Selah!

Faith is Also a Bee

Of course you know Paul, the one who ID-ed him as “the son of perdition”; meanwhile, Matthew and Daniel called him an “abomination of desolation”; and not to be outdone, John, who must have been a poet, referred to him as “the Beast from the Abyss” … but they all agreed he would show up at a time of apostasy,

“Abandonment of one's faith …" (I had to look that up), which sounds just about right. Plus, it’s clear all four offered double thumbs-up to the notion that he’d deceive the people, sit himself right down in the temple of God, claim to be God himself, demand fealty—I didn’t have to look that up—and more disheartening, his followers, who I must believe love their kids as much as I love mine, got the fealty thing down pat, bowing and scraping as if he’s a savior, despite that unholy litany of broken commandments, some perverse version of “love the sinner, hate the sin” slithering from their lips as they close deal after deal with a Lucifer in elevator shoes, Brioni suits, a graphic novel villain who despises the meek, loathes the frail, detests all who are common, like you and me—yes, you, yes, me—and our kids—not to mention the wretched refuse of our teeming shores, the ones youknowho, oh yes youdoknowwho, told us are the blessed, would inherit the earth. To you I say Selah! For all of us, I say Selah! For the debauched soul of this angry bullet- riddled nation, I say Selah! (Check the Psalms.)

—SL, New Paltz, NY, June 2023