The last part of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Christianity. I welcome any comments.
NARRATOR: Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Coast of United States lies a small, unregarded little church.
If one traveled from this church at a distance of roughly seven miles, one would find an utterly insignificant little green-colored seminary whose denizens are so amazingly primitive that they still think that double predestination is a pretty neat idea.
This seminary has, or rather had, a problem, which was this: most of the people that went there were unhappy pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because it was the utter absence of these small green pieces of paper which tended to cause the unhappiness in the first place.
And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones who considered themselves predestined.
Eventually, God apparently raptured a significant portion of the seminary’s student population to heaven, effectively ending their concern over the small bits of paper forever. This left no viable opposition to the building of the new 410 bypass right through the center of the seminary property, causing the seminary to be shut down, and forcing those who remained to take their problems elsewhere.
Two of those who remained, students Artie Kent and Ford Prophet, have since embarked on a journey to write The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Christianity, which they hope to better enable the remaining unsaved population to come to know Jesus Christ, whereby they, too, would have their problems solved.
Arthur and Ford now find themselves at the relocated offices of Evergreen Seminary's School of Psychology, where they find former students attempting to solve some problems of their own.
STUDENT 1: Now tell me, are you experiencing feelings of loss and betrayal?
STUDENT 2: (surprised) Why, yes!
STUDENT 1: Do you feel as though something has been taken away from you?
STUDENT 2: (even more amazed) Yes! That’s it exactly!
FORD (to Artie, but loud enough for others to hear): Well, of course she does. Her school is buried under a pile of rubble!
STUDENT 1: (a bit annoyed) Can we help you?
FORD: Yes, I think you can! You see, my friend and I are doing research for this book, you see, and….
STUDENT 1: (excited) Oh! Research! Oh, I’m sure we’d love to help!
FORD: … and we’re trying to work out how best to communicate Christianity to the average person.
STUDENT 1: What do you mean by “average?” We would need to have the term carefully quantified in order to ascertain reliable results.
FORD: (obviously not expecting this)…. Well, you know, “average,” just like… Artie, help me out here.
ARTIE: Well, you know, “normal.” Just like everybody else.
STUDENT 1: (laughs) Oh, I’m afraid I’ll still have to ask you to be more specific. Obviously, we’re not all a bunch of clones walking around.
ARTIE: Oh, I see your point…. Well, how about “not unusually different.”
STUDENT 1: Surely, you’ve been at Evergreen long enough to know that we value our differences.
(egg timer sound goes off.)
STUDENT 2: Oh! Time’s up! My turn! (Students 1 and 2 switch places)
STUDENT 2 (to Student 1): Now tell me about this dream you had about the walls crashing down all around you.
FORD: What a minute! Who’s treating who?
STUDENT 2: Oh, we’re treating each other. We’ve all had to deal with the loss of the seminary, and so we’re working through each other’s trauma over the experience.
STUDENT 1: We’re wounded healers.
NARRATOR: The Hitchhiker’s Guide says that a “wounded healer” is any person in any healing profession that has had to struggle with many of the very same problems that the person being healed has come to the professional for help in dealing with. The term is most often used for professionals in the mental heath disciplines, due to the high number of such professionals that appear to come from broken homes or have otherwise painful backgrounds. The Hitchhiker’s Guide hastens to add that this phenomenon is only in apparent disproportion to the rest of society due to the fact that mental health professionals are aware of their issues, while the large majority of humanity simply stumbles along in total ignorance of the monstrous problems that practically everybody, in fact, possesses.
(PROTESTER ONE comes onstage, dressed now in business attire, and walks up to the two Psych students. Artie and Ford are visibly stunned.)
PROTESTER ONE: Excuse me, I’m here for my 4:30 appointment.
ARTIE: But, but, you’re the protester I talked to before the Rapture!
PROTESTER ONE: Rapture? What are you talking about?
ARTIE: Are you, or are you not, the same student protester I spoke to before the construction crews demolished the seminary?
PROTESTER ONE: Yes….
ARTIE (turns to Ford): And did I, or did I not, find protest signs and a bunch of clothes in a pile on the ground, EMPTY, when you and I met?
FORD: Well, of course.
PROTESTER ONE: And you think that I was raptured? (laughts) Wow, you need to read your dispensational theology a bit more! No, I was simply hired by the developers to handle public relations!
ARTIE: Say what?
PROTESTER ONE: Well, they were impressed at how well we were doing, and asked us if we’d rather work for them instead of against them. Paid considerably better than a seminarian’s salary, let me tell you!
ARTIE: (flabbergasted) But why did you leave your signs, and ALL YOUR CLOTHES, right there, in the middle of the road?
PROTESTER ONE: Well, we wouldn’t been very good public relations consultants in t-shirts and slacks, would we? And if we were carrying around signs that accused the developers of working against the will of God, that would be rather counter-productive to good PR work, wouldn’t it?
FORD: (interrupting) So, you mean to tell me, that your values, your convictions, your dedication to the work of Evergreen Seminary, all meant nothing compared to a big paycheck? You simply abandoned everything to work for the big corporations?
PROTESTER ONE: Well, actually, I’m rather conflicted about it. That’s why I’m here. (turns to Psych student) I’d like to speak to someone about my deep-seated feelings of guilt.
STUDENT 1: Of course, if you would just join us this way…. (Both Psych students and protestor head off stage, leaving Artie and Ford alone.)
ARTIE: I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. Does no one have any personal integrity anymore?
FORD: Well, look at it this way. Perhaps the Rapture hasn’t happened yet. But there’s still a need to tell people about God. And clearly the old methods haven’t worked. What do you say? Wanna join me in writing the most important book ever written?
ARTIE: After the Bible!
FORD: (starts walking off stage) Yes, yes, of course. The Bible will always be the most important book ever written. But have you ever looked at that thing? Someone’s still got to interpret it. I mean, all that stuff about prophecy, commands against cutting your hair, exhortations to stone children.... It’s no wonder we’ve got so many competing denominations out there! Now, what I think we need…. (fades as Ford and Artie head off stage)
NARRATOR: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Christianity was written by B-W of Transforming Seminarian, and features whatever actors you wish to imagine in the roles, with the provision that the voice of the Narrator must be understood to be read with a British accent at all times. If you have failed to imagine such a voice in your reading of the script thus far, you are therefore required to go back to the beginning, and start again.
You may now return your seats to their full and upright position, and the remainder of your journey through life will proceed without interruption.
END
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