OF REGULAR CHEERIOS???
As Barry Schwartz says in The Paradox of Choice:
I think that in modern America, we have far too many options for breakfast cereal and not enough options for president.
Well, okay, we’re not heading down that aisle right now. Right now, we’re heading to 16th century Germany, found in Aisle 5.
When, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed…
… his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg (apocryphal), he didn’t think:
“Hey, stand back. I’m trying to starting a Reformation here.” (Insert Pee Wee Herman voice here.)
In fact, quite the opposite. Luther was, at that time, a loyal Roman Catholic. He was a faithful, punctilious Augustinian monk. His beef wasn’t with the church, per se. Rather, he wanted a few improvements. He wanted Pope Leo to stop selling “offices,” i.e., bishoprics (a real word, look it up), and cardinalships.
Sidebar: Rome in the early 16th century operated very much like Boston under James Michael Curley in the 1920s. There was no job too small that it could not be bought.
The other bee under Luther’s considerable bonnet (see below) was the sale of indulgences. This was big business in the early 16th century and where a sizable chunk of Pope Leo’s walking-around money came from.
This was the deal:
For $X amount of money, you could shave time off your stay in purgatory, or for an $XXX you could get a complete indulgence. No purgatory time at all.
(To be fair, you did get a certificate with this. Framable? Not sure.)
But, back to Luther, banging on the door. And here’s where Cheerios come in.
Luther had no idea he was starting a Reformation …
… let alone Protestantism. He believed the church was like the original Cheerio. It was perfect in its original form. It only had to go back to its original teachings, its Scriptural roots. Nothing “new” had to be added.
That may have been his intention. But, like so many turning points in history, intentions go awry. Take the guy who invented Post-It Notes. He thought he had invented a new kind of bookmark. When, in fact, he had created a way for couples to communicate.
Despite his intentions, Luther had invented Protestantism …
… which proved so wildly popular that, soon, everyone was doing it. (Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, etc.) The Roman Catholic Church even jumped into the fray its contribution, a little something called the Inquisition. (Which, of course, no one expected.)
There are, according to The National Catholic Register (who just might have a dog in this fight), a lot of Protestant denominations in the world:
… the Center for Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which is evangelical Protestant, estimates that there are currently 47,000 denominations. This survey relies upon the same methodology as the World Christian Encyclopedia, which it apparently deems credible. And, if you don’t consider Gordon-Conwell very authoritative, keep in mind that they are utilized as a primary source by the Pew Research Center, which pretty much is the gold standard for social science research in the United States.
Now most people can’t differentiate between the major Protestant denominations, let alone the home-grown ones. Smells and bell Episcopalians are lumped in with snake-handling Holy Rollers.
Why?
Too many brand extensions. 47,000, if we go with The Catholic Register. With, in many cases, only slivers of difference in between.
Again, Barry Schwartz from The Paradox of Choice:
On the other hand, the fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better.
I never did find the Original Cheerios. I had to settle for heart-shaped:
And I left with a question: how soon before there are 47,000 varieties of Cheerios?
Music.
Today, off in the world of soft piano music, I’m releasing the last in of four “Prayer” songs. The first three were “Serenity,” “Ascending,” and “At 3 a.m.” You can download those for free over on my: Bandcamp site:
Today, the last, is “Gratitude.” Which, I think, is the most important prayer of all.
Here is a preview:
Embarrassed self-promotion (God, I hate this): a “like” makes this post available to more people.
Thank you for reading! Apologies in advance for typos. (I am a dyslexic proofreader!)
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