UPSTATE WOMAN BURNS TOAST, SEES SON OF GOD

When times are tough and newspaper subscriptions are disappearing faster than O.J. Simpson at a crime scene, there’s only one possible solution… the obscure image of a religious icon burnt into a piece of bread.

It worked for that woman who sold a grilled cheese sandwich that supposedly bore the image of the Virgin Mary for $28,000 on eBay. So why wouldn’t it offer a similar result for an Upstate woman named Linda Lowe?

Well, I guess it could. And that’s what the Spartanburg Herald-Journal is banking on.

Lowe believes Jesus is always watching over her. She just didn’t think his vantage point was from a slice of cheese toast.

It’s been months, but a heavenly face is still visible in the bubbled and burned cheese, melted on top of a piece of loaf bread. The shoulder-length dark hair, faint halo and “sweet smile” looked all too familiar.

“I know there’s a lot of people who believe there’s some divine reason for it being there,” said Lowe, who lives on Lake Bowen. “I just don’t know, but I could never eat it.”

Umm… right.

I’m guessing the reason she couldn’t eat it is that it was really burnt. And it’s four months old.

Because I’m not really seeing Jesus in that picture. I’ll give you Tommy Chong or Leatherface, maybe, but Jesus is a total stretch.

I’m just curious how she happened to settle on it being Jesus.

And I’m even more curious how many pieces of toast she went through before she finally found one that had enough of a human form to take to the Herald-Journal. I’m putting the over-under at 250 pieces.

Photo: Spartanburg Herald-Journal