‘So you see children, our moment is coming! Oh yes. We are about to turn away from our sorrows and rise up into the greater glory of the Lord. Oh, I can feel it. I feel it in my very bones. How about you?
‘Oh yes, children, a big wind is a blowing, and what’s it whipping up? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s the rapture that’s coming! The moment we rise up and leave our earthly sorrows behind. Can I get an Amen?
‘Do you feel it?
‘Now then. What do we have to do? Do you think the Lord’s just going to show up one day and start handing out mint juleps as we float past on a cloud? No sir!’ Reverend Al claimed. ‘We got to rise up together and grab Satan by the horns and hurl him into the abyss,’Reverend Al claimed as he reached up and grabbed onto Satan, wrestled with him a bit, and cast him deep into the earth’s fiery core. Standing over him defiantly, and heaving from his effort, Reverend Al claimed, ‘That’s what we got to do’.
‘Now who is this Satan? We all know him. He doesn’t like to share. He likes to take it all, even though he can’t possibly deserve all that he’s taken. Ask yourself, why is that? Why can just a few people get so much more than the rest of us, that more people than not are left scrambling just to survive? What kind of life is that? Life shouldn’t be about struggle. All we get is one life. Why should we give up ours because someone else is taking so much more than their share?
‘Oh, I know! I know you’re mad. You’re percolating like a pot of coffee, and if they keep turning up the heat, you’re going to explode. That’s just how you feel. Oh, I know. I know. But the day is coming when we’re all going to stand up together and say, ‘I’m sick of all these tribulations. I’ve had enough!’
‘Now listen children. We’re living in a world of ‘Have Nots’, run by ‘Have’s, If you’re a young one like little Johnny over here, you’re a ‘Have Not’. No fault of his either. The burning earth, floods, famines, economic insecurity and pandemics wait for all our young ones. Why I wouldn’t pay five cents for the life the young ones have coming, unless we do something to change it.
‘Are you feeling it now? Are you one of those people who feel the world is closing in on you? Taking everything from you until you can’t give anymore? $10.00 for a pound of butter. Who has $10.00 for a pound of butter? The ‘Haves’ that’s who. To hell with the rest of us. Can’t even afford butter for our beans and toast!
‘And what about all this technology that our entire civilization went toward building? Who’s going to own the AI and robots? Tools of mass surveillance and destruction when in the wrong hands. And what about all this wonderful medical technology coming along? Life saving and extending technology, that’s being denied us behind a paywall? The steady march of civilization built this technology, not a handful of profiteers. It’s our birthright!
‘Let me tell you this, children, it’s easy to know if you are a ‘Have’ or a ‘Have Not’ in today’s world. You know who you are. You’re the one who sees something coming. It’s going to knock you off the tracks. You can see it coming and there’s nothing you can do about it. Maybe you’re about to lose your high paying job to technology that was created by civilization to make life better for all of us?
‘Oh Lord. There’s so many of us, aren’t there? The numbers grow everyday.
‘Now children, that’s the first thing you have to do. Decide what side of the fence you're going to land on. You should be able to see what lies down the road. If you’re on the ‘Have Not’ side you’re on the side that’s going to get worse until we get together and change it. So children, if you are a ‘Have Not’ look for others and find your community. Those folks are all over the internet. Get involved. Prepare for the Rapture, when all of God’s children rise up and bring peace and harmony to the new world.
‘And what is this Rapture?’ Reverend Al queried, as he lit his handheld gardening torch and took a hit from his gardening pipe. ‘Oh, can’t you just imagine,’ he continued, following a huge exhale of smoke. ‘The end to all our troubles, just lazing up there in the clouds, rolling around heaven all day. How lovely that will be.
‘But that’s not all the rapture is children. Not by a long shot,’ Reverend Al continued after taking another hit of his pipe. ‘Why we aren’t just going to be floating up there in the sky, with little cupids flying around us playing harps. No sir!
‘We’re going to change into something new, and a whole lot better. Why the Rapture means we found the ‘Tree of Life’. Just the ‘Have Nots’ though. The ‘Have’s’ are too bound to their earthly possessions, and are going to get left behind with them. But the rest of us are going to have a jolly time. The rest of us will live forever, and what you do with that time is up to you. Freedom and billions of universes to explore. Why, you can do whatever you can make up, and you’ll never be alone. You’ll always feel us with you, and be just a thought away from the rest of us. Oh, the places we’ll go when we know there’s always going to be a net to catch us. We can’t die, and we have the community of our species’.
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As was his way while gardening, Reverend Al reached a point where he grew rather comfortable and let his thoughts take him where they would. He was now lying on his back beside his huge Amnesia Haze plant, and looking up to the sky.
‘Johnny, I’m getting hungry. Did you bring along some sandwiches for us?’
‘No,’ Johnny replied. ‘I brought gardening equipment, because that’s what Mom thinks we’re doing when we come here.’
‘Well, I don’t know why she wouldn’t pack some sandwiches seeing as we were going to be here for the better part of the day. Just seems like good parenting to me’.
‘If I had good parenting I wouldn’t be forced to spend my life recording an old dope fiend. I’d be out playing with my friends.’
Reverend Al considered Johnny’s argument. It was true Reverend Al felt obliged to take Johnny under his wing to help out his mother, but she was a responsible parent. ‘There’s that hot dog stand not too far from here. I bet your Mom gave you money for hot dogs?’
‘No’. Johnny replied defensively.
‘Oh really?’ Reverend Al noticed Johnny’s quick response, and knew he was onto something. ‘Show me. Empty out your pockets’.
‘I don’t have to.’
Reverend Al did not respond. He just got up on one elbow and stared at Johnny. From past experience, the good Reverend knew his penetrating stare and Johnny’s sense of guilt would cause him to crack.
‘She only gave me enough to get myself a hot dog,’ Johnny confessed.
Reverend Al thought this over. ‘Oh yeah. Not enough for drinks? Maybe a little extra for some popcorn later? Show me’.
Johnny reluctantly pulled out a twenty dollar bill.
‘Why Johnny, we can get a feast with that much money. Four hot dogs if we just drink water. That would make three for me and one for you. Now give me the camera equipment and I’ll carry on here talking to God’s chosen people while you’re off getting those hot dogs. Make sure you put mustard and onions on mine, unless they have sauerkraut. If they have sauerkraut, make two with mustard and onions, and one with mustard and sauerkraut’.
Reverend Al grabbed Johnny’s cellphone. ‘Now get. And don’t forget to bring a couple cups of water back. Old Reverend Al gets thirsty when he’s gardening’.
Johnny held back. ‘It’s my money. I’ll do with it what I want.’
‘Oh, you will, will you?,’ Reverend Al countered. ‘Right now you’re a ‘Have,’ with all that money, and here’s old Reverend Al trying to help you become a ‘Have Not’ and you’re holding out on me. I would not want to be you in the eye’s of the Lord. Oh, there’s a special place for those who don’t share their hot dogs, let me tell you’.
Johnny’s sideways glances towards Reverend Al showed the young lad had yet to form an opinion on where the Lord stood on hot dogs. Reverend Al seized on Johnny’s uncertainty.
‘I would not want to be you when the horsemen of the Apocalypse come down and smite all evil doers, and there’s you holding out on the hot dogs’!
Johnny hesitated, but better safe than sorry, got up and started towards the hot dog cart.
‘Probably gave you that twenty, so you could buy both of us a hot dog and pop, didn’t she?’
This truth caused Johnny to look back involuntarily. Reverend Al knew he had caught him at his deception. ‘Ah, you see!’ He proclaimed. ‘It’s a good thing you have me around to keep you on the straight and narrow. I tell you, some nights I lay awake worrying what would become of you if I wasn’t around to Shepherd your wayward soul. Now get a move on!’
Once Johnny was on his way, the Reverend continued with his sermonizing. ‘Do you see children how important it is to have a guiding hand like old Reverend Al? If I wasn’t here to help him see the righteousness of the situation, that little scamp would have spent all our money on just himself.
‘Now where were we? Oh yeah, what a party it will be when the Rapture comes along. Why, we’re all going to take this leap together, because what it is, is it’s an evolution. Then, we’ll be one with ourselves and one with our species. We’re going to be free as birds, as we travel through space and time together. Where are you going to go? What will you do once your chains have been broken?’
‘Now listen children. The time is upon us. You’ll know when to act. You’ll see the signs. Be ready. The time is upon us’.