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Email From Down Home and a Response. (Editor’s note; I’ve received the below email more than once. The format has been cleaned up a bit. Otherwise it’s unchanged).

I. The Email:

New Pledge of Allegiance!

Keep this going. Maybe those with half a brain will see it. Since the Pledge of Allegiance and The Lord's Prayer are not allowed in most public schools anymore Because the word "God" is mentioned....A kid in Arizona wrote the attached NEW School prayer. I liked it....

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's "inappropriate" to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such "judgments" do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

Amen

If you aren't ashamed to do this, please pass this on. Jesus said, "If you are ashamed of me,
I will be ashamed of you before my Father."

Not ashamed. Passing this on.

II. The Response:

Hi --

Thanks for emailing the little jewel about the schools and all. I've been really worried about this stuff too. I'm getting ready to go to back to school myself. Wanting to fit in, I picked up a bulletproof vest, some condoms and stopped by the piercing parlor for a belly button ring. Then I went in to see my hair cutter down at Community Cuts. "Francina," I said, "I'm going back to school. Spike it! Purple, orange and green!” Fingering the rosary around her neck, that uppity little dumpling said I didn't have anything to spike. When I took offense at her unbridled impertinence, she ordered me to "leava my shoppa!" Italians! As I walked out the door of her miserable place of business, back straight, chin up, impervious to her muttered calumny, I said to no one in particular but quite assertively, "has anyone ever thought about how much those Catholic rosaries resemble Muslim prayer beads?"

Walking home, I passed the laundry belonging to Kim and his wife Seung. Koreans! I can see through the window, Kim smiling treacherously and waving, that smarty-pants daughter of theirs sitting behind the counter studying. She just finished MIT. Now she’s been admitted to Harvard law. But they’re Buddhists! A Christian could’ve filled those spots at MIT and Harvard. The dentist’s office is just around the corner. Dr. Anat Aswany. Egyptian! You know who those Arabs worship. The guy who pumps gas at Mobico is Lebanese. My internist up the street is Jewish.

I sigh in despair. If only a Christian teacher at school led us all in Christian prayer. If the children of the Hindus and atheists, pagans and Muslims don’t like it, they can leave. Likewise the Jewish kids. That’s what the Germans did. Ordered the Jewish kids to get out of the room during prayer. In the crusades, Christians simply went over to the Middles East with Jesus in their hearts and swords in their hands, massacring Jews, along the way. Once they got there, they told the Muslims to accept our Lord and Savior Jesus or get a Christian sword through their gizzards. And the Crusaders didn’t even get any oil for riding all the way from Western Europe on a horse. Some of those Christian Crusaders ran out of provisions as they were out doing Christ’s work and ate captured Turks and Saracens, sectioning the Muslim grownups before cooking them, but grilling the Muslim children whole. You think those Crusaders would’ve let anyone deny them their Christian right to recite “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? You can bet your Coleman barbeque grill they wouldn’t

As I walked, knowing I wouldn't be able to do so in school, I prayed and recited the pledge of allegiance out loud, enunciating 'under God' in an especially commanding voice. Despairing, eyes misty, I faced up to the inevitable and threw the Bible I always carry away a page at a time, starting in the book of Exodus with the Ten Commandments. Everyone of whatever race and creed was respectful, giving me wide berth until got to the corner of Hopedale and Prospect Streets. There a black and white screeched to a stop. This big ugly got out and stood in my path, one hand on the handle of that holstered 9 mm. "And who," he inquired, "in th' name o' th' Holy Virgin might you be?" I told him, and I attempted, quite patiently, to explain about the schools and all, him shaking that huge head all the time. I demanded the miscreant's name. "Dillon O'Shea," the lickspittle replied. I immediately wrote it down on the memo pad I always carry in my shirt pocket, anticipating possible legal action. He finally stroked his chin with his free hand, shook his head again and said, "It'll be a warning this time. Littering.”

Incensed at this reference to the God's Holy Word as litter, overcome by righteous anger, I’m afraid I suggested that he do something anatomically improbably to himself. Narrow-eyed, he drew forth his billy club and menaced me with it. Using the word “daft,” he stated that I’d best “get along” or I would be “taken into custody.” A lot of those micks are atheists, you know.

Cicero, though he was not a follower of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, had it right: “O Tempora! O Mores!” I bet the prom queen at my school is pg, too. Probably doesn't even know who the daddy is. Or what race he is. Or care. As the kid in Arizona said in his poem, “In this great nation under God/much is going on that's very odd."

How I long to be back where many people do have half a brain.

Yours in Christ,

John R. Guthrie

P.S. Please don’t be ashamed of him and pass this on.

Temptations:

A priest and a rabbi were discussing the requirements of their faiths.

“We Jews,” the rabbi said, “don’t eat pork.”

“Celibacy, the priest commented,” is one of the primary rules of the priesthood.”

“Have you ever broke that rule?” the rabbi asked.

“ Once,” the priest replied. “I was weak and broke my vow of celibacy.”

The rabbi nodded consolingly and said, “Lots better than pork isn’t it?”

The Chickasaw Plum - Volume I - Number 3 - November 2004

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