Time Flies!

Just about a year ago, I posted on some of the amazing things people sent me via YouTube. Well, over the course of the past eleven months, I've accumulated a few more doozies. Here are five more priceless gems. Believe me, I couldn't make these things up:

1. Dear Father Ryan: I was wondering if your music is effective for exorcisms because you are a priest. Please let me know because I think the devil is inside me and I want him out.
2. Hey, have you ever thought of becoming a Catholic? You'd make a nice priest if you weren't Jesuit. I couldn't tell if this was (1) because he doesn't know that Jesuits are Catholic or (2) because he denies that Jesuits are Catholic.
3. U R the pyed piper of Satan who will lead many str8 2 hell with ur music. Repent and come 2 know Jesus Christ ur personal Lord and Savior.
   
4. Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from you that is present in all humanity because a talking snake convinced a rib-woman to eat the fruit from a magical tree. I thought this was pretty funny.
5. [Edited] Hi Father {please note: I'm not ordained} I have a strange question to ask you. My girlfriend and I really like listening to your music when we go to bed. I was wondering if you could record some really long songs and put them on YouTube. We like having you in our bedroom but most of your recordings are too short for us. Hope this doesn't weird you out. Thanks for helping us out.
   

In general, I'm flattered by many of the responses I get. Sometimes I'm troubled. Other times simply bemused. I try to acknowledge as many of them as I can, although there is a prioritization that goes on (if someone is asking a spiritual question, I take that more seriously than giving advice on cleaning the whistle). It's a privilege to be invited into people's homes (or, as we saw in #5, bedrooms) and I'm glad there are so many people the world over interested in learning more about Irish music. While the vast majority of the responses are innocuous and rather boring, I thought I'd share a few of the stand-outs.