Keeper of fortunes

Gentle reader, this blog post does not concern money. It's about something frivolous: fortune cookies. I confess to a fascination with the fortunes hidden inside (usually stale) cookies that in their best days revealed just a hint of orange.

The best fortune I ever received proclaimed: "You will have god luck." This one came years before I began the ordination process, and still I marvel at it. First runner-up, opened on the weekend of my ordination to the transitional diaconate, said: "You are going to have some new clothes."

Another favorite is a keeper because of the lovely image within: "Alas! The onion you are eating is someone else's water lily."

Today's, however, remains a puzzlement: "The luck that is ordained for you will be coveted by others." I'm still trying to reconcile "luck" and "ordained" inhabiting the same sentence. In the meantime, all of this reminds me how great my passion is for Asian food, and how I wonder if my colleagues find it peculiar that I have an entire collection of chopsticks in the desk drawer in my office -- just in case.