Well, I finally closed my autographed Bible long enough to read The Da Vinci Code. I had put it off because I like to savor anything that embarrasses the Mary Worshippers in Rome -- or the Supreme Court. Frankly, the whole conceit caused me to reflect, in my modestly perspicacious way, upon how such a disproportionate sampling of the history that is actually remembered is set in motion by the woefully indolent. For example, the tawdry French Revolution might not have occurred had Marie Antoinette been more inclined to while her moments at Versailles baking and distributing cakes rather than simply sniping about them. And, perhaps, 3,000 American lives might have been spared had our own more-noblesse-than-oblige royalty George W. Bush actually gotten off of his presidential posterior after being told Osama bin Laden planned to use planes to attack the United States -- instead of treating himself to a month-long dawdle on his horse-free facsimile of a ranch.

Which leads me, of course, to Jesus and the notorious Biblical namedropper Mary Magdalene. Leonardo would have had nothing to paint on that dirty back wall in Santa Maria delle Grazie if Jesus and Mary had shared their last meal in a more discreet location. Had they dined at home, they would have been able to keep their relationship removed from the tenacious gossips at the Priory of Sion and its artistic chronologists. Yes, they never would have been caught if only Mary -- the other one, His mother -- hadn't been so lazy and had prepared her Son (who never asked for much) a lovely hot, home-cooked meal. But for the wont of maternal domesticity, Jesus wouldn't have spent His Last Supper in a Palestinian trattoria hoping that Judas got stuck with the bill. And Jesus and Mary Magdalene would never have been subjected to the galling -- and Gauling -- infamy of being the J-Lo and Ben of their time, in a romance destined for doom, but not before being memorialized by the Renaissance version of fresco-paparazzi. And poor Mary would never have had to flee, like some deposed Third World despot, to the South of France. As president of Bringing Integrity To Christian Homemakers, I wave a non-stick spatula dismissively in Mary's presumably heavenward direction.

So close to Jesus, I allow Him to cash a check for a full $60 over the face amount without photo ID,

Mrs. Betty Bowers

America's Best Christian

Spiritual Advisor to Mr. & Mrs. George W. Bush