had been a mortal sin or a heavenly virtue three or four thousand years ago was not the same for entry today, or in the future for that matter. For example, for a while, killing thy neighbor was OK, if they really deserved it and you did it in large enough numbers. If you don't believe me, ask the Canaanites. You could covet thy neighbor's wife if you were careful about it, and it was OK with her. You didn't have to do unto others as they would do unto you. You could ignore them completely if you wanted to. And "tradition" was no longer an excuse for stupidity. During eras of weak spiritual commitment, he even allowed his name to be used in vain. He figured that was better than having nobody talk about him at all.
Meanwhile, 10 the depths, busy on the fourth ring of "The Endless Numb," Satan was enjoying himself immensely. He had fashioned a most devilish torment. A sort of steeple-chase of the hereafter. His idea was to have all the newly arrived souls who were clever enough, find their way through the "Maze of Remorse," climb the "Ladder of Abuse, " and enter the "Dark Wood of the Unamused ." Then over the "Arch of the Incoherent, " and on to the "Pit of the Masturbators." The Pit was always writhing with blind and anguished young "weenie wompers, " as he laughingly referred to them. Now though , because of God's new rules, they would not only have their sight restored, but would be given a magazine subscription to Big Bad Mommas, have the hair removed from their palms, and sent on their way. All in his name. "Blessed be the name of the Lord." And then God, knowing that shit rolls downhill, put the "Valley of the Lawyers" directly below "Glutton Mountain." Very blessed be the name of the Lord.
Satan, in an inspired bit of creativity, outdid Maestro Dante himself when he came up with "The Cocktail Party That Never Ends." Sinners there were required to keep a perpetually frozen grin on their faces while listening to the same joke that they had been telling each other over and over and over again for centuries. You know, the twenty minute joke about the Pollack, the Catholic, the Protestant, the Jew, the Negro, the Chinaman, the nun and the midget who were stuck on a Boeing 7 4 7 with engine trouble over the Atlantic Ocean. I won't finish the joke now. You'll probably be hearing it someday yourself, and I don't want to spoil it for you.
Only God can make a tree.
God had dozed off.
Satan had planned for this carefully. Selecting the lushest, most verdant, fertile garden of paradise, he gleefully turned it into a desolate, barren wasteland where no life flourished, no flower grew. He felt ten feet tall.
This was his most malevolent masterpiece. This huge, festering, open sore in the earth's crust, with red oozing gashes where clear rivers once flowed.
God was stirring now. In his after-nap haze, he had trouble remembering exactly when and how he had created something as magnificent as the Grand Canyon.
The balance of nature?
I think we're talking leftovers.
FRANCIS OF AZUSA
The wild creatures of the world have never had a greater friend than Francis of Azusa.
His sweet nature and kind heart affected his ideas about the animals he loved so much, in a way that can only be viewed as poetic. Nature's indifferent ways were not his ways.
For example, Francis was sure that possums play dead for the same reason he prayed-so they would be ready when the real thing came along. He hoped that someday dolphins would let us in on what they found so amusing. He believed that almost all warthogs led celibate lives, and that the few who din't, imagined they were doing it with gazelles.
He felt that whales are bored stiff, that's why they beach themselves, that bumblebees and hummingbirds must be exhausted, woodpeckers get terrible headaches, and penguins are freezing their buns off. He was certain that bats used sonar because they can't stand the way they look either. He wanted to find out who ate dead vultures.
Those were just some of the things Francis of Azusa was determined to do something about.
Even sympathetic animal rights groups thought his methods extreme.
He ran with the morons at Pamplona and tried to reason with them. He tried to get cheetahs to develop a taste for acorns and berries and leave the wildebeests alone, but they chased his ass all over the Serengeti Plain.
He got a lamb to lie down with a lion, but when he got back from a lunch break he was surprised to find that the lamb had left.
He abandoned his crusade to turn nature's predators into vegetarians when he realized that some plants have central nervous systems.
Yet no sparrow fell that did not cause his heart to ache. The gentle and saintly Francis could not even bring himself to swat a mosquito.
He died of malaria.
The innocent wild creatures of the meadow, vale, forest, and plain did not mourn, nor really notice his passing. And in the spruce woods, deep in fern and thistle where he peacefully rests today, the rain falls and the wind blows just as it always has.
The Garden of Eden
I THINK ALOT, THEREFORE I AM A LOT.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE
General Robert E. Lee, the military commander of the Confederate forces, graciously accepted the complete surrender of Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army at Appomattox. The bloody American Civil War was over. The South had won decisively.
President Jefferson Davis moved immediately into the White House.
Abraham
