Thursday, August 25, 2016

SHORT FEATURE: THE BANANA SPLITS - I'M GONNA FIND A CAVE

In celebration of National Banana Split Day (because, why not), let's take a moment to listen to the dulcet tones of... The Banana Splits (bet you saw that coming) singing one of their more popular tunes, I'm Gonna Find A Cave...


"Gonna find a cave where we can hide - Everything we crave will be inside - Oh yeah Me and you and all the goodies there - If I want I can pull you by the hair - Doop doop doop dip dip - I'm gonnna find a cave."
You know, they were making the whole idea of chucking everything and going to find an isolated cave to live in sound pretty good up, at least until they got to the hair-pulling part. I'm not sure what that was all about or what woman would possibly go for it. Still, getting away from it all can sometimes be a good idea. 

One person who certainly thought so was St. Paul of Thebes, a.k.a. Paul The Hermit. Back around the year 250 AD, Paul fled to a cave in the desert to avoid a property-snatching scheme by his anti-Christian brother-in-law. According to legend, he soon discovered cave dwelling to be conducive to his spirituality, so he decided to spend the next 90 years of his life there (which would explain that whole Paul The Hermit nickname thing). It would be another hundred years or so before the cave-craze really caught on, but Paul is generally credited with kick-starting the group known as the Desert Fathers, a loose-knit assemblage of Christian ascetics whose way of life would eventually morph into modern day monasticism. Leave it to God to find a way to turn anti-social tendencies into a social movement that has meant so much to so many.

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