How do you throw Jesus in the trash?

Recently I suffered a flashback of an ill-fated wedding present. My husband and I laugh about it now, but for a time, it was something that left us, well, in a quandary. 

For our wedding, we’ll just say, ‘over 20-years ago,’ we were gifted with a clock by some friends of ours. Now, this was not your ordinary clock you see. I like to believe this clock was one of a kind and soon you’ll understand why. 

Imagine an imitation grandfather wall clock molded out of cheap, gold - and I mean gold - plastic. As if that were not bad enough, the picture on the face of the clock was a holographic photo of Jesus. And Jesus was not placed on a palette of muted colors either. Oh, no. This was a bright, happy Jesus placed on a vibrant blue and purple background. 

I guess the placement of a holographic Jesus on the face of a clock with rotating arms was not sacrilegious enough....the great clock master of the ages felt  it necessary to top off the masterpiece, with even more cheap, gold plastic when creating the numbers that outlined the face of the clock. 

So, you can imagine the scene, while opening presents on our blessed wedding day, in front of the masses, the difficulty with which we pulled out this creation, swallowed, smiled, looked at our friends and uttered... 

“It’s beautiful. We love it.” 

For several years after, we were tortured with this gift. First with literally swapping clocks on the wall right before the arrival of these same friends for a visit to eventually- after we gave up the effort to even make them think we still hung it on our wall - trying to figure out what to do with the Jesus clock? 

Which begged the fateful question, “How do you throw Jesus in the trash?” 

Now, while the clock was a tragic thing, my husband and I just couldn’t make the physical move of putting something with Jesus on it, in the trash. The guilt. The damnation. 

You laugh, I know. But, you try it - go ahead. It really isn’t an easy thing to do.

For years, the poor, garish, Jesus clock sat packed away. In its box. In a closet. Waiting. It even traveled with us during the move to our first house. Eventually we found our out. 

Hallelujah!

 The way to get out from under the clock without going to Hell! 

Our problems were solved!

 We re-gifted it in a gag gift exchange!

 

It was genius.