BOBBY BETZELBERGER’S PIG [F. 8-25-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—BOBBY BETZELBERGER’S PIG [F. 8-25-23]

 

As college students return to campus, Helen and I were recalling events from my campus ministry days. She told me I should write this column just because it is so much fun to say, Bobby Betzelbereger’s pig.

[My computer keyboard is currently refusing to use quote marks, perhaps because of my past quoting abuses, so italics are the new quotes.]

She went on, I don’t know how you can get something religious out of that, but it’s too much fun to say it not to try…

I, of course, could not resist the challenge.

Bobby Betzelberger was a boy in our Wesley Foundation [Methodist campus ministry] at Il State U, when I was campus minister there. He was a farm boy who liked to tweak city kids by acting out their misconceptions about farmers. He wore overalls all the time. Went barefoot on campus. And, most importantly, in returning from spring break, he brought a pig with him, to live in his room in the dorm.

This was so interesting to the other students that no one complained, so the authorities did not get wind [pun intended] of this for some time. Of course, you can’t keep a pig quiet forever, especially since the pig’s main joy in life was showering, a luxury it did not normally enjoy on the farm. Every time it heard someone—anyone!—in the shower room, it dashed down the hall to get in on the fun.

That was probably why the pig was discovered, and expelled from college without a degree. I can only imagine what tales it told the other pigs when it got home…

They said there was slop in the cafeteria, but it wasn’t much, but it was worth it to live in the land of constant showers. Oink. Oh, and Bobby got lots of city girls, because who wouldn’t want to date a guy who brings a pig to school… Oink!

I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t know what became of Bobby--if he married one of those city girls, if he took her back home to be the wife of a pig farmer—because I went off to Iowa that year to get another useless degree. I have a pretty good idea of what became of the pig, though. You can’t study theology in Iowa without knowing what happens to pigs.

Which brings us back to Helen’s challenge. It is simple to relate this pig tale to religion, for Deuteronomy 14:7 says that you’re not to eat anything with a cloven hoof that does not also chew its cud, which is why people who believe in what the Bible says cannot eat pork, because pigs have cloven hooves but do not chew their cud.

They say in the gambling ads on TV, you should gamble responsibly, and the booze ads say you should drink responsibly. So, I’m saying, you should theologize responsibly. Be careful when you proclaim, The Bible says… It may say something that will point out your pork-eating hypocrisy when you’re quoting it for some other purpose.

I’m sure that quote the Bible responsibly will do as much good in creating responsibility as the gambling and booze ads do. But it’s still a lot of fun to say Bobby Betzelberger’s pig…

John Robert McFarland