Goin' To Extremes

This here’s Stretch Coyote talkin’ at ya.

Seems like the whole wide world is at war with them extreme suicide bomber-type folks, or should I say it seems like they’re at war with the whole wide world.

I kinda understand religious fanaticism, seein’ as how I grew up with a few Holy Rollers in the neighborhood. Some of these Type A Christians would have prayer meetin's in this old barn on the edge of town what no one could remember who it belonged to.

(Note to my English teacher, Miss Templeton: Yes, I remember what you said about endin’ a sentence with a preposition, but dang it, you’re dead and grammar has moved on!)

Anyway, these here Holy Roller folk would get so worked up over the Bible and the Holy Spirit and whatever else was in the air that some of them would roll around on the floor like gravity was suddenly too dang strong for them to resist, while others started makin’ weird sounds like a raccoon caught in a trap. More than once did I peek through a knothole in back of the barn, tryin’ to determine if these highly animated parishioners were possessed by the Holy Spirit or the devil.

But then my folks explained to me how plain, ordinary folks just have to go nuts once in a while. At least they were goin’ nuts for the Lord. Now as scary as these folks were to my eight-year-old brain, I knew on Monday they would go back to their regular lives at the tire plant and other employments.

So I kinda understand religious fervor. But just cause you’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean you gotta kill those folks who have a little different point of view. How about tryin' a good old-fashioned argument? We don’t need any kind of religion to turn us into killers. We can do that pretty well on our own. Mabye we should use religion to teach folks not to kill. How about killin' your enemies with kindness?

I just can’t figure how being a murderer qualifies you for heaven. It sure as hell ain’t the kind of heaven I wanna go to.

(Sorry again Miss Templeton, wherever you are.)



~ Stretch Illustration by John Sherffius
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