AUGUST 22nd, 2010 -- The Sunday Sermon with the Rever-End Dillinger Flaikwaiter.

SUNDAY SERMON WITH REVER-END DILLINGER FLAIKWAITER

Children, I have a story for you today as we travel through this life together. It’s a story that starts as I set off once again. I suppose that friendship long or short is not to be measured in human considerations of time. The town I was leaving was as it should be, a dwindling merage in my rear view mirror. Driving is a fine time. Alone I dreamed of lives lost. A sad state of affairs most of you will be thinking. In most cases I guess that might be a fair statement. Me? I knew I was in search, a mode that most today, well the young ones might not understand but the aged ones for the most part will. I considered lives lost. Not sadly but in a pleasantly weary art which was much better than I had done and for quite some time.

God sat beside me. He wondered at passing fancies, trees, shadows, bumps along the way. He considered all that He had made to be fine and dandy which was, after all, His right. Myself, on the other hand, after much listening to Him found myself hating less and less, understanding that if as Tthe Book said He gave us free will, then indeed He had managed to create a most imperfect likeness of himself. I asked Him why He had created that tree; you know, the one with the knowledge of good and evil. I mean, if He created it He must have wanted us to eat from it. Seems logical to this old soldier. Why, Lord, did you give us this great skull full of thought muscle if you did not want us to use it? If you wanted us simply to be robotic idiotic images of yourself, I mean, it does make me wonder if you created us simply for some perverse pleasure. You know, staring at two beautiful, naked duplicates of yourself, skin as porcelain, as yourself, tall and more than beautiful. I mean Lord it is after all a reasonable thought, don't you think?

"Dillinger, those are great damned trees I created." That was His answer to me. Damned trees! I admit to liking the occasional set of trees along a winding boulevard, the shade, the fruits of which, all that good stuff we enjoy. I admit to that, but I had asked Him what I thought were straight and fine questions --for me, for His likeness.

Then He said something that made me shut the hell up. "Use your damned brain, Dillinger, and drive the damned truck. Where the hell are we going, son?"

"See, Lord? there you have it. You called me son. I am your son as all of us are – well, daughters as well, because you made the ladies to keep us company.” That confirmation did make me feel swell so I turned to the path the van was on and thought to myself ‘Damn Lord, you did create some mighty fine trees, Pop!’