“Big Dope,” he said. “Been looking for you.” He was breathing heavily and beginning to perspire.
“I’ve been right here. What makes you look so concerned?”
“From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and
down in it.”
“That sounds vaguely familiar.” I motioned toward his blue
blazer with the YCA logo. “Nice clothes.”
“Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I
return thither,” he said.
“Oh, please,” I said. “Can’t you be more original than that?”
“Be careful,” he said. “Do you have something against the
Holy Word?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Just those who would use it for their
own selfish purposes. And what brings you here?”
“A Young Conservatives conference. We’re meeting nearby.”
“And your theme?”
“Using churches to advance the conservative agenda,” he
said.
“That explains your practicing the scriptures.”
“Nice park,” he said in an attempt to change the subject. “The
city should be proud.”
I decided to play along and screw with him a bit. “Well, it was built by the government.” I let this sink in. “I thought you hated the government.”
He took on a stricken look. “We don’t hate the government,”
he said.
“Oh really?”
“No, just the parts we don’t like.”
“Oh, I see. And those are?”
“Anything that doesn’t make us, or our parents, richer.”
“But of course.”
We started walking again. “What do you suppose we shall do?”
he said. “When we have all the money and all the things money can buy?”
“I dunno. Start taking it away from one another?”
“No,” he said. “We won’t allow that to happen. We’ll have
the military to prevent it.”
“One of the parts of the government you do like?”
“Of course.” He continued walking. Then he turned and said, “But
won’t the poor be a problem? Who will take care of them?”
“I thought Jesus said we were supposed to.”
“Oh bother,” he said with indignation. “Don’t start with your
‘Social Gospel’ crap. It’s taken us years to wash the stench of that out of the
churches.”
“I see,” I said.
“Besides,” he said. Didn’t the ‘great man’ himself admit that
the poor would be with us always?”
“I think he did.” I looked over toward him. “So you and your
pals are just helping to fulfill prophecy?”
 |
| If children would just be more careful about whom they choose for parents, any one of them might be eligible someday for the Young Conservatives of America. - C.W. |
“Absolutely,” he said. “We must all do our part.”
“So you have the joint goals of producing the poor and
keeping them poor?”
He contemplated this. “I never thought of it quite that way,”
he said. “But it is a scriptural imperative.”
“Sort of like a ‘moral imperative’ but with your own slant
on it?”
“Quite so,” he said.
“That would explain your current war on contraception.”
He narrowed his face in thought. “I suppose you are right.”
Then he brightened. “Doing the Lord’s work is fairly simple once you get the
hang of it.”
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