Introducing the Backsliding Story

This is part #1 of the "Backsliding" story, an excerpt from Chapter 1

“The Lord wants to bless you but…”

“Yeah? But what?”

“So, if that is true, why then is she a god, and not me?”

“God,” they say, “wants to do this, and God wants to do that, but God can’t do it because…” And he was like, “What! Why then is she a god and not me? Or you, or the other guy person over there without the shoe, what is hindering her? What is that thing that is preventing your god whom you say is all those things and can do all those things? What’s preventing her from doing what she wants so very much to do? Like, to bless the brother, or the sister, for instance, and you? If she’s a god, in truth, and if she really wants to do that, like bless the brother. What’s preventing her?”

Oh yeah, I forgot. It’s him, the brother, and you, and me. It is us, all of us, and she who are to be blamed because we are the ones who are found here preventing her from doing it, by constantly doing all these other things, with you in it. Oh sheet! that’s it, the things that we should not be doing ever, but are always found to be doing, all the time. Nobody can ever stop us from doing these wrong things, not even her. But how did we get here, to the wrongdoers’ end of the city square? Well, as for him, the brother? Listen to him, he’s got an answer for you. It was some savage beast from a wilderness theme that had bitten the brother hard in the crust of his bloodstream. Oh, how he hollered, oh how the brother screamed. But no one was found worthy enough to reach out and save him, well, so it would have seemed.

He had to cry out yet more, had to curse at them, just to stop himself from popping open like a door, blowing up, and bursting, kaboom. Could he find you doing the wrong thing though, like, when upon his imminent return, if he should find you and me, like, drifting, drifting away? Like some of us have been seen doing these days, even while doing all those other things, in the same unholy ways. Like, while you were there; a-lean, lean, leaning? Leaning on the wrong side of everything? Of course, not you, only the other Ewe, as in him. Elkhan the elk is what I mean, as it is in this case of rice and beans. He alone could be found guilty of such, it’s now on your face over the wash basin in the house, no? “No.” 

But then again, it finally clicked and popped open when he saw how they reacted, in response to it then, like a token. The new project, you know. How normal it had become for them, the not normal conditions as it was seen happening over on our hometowns' end. It came about in nasty, lethal looks that could kill lesser mortals than he had by then become, like a legal crook. Those types of looks must have killed him many times before, that's why he never got around to living at all. Living his life like he'd wanted to, not just sliding down the waterfall. But look, he's back now, and he's going to live, even if it kills him, and you? They did try to kill him, yes, if only in his spirit, and dreams.

But he wasn't going down without a fight. For this cause though, some will even dare to die, for that cause too, if it is found to be as worthy as you, no, not I. As for Elkhan the elk, he believes in the cause, well, well, of course, his cause. These very causes right here, are included in there. Even though, he knows very well that, the long knives are already out, and are on the millstone, grinding. They're grinding away at it and sharpening it razor-sharp today, getting ready for the attack and the neck-slit. Okay? "Yes." Everybody is readying themselves for the slaughtering in the dark, king, and backflips. But. "Come along now," said he, "let's reason this out, together."

They'd sanctioned a son, a member of the service, from free service to them, Sis, and for what? For daring to do something other than that, or this. You know! Like, something unthinkable to them. For daring to create something like a cap for his head top. What kind of people do things like that anyway? Well, listen up, I'll tell you. The kind of people who have lost their way. They're not bad people, they're just lost people, yay. They might just need someone to redirect them and get them to refocus.

Elk would have gotten himself benched by the governing body of the church. "For four weeks," they'd said, like a curse. That would mean, four weeks of him sitting down and doing nothing in church, you know. Well, not nothing-nothing. In reality, it was four weeks of him not serving in the church in his usual capacity as a musician. Sometimes as a scripture reader to the pastor and other preachers there on a mission, yay, it's a fun time. As the secretary and treasurer for the men's fellowship, and to a lesser extent, as a school bus driver for the Sunday school department among other things to fit in the yellow ship.

To a lesser extent in the case of the bus driver bit here, because had it been left up to the whims and fancy of the main instigator of these events' antics? He would still be there; vroom, vroom, vrooming around and beep, beep, beeping away at driving the church bus into space today. Which was to serve as a point to rally in getting him to think very critically. In thinking, he'd managed to discover a few more sin ting, somethings amongst them. Like, he was to find out that:

There are some jobs that everyone seemed willing, "able? Perhaps not," and even delighted to do on any given day, even under the table. "Yea-you." Some not so much so but still, I'd say. There won't be any trouble in finding takers for those said types of jobs. This leaves us with two other types to consider for the crabs: (a) the job that people may think that everybody, including you, and me too. You really love it or should love to do that job, and you don't want to be prevented from doing it at all, right? And (b,) then there's the one that no one else wants to do or, was found capable of doing. In this case, that job is driving the Sunday school bus for them into space. Or even to take the rest of us into "our" comforts (for goodness' sake,) in those days, and why? It's because it's way too demanding and time-consuming a job for them. On top of the fact that such a person has got to be very well-trained and certified at what she does on this wise. Quite unlike most, or all else there among them, and their wives.

"Oh, Chru-ice!"

"Yes, just the words I heard him cry that night." So, the person who (for whatever reason) decides to take on this job, it's his, (or hers) for the long haul.

"Four weeks," they'd said, of him being benched. But then came the question from the other friendly gents, as to what does that mean? "What does it entail for him?"

"He should sit down and do nothing in the church, don't let him play the music or read the scripture for the pastor during Sunday morning worship service, as was the custom before this." That was the reply.

"He also drives the bus," came a quick reminder from another who was sitting there amongst them and us. Then came the qualifications from; guess who, behind her bus stand? Yes, you, you've got it right, Mom. From the main instigator of the suspension actions in proper, ma-man, no less. He suddenly wanted to screen out that part of the youth's many jobs. Those that the elk was found doing there for them, at the time, so that he would continue doing that thing, (perhaps,) since no one else was found able, or willing to do it. Again, we say, "perhaps," to these things, since we don't know, and will never know exactly what others think, on such to-do-lists.

"Very convenient," said the elk that evening, to them and us, little miss. That was when and where the conversation took a dramatic turn, and has been spinning, spinning, spinning away ever since, on corners and turns. All along the winding road through the gully of ferns. "Why get angry, though?" asked the Elk on the way to go. Especially when one can't even get "even." Nor even a better bow-outing reason. "Get Insight," said the Elk that night, get insights, instead.

That's it for today, see you again tomorrow, or sometime thereafter. Don't forget to like, share, and comment. We sure would appreciate it if you would subscribe and follow us somewhere too, thank you. 

@WritingElk