Your Holiness. Your Holiness! Terrible news: The budget numbers just came in for this year, and we’re reporting huge losses from last year! The tithes are drying up like the Red Sea!”
“Relax, my son, relax. Grace in adversity and all that. The Church has weathered harsher storms than this.”
“You don’t understand. If these numbers are right, and I’ve run them five times, then we’re going to have to start selling off land. We’re going to have to start selling cathedrals! There’s just not enough coming in anymore. We’re hitting a downward spiral that doesn’t stop until we’re broke!”
“God damn it. What is happening?”
“Caliph. Caliph! Terrible news: The budget numbers just came in for this year, and we’re reporting huge losses from last year! Almsgiving is more barren than the Jaffar Kafaja!”
“Salaam, my friend, salaam. Nothing will happen to us but what Allah has decreed; He is our protector. We shall endure.”
“You don’t understand. If these numbers are right, and I’ve run them five times, then we’re going to have to start selling off land. We’re going to have to start selling mosques! There’s just not enough coming in anymore. We’re hitting a downward spiral that doesn’t stop until we’re broke!”
“By the diseased scrotum of Iblis. What is happening?”
“Sir. Sir! Great news: The budget numbers just came in for this year, and we’re reporting huge gains from last year! People are using our services more and more; it’s unbelievable! New projects are going up almost every day! It’s almost miraculous!”
“Fantastic, Bob, that’s just fantastic. You know, it really surprises me what people are starting to use us for—wells for rural villages, building new schools, setting up soup kitchens and homeless shelters all over the place. It really seems like everyone is socially connecting and getting things done.”
“That’s the best part, sir. Our feedback is through the roof—people love the fact that they can fund whatever they think will do the most good and get immediate reports on how it’s progressing. All the communities springing up around each project are really pulling together with comments and suggestions, which the program starters actually take into consideration when they’re going through implementation. It really is an amazing thing to watch, people being heard and their money doing so much good out there in the world.”
“Well, Bob, you know that wasn’t always our primary goal, but as @GreatDismal has said, ‘The street finds its own uses for things.’ Bringing people together so they can make a societal difference might be one of the proudest paradigm shifts I’ve overseen in my history with this company.”
“And if you’ll pardon my saying so, sir, making a nice profit doesn’t hurt either.”
“Definitely not, Bob, definitely not. Hey, have I told you about this piece of property I’m looking at for our new headquarters? It’s absolutely beautiful: fifteenth-century architecture, marble flooring, gold leaf everywhere, and smack-dab in the middle of Rome. Just gorgeous.”