By: Hunter Christian
Some Sunday in Everytown, U.S.A.
On a first Sunday in May,
a small seemingly devout congregation prays,
about the six days prior,
and the deceit that made them liars,
amongst the swallowed yawns,
still lingering in their dry throats, since awakening at dawn,
a townsfolk so petty, with mendacity at the ready, constant
deceitfulness rendering them tired,
Entrenched within duplicity, this small Everytown is mired,
As the preacher interprets scripture,
The same gospels spewed long ago by backcountry Medieval
friars,
He paints a pretty picture,
He pounds his fists on the pulpit when he speaks of brimstone
and fire,
Fiery words laced heavily with Old Testament stricture,
and postulations about End Times and the role of Satan the
habitual liar,
Yes indeed, the brush strokes are swift and harsh, but the canvas
lay bare,
Still, unbeknownst even to themselves, the parishioners do not
seem to care,
Their attendance depends rather on a longheld sense of guilt,
Burned into young minds as learned indoctrination, that
resembles anything, but anything honest and fair,
It\'s been the same since the church had been built,
Save for one hypocrite amongst the churchgoers who believes,
that she\'s above all the rest, who says at the very best, the others
only seek heavenly reprieve,
and all the rest, who at worst,
lazily practice feigned faith to readily deceive,
because with every single breath,
their doubt is overshadowed by their mortal fear of death,
When judgment day arrives, the lady decries,
within the line at heaven\'s gate, when all shall learn their fate,
for in that line, her brethren shall be the last, pitiful victims of their
pasts,
while she will be among the very first, to be quenched of her
mortal thirst,
When judgment day arrives, she claims, and the Lord judges the
parishioner\'s lives, saved will be the righteous, and to hell with the
cursed
As the congregation shuffles out,
And as eyes look about,
Folks wondering who\'s rife with envy, lust, and doubt,
Shuffling onward they do,
from the rows and rows of pews,
shared with their family, friends, and neighbors,
The judgmental ones begin again, to bear the fruit of faith\'s true
labors,
these labors the townsfolk savor,
yet believe somehow, if practiced, that God will still grant them all
favor
*
Here comes the everyday lay Christian lady on mission
*
There\'s no need to seek nor search,
For the lady of whom I speak, although appearing prim and
proper, persnickety, yet meek, and with no hint of shame,
Nor any semblance of remorse, this Christian lady, will leave
anyone she deems lesser, of course, lingering in the lurch,
For any transgressions lay bare at her feet, she never accepts the
same, but quickly shirks, shifting away the blame,
A judgmental self-proclaimed “Christian lady” steps out through
the front doors of Everytown\'s small Baptist Church
She takes measure as she surveys the parking lot,
high above from her righteous perch
She pulls out her do-gooder yardstick
She casts coal-black eyes that love to scrutinize,
with a bent toward flagrant arrogance, the lady enjoys cutting
folks down to size,
knocking them down a peg or two, to expose their blasphemous
ways,
all along the way,
etching notches into her yardstick,
while she selflessly does (she tells herself) God\'s good work,
the only activity that really makes her tick
*
She\'s the everyday lay Christian lady on a mission
*
She holds her yardstick nice and steady
With keen ears and a sharp tongue at the ready
Tools of the trade she hangs by a crucifix in her kitchen
She lacks the courage of her lofty convictions
As she spews a mouth full of derision
towards any unsuspecting parishioner
whose sins she had envisioned
foretold to she by her Lord and creator
A verbal agreement now on the table for rescission
First, she must accost the offender to litigate and debate her
Rendering a verdict relies solely upon a holier than thou decision
She the judge, as she the jury,
she the executioner too,
rife with Old Testament fury
The judgment she hands down is always free of mistakes
It\'s her\'s and her\'s alone to make
made alone in God’s good name for goodness sake
*
Here comes the everyday lay Christian lady on a mission
*
Wanton hypocrisy seems to be her only measurable quality
If only she would turn her yardstick on herself to measure
The inequality evident when she uses her yardstick wreaks of
frivolity
Her Sunday leisure, finds its pleasure, by creating in others, a
strong sense of guilt and displeasure,
within the very folks she calls sisters and brothers
With hypocrisy abound, and without a wry whisper or a whispered
sound
she trades upon her faith while being unfaithful with another
This tawdry little story spread quickly around Everytown
*
She\'s the everyday lay Christian lady on a mission
*
The rapture is nigh, she claims to have previsioned, in heavenly
visions
On Judgment Day, she decries, loudly and proudly,
that most of the congregation will be left writhing in the lurch
“You don\'t go to church,”
She starts to preach, “to get your ears tickled”
Always right, never wrong, of her sense of superior morality, she
lives to teach and preach
to every vulnerable ear her preachy sermons may reach
With a checkered past all her own
seeds of debauchery she has willfully sown
to reap only vinegar when her seeds had grown
An eldest boy grew to manhood with a father who remained
unknown
And the third born girl, who\'s rumored to have a father,
other than the father who raised her as his own
She is the town busybody spreading rumors most of the day over
the phone
All the while, her coalminer husband works his fingers to the bone
Decrying for pity\'s sake
That she\'s lonely and alone
A bed of adultery she will wantonly make
She balks at the suggestion that she should atone
Yet, she\'s always at the head of the line to cast the first stone
From high on a hill where her glass house sits
Judgmental, mean, unfaithful, and dishonest
With a dry sense-of-humor and disposition prone to throwing
childlike fits
*
She\'s the everyday lay Christian lady on a mission
*
She refuses to change her two-faced ways
Her judgmental hypocrisy remains, an incessant mainstay
Life is black and white, she claims, there\'s no place for gray
Always a ‘do as I say and not as I do’ kind of friend
Casing her small-town for an eager ear-to-bend
To preach, to teach, to any bent ear she can somehow reach
Foretelling conditions of the afterlife and to where God will
ultimately send,
The souls of those wretched sinners who, with every breath taken,
anger him as they offend
*
Goodnight to the everyday lay Christian lady on a final mission
*
Early one Saturday night she went to bed,
to rest her aching head,
following the prayers she found herself deeply immersed in
She was religiously an early to bed, early to rise kind of person,
Especially for church on Sundays
In the early morning hours on that second Sunday in May,
after every last person in the house has knelt down and prayed,
the lay Christian lady\'s husband went up to her bedroom to make
sure she was awake
A faint smile of approval adorned her husband\'s face when, early
that morning, he found his wife dead
She was cold to the touch, and as stiff as a board
Her husband whispered low, “Well, she\'s surely with the Lord”
The everyday lay Christian lady on a mission lay lifeless atop her
bed
On her nightstand, a portrait of Saint Peter stood close to her
head,
and right beside good ole Peter, sat a glass half full with sweet
red wine
and on a nearby plate sat three cubes of even sweeter melt-in-
your-mouth leaven bread
All three were essentials required for any devout Christian to take
self-communion
However, on that morning, the lady needn\'t take communion,
for somewhere in the night, her last mission took flight, and she
flew to God,
to once-and-for-all, sanctify their holy union
As the lady lay there resting in peace,
just outside her bedroom window, a springtime rain took to
steadily pouring,
the everyday lay Christian lady finally met the man,
she spent a lifetime lovingly adoring
Dona nobis pacem.