Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Repent And You Shall Not Be Saved

                The prince of darkness showed up at my door late one night. I only answered because I had ordered a pizza. He wasn’t delivering my double cheese with jalapenos but he did deliver a message: “Repent and you shall not be saved” he said as he fired up a cigarette. “I think you have that mixed up Mr. Darkness. I think you meant to say repent and you SHALL be saved.” Then I thought about it, why would he want me to be saved? This guy is in the business of the unsaved. This S.O.B. was trying to trick me. If I repent, won’t I be saved? Maybe he did have it mixed up. It’s either repent or damnation but not both right? I needed clarification.
                I invited Mr. Darkness in for a j and a beer to give me some time to try to sort out this dilemma. “Let us not bother with repenting and salvation when I have some grade-A bud and a fridge full of pale ale Mr. Darkness. Let us attend to more, shall I say, higher matters, if you are picking up what I am putting down.” I couldn’t really see his face in the dark because he had his black cloak uniform on but he stepped right in. Without a word he ganked the recliner and the tv remote like he owned the place. He turned the tv to fox news. “I’m gonna go grab the brews, I’ll be right back,” I said innocently. I heard Bill O’Reilly mutter something about his Peabody award as I bolted downstairs to the computer. I googled ‘repent and you shall be saved’ and sure enough, according to some impressive theologians this was quite correct. So then I googled repent: – to feel sorry, self-reproachful, and contrite for past conduct. I definitely feel sorry for myself so I was golden.
                I bounced back upstairs with brews in hand knowing I had this cat in the bag. When I peeked in, Mr. Darkness was watching the playboy channel. “Hey what’s up?” I said rather loudly, and he quickly turned the channel back to fox news. I handed him a brew. I figured we might as well get high before I trounce this sucker with my new-found google knowledge. So we killed a j and laughed our asses off to O’Reilly. Just when I was about to pull the plug on ole beelzebub, the doorbell rang, double cheese with jalapenos I thought.
                I grabbed my wallet and went to the front door. The sweet, sweet smell of pie wafted from that heated bag like an odorous heaven into my needy nostrils. I gladly paid and gave a nice tip and on a whim I asked the delivery guy “hey man, it’s repent and you shall be saved right?” He smirked and said “I may be as high as you but you got it backwards, it’s repent and you shall NOT be saved.” As he turned and walked away I looked down at my pizza and thought what the fuck?
                Heading back inside I wondered why google and theologians would steer me wrong. I was definitely high but this was a real mind bender. I plopped the pie down on the coffee table and Mr. Darkness had no qualms about ganking the first slice. Luckily, I saw that we both needed fresh beers so I said “I’ll go grab two beers, be right back.” I again bolted downstairs to double check my googling and found the same thing…even Wikipedia confirmed that it is repent and you shall be saved. Dumb-ass delivery guy I thought. If he knew anything he wouldn’t be high and delivering pizzas. But why would he have it mixed up?                                                                                                                                                                        
              Beers in hand I went back upstairs to find only two pieces of pizza left. “Jesus, you ate almost all the pie.” He took the beer out of my hand and spoke his first words: “relax.” I quickly grabbed the box to make sure I got at least my two pieces of sweet sweet pie. While I was scarfing down my slices, Mr. Darkness reclined in the chair and again said “Relax. The delivery guy was a plant. But I do want you to use your brain on the matter. Why would anyone feel sorry for their life? Why would such a fallible creature have contrition for fallibility? If ‘to err is human’ and you reproach your humanity, how can you be saved? You can’t. Salvation isn’t after the fact, it’s now baby. What am I Dick Vitale? But you do see my point right? So when I say repent and you shall not be saved it simply means that the waste of time you spend feeling sorry for being human is the very opposite of salvation, it is damnation, dammit!”
                Now light up another j, O’Reilly is coming back on.

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