"jesus christ, brought to you by cingular wireless."

so, a certain church in which i'm on the elected leading body (i.e. vestry, if you're down with the episcopal lingo) discussed an "unsolicited" proposal from a certain cellular phone company. they want to put antennaes on our property. our church! our steeple! okay, not really the steeple, but pretty close to it.
why would this even be considered?? because they're going to pay us. a lot.
as you have probably already guessed, this makes me a tad irrate.

first of all, and on top of all things - regardless of whether the antennae (which apparantly is a horizontal bar these days) is visible, or regardless of whether it is completely harmless to our health and the health of the preschoolers, this is like blood money.

i'm tasking myself (since everyone else on vestry seemed to nod in agreement of how wonderful this whole proposal is) to put together a report. i'm going to call it the "Jesus Christ, brought to you by Cingular Wireless" report. i'm going to delve into whatever i can get my hands on. shareholders reports. miscellaneous muckraking about the company. i think our church has a right to know this stuff. if we no longer care about sacrificing the sanctity of our worship space, we can at least make sure the profits cingular are giving us don't come from exploitative labor practices or pvc-esque frivolous environmental waste policies.

it's not like they're going to stick a logo on our rooftop. it's not like they're giving us money to advertise, or even to help our ministry grow (which would entail a "corporate underwritership.") they're just paying us rent. way too many churches to count are already doing this.

it just burns me, that's all. we're selling out. it's hard for me to trust something that's riddled with corporate money. and if i can't find trust in the house of my god, then what?