Everyday Mission of Attrition

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.