Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Just sayin' what I probably shouldn't...

Yesterday was weird...  It started out okay.  I had a sub  but I ran by school for a minute.  Came home and remembered I had pre-ordered a book on my new Kindle.  Still am fascinated with how I can click on a website, watch a little circle image in the corner of the Kindle and... voila:  I have a book!  I love that!  (So does my credit card company..)
But I wasn't sure about  pre-ordering .. How would that work?  I had barely connected with the website before  something started downloading!  While I was crowing about that to my long-suffering husband, the phone rang: an automated message saying school would be closed tomorrow.  I immediately put the Kindle aside and e-mailed the news to a friend.
Then it was time to head to Smackover for a funeral. I had a vague idea that it was South of Little Rock but I had Map Quest directions so I wasn't worried.  As it turned out, I should have been.  I now have the rare distinction of getting hopelessly lost in Smackover, a town with one traffic light, which rises out of the main intersection like a lamp post out of Narnia. Not kidding...
After fruitlessly asking for directions, I accidentally stumbled upon, not the church but the cemetery.  I saw an awning, a work van, and one lone guy in faded  clothes puttering around the gravesite.
It was past time for the church service to start so I gave up and just parked the car right where I was, pulled out my Kindle, and started reading in the New Testament where I had left off.  The passage was Luke 15 in the Wuest edition - not an easy read. However, the story was the Prodigal Son - one I like.
Not much else to do so I kept reading until I came to the narrative about the  poor man, Lazarus, and the unnamed rich man.  In college I'd had to translate it from Old English to modern English and I'd never really liked it since.
However... I'm sitting in a cemetery, one out of two above ground people in the whole place.  (And  I can tell you right now that  the cemetery guy was not  a chatterbox. Also,  for the record:  if I did for a living what he does for a living, I'd know how to get to every church in the vicinity and then some..)
At any rate, I continued to read in Luke, came to this statement, and hit pause.  "...the beggar died and was carried off by the angels to become a partaker of... paradise..And the rich man also died... and in the unseen world of departed human beings..."
Unseen world of departed beings????  
I looked at the tombstones around me and thought, "Okay... moving right along."
The narrative changes to a dialog between the rich man, who is not in paradise, and God,who explains to him that ".. in all these regions, between us and all of you a chasm, a great one, has been placed permanently.."
A chasm that has been placed permanently?
I'm thinking, "I know the Bible is true but, seriously..?  A chasm?"
And then the thought comes to me, "Well, there's a chasm between myself and almost everyone else in this place..."
Ughhh.... And I'm not talking the boots here.
So much for the Bible; time to read my new book..
I switch to the new book, first page, and start reading.   Chapter One. For most of a day, I'd been climbing a sharp incline of rocks and shale, toward an outcropped ledge that would afford a better view... Finally.. I stepped out on that ledge and looked. What I saw took my breath away.  There it lay... the thing I'd been warned about... Before me lay the biggest obstacle imaginable...That great yawning chasm sucked all hope from my heart.."
Okay... I'd downloaded the book because Randy Alcorn is one of my favorite authors and whatever he does, I'm going to read it.  So I go to the cover belatedly and look at the title:  The Chasm...
Okay... that does it... time to go buddy up with the graveyard worker... After all, the guy was probably bored...
Just sayin'

2 comments:

  1. Okay...this soooooo amused me!!! Don't hang out in a cemetery for long periods ever again! :)

    Also, I love e-mails after we get "the call!!!"

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  2. Well, let's just say I tried.. but failed to make a new friend... :)

    ReplyDelete