Many followers of the Christ assume only they are going to Heaven. Even worse, within Christianity, there are pickers and choosers; they claim to speak for God and freely condemn all sorts of people, just like the Pharisees did in their day. So this is dedicated to the harder hearts among Jesus’ legacy, sure the Rapture is just around the bend and rubbing their hands in delight and/or angst about all us miserable folks who are surely going to Hell.
Honey, Hell is right here on earth… just look in a crack den. I don’t believe in the Rapture. Jesus said love God and each other. God is LOVE! Can I get an “amen”? Amy
A THOUSAND YEARS
A Fundie sighed
that if I died
today, I’d go to Hell
“How do you know
just where I’ll go;
and when we’ll hear that bell?”
Until the “Rapture,”
let us capture
what God bids us to do:
Doing justice
living kindness
and walking humbly, too
End it today?
Guess I’d say
I truly have no fears
I live as though
the earth will go
another thousand years
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image by Monty Propps at b3ta
Pastor Hellevangelist
Sunday morning funnies aren’t in
the newspaper but on
TV, toupeed and pancaked
Those televangelists put on
quite a show, preachin’ ‘bout
all the horrible sins they know
will send YOU straight to Hell
Then the preacher’s healings they show
Miss “Mah sinuses ache” WHAM!
The Holy Spirit is there in his hand
She’s on the floor, flailing, flattened
Now he’s singin’ solo with the band
Amazing, grace has graced this man
with abundance straight from God:
Mansion, limo, trophy wife
Teleparishioners are awed
and send him money to keep up
his cathedral lifestyle
A few bucks to Darfur, but most
keeps up his shiny white smile
He’s quick on the drawl, sending
other folks all to Hell
‘til he’s caught with this mistress
at the local No-Tell Motel
or taking young boys under his wing
and under the covers
under cover of righteousness
Then his wife discovers
So Sunday, tune in, turn on to
the big show: The Satanic versus
the squeaky-clean teleGod man
He knows all the curses
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Written for ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter P. Also at my cornerstone, Poets United.
Whose Side Are They on Now?
When things go right…
when her friend’s surgery is successful;
when his kid scores a goal;
when the baby is born with ten and ten
and Mom’s epidural was spot-on;
when a football player executes a game-saving touchdown,
when an old guy, down to his last buck at the bar,
hits the TV gambling jackpot,
it’s “Praise Jesus!”
They crow, “Thank God!”
When war rips a relentless dagger with
no healing in store,
and “smart bombs” hit the
“actionable intelligence” targets
(and only kill a few kids and other civilians),
when a dictator who was funded by the US but
falls out of favor ends up on the wrong side of a noose,
it’s, “God is on our side!”
When Katrina hit New Orleans,
when earthquakes hit Los Angeles,
Bible Belters shouted, “It’s because of all the sin
that is tolerated there! It was God’s will!”
(Sure, there’s that racist tinge to the condemnation…
never mind that the majority of Katrina victims
were people of color who worked hard to maintain
their neighborhoods, while the vast majority of “sinners”
are white college girls who get stinking drunk and
flash their boobs to get Mardi Gras beads…)
“Praise Jesus, who looks after the righteous,”
says the preacher, passing the collection plate.
(It’s all in the timing.)
But when a neighbor is laid off or gets
screwed out of a pension,
when someone on your block develops cancer and
it’s already Stage Four,
or it’s your kid who’s hit by a drunk driver
or knocked up by her own uncle…
Whose side is God on now?
Does Jesus hate your neighbor? Is that why he’s
slumping his shoulders in the unemployment line?
Does God think it was the 13-year-old girl’s fault
for “tempting” her pedophile uncle?
Do God and Jesus sit on high and zap people
with cancer when they are bored?
Think about these things
the next time you presume
to speak for God.
And feel free to give a copy of this to your pastor.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 