(Don't) Follow the Leader

(Don’t) Follow The Leader

(“Balak did what Balaam told him, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.” Numbers 23:2)

Do what the soothsayer tells you, the fortune-teller with cardboard credentials;
I know it resembles (with incense and candles) every prayer you’ve observed
on better days from behind the oaken pews. And what do you get for your
credit-card donation? What return for the best guess your private guru made
about your future abounding in words sounding like the litanies you chanted
from the back of the hymnal.

For another fifty dollar donation they will throw in the last known location
of Noah’s ark, just in case you’re ready to fund an expedition. The holy grail
is a steal at 150. For half a thousand the mystic pretender will whisper the
exact date of the Final Judgment, throwing in for free a well-worn map
(a cousin bought it from a pawn store in Kentucky) showing the address
of a brother, another seer, who almost had his hands upon the Ark
of
the
Covenant.

Buy a subscription and your religion will be complete; a monthly chant, scratch-and-sniff
aromas from Bible Land plants, water from the source of your choosing (Jordan, Nile, Dead or Red Sea), anointing oil just like the oil from Christ’s burial pad. Trinkets to line your
bookcase. Talismans to line your sweaters while you eat your Lucky Charms
for breakfast.

How fast we are swindled. How slow we adopt freedom’s offering. Grace is greater than
a piece of wood that contributed to Jesus’ crucifixion tree. We explode so shallow,
we reason in the shadows and carry our fellow sufferers down the silly trail
marked with sleight-of-hand tricks every quarter mile.

Oh, Love of the soul’s best songs, mercy which echoes the Name above All.
All
is
paid.

The band plays like babies pounding primary color xylophones to impress
each visitor with joy and liberty freely met.