There appears to me that there are an exorbitant number of
those on the "social media" locations who have some desire to either convince me how Holy they are
or I could be if I mended my ways and accepted the superstitious teachings of
residents of the Middle East who have been dead for a couple thousand years.
I am told to forsake the wisdom of the secular world and
resort to pure faith and my life will be forever changed.
A number of years ago in Baton
Rouge, I knew a man of the cloth who could preach fire and brimstone so hot it
would defrost windshields two blocks away. He would get himself worked up into
such a frenzy he would go through 2 or 3 suits during an average session. (I was
always happy I didn’t have to pay his dry cleaning bill.)
His flock consisted primarily of
employees of Louisiana State Penitentiary near Angloa, La. This area is not far
from the Tunica Hills, which is an area even experienced hunters and
outdoorsmen avoid because not only is it the home of one or more large families
of nearly every dangerous animal in the USA that slinks, crawls, slithers or
bounds, but the terrain is treacherous.
You may walk up to what appears to
be a 25 or 30 foot tall pine tree surrounded by years of accumulated pine
needles only to discover, much too late, what you are seeing is actually the
top of a 125 to 130 tree with an accumulation of pine needles suspended from it’s
branches.
If you unknowingly walk toward
that tree, there is a very good chance you will be taking the express elevator
going down. Conjecture is that the 120 feet fall to the base of the tree likely won’t kill you,
but the sudden stop surely will.
This is where the Dear Reverend
decided to take a walk one Sunday to calm himself down after one of his fiery
sermons.
He certainly must have known the
dangers, having grown up in that area, and we can only speculate that he was so
deep in thought he was distracted because before he could say ,”Help me Gee-hay-zus!”
he was on his way to the first floor from the penthouse.
About 20 feet into the fall, he
was able to grab a branch of the tree temporarily suspending his descent. We
won’t go into how decent the limb was, but it soon became apparent that it
would not support him indefinitely so he began to shout.
“Help me! Somebody help me! Is
there anybody up there who can help me?”
Suddenly this voice booms out of
the clouds. “LET GO OF THE TREE! I WILL SEND MY ANGELS TO BEAR YOU UP. YOU MUST
HAVE FAITH!”
The preacher was
uncharacteristically quiet for a long moment, he looked all around him, back up
the top and finally he yells out, “Is there anybody ELSE up there?”
