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OK, it's done. My tears have dried up, mostly ...

It's OK for me to pray, now. I haven't been able to for the most part for a long time....

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Thank you for letting me speak about some of the things on my mind, and again, I'm sorry about the garbage coming out of my mouth. There's no one around here whom I can talk about these things to, that I know, and I have to get rid of it, somehow. Special thanks to Nico, whose been writing to me on the side, just being a friend.

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What will He say to me? I don't know. I anticipate something like, "you should have thought of that beforehand."

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By the way, I'v e got a little story about a lamb who falls into a pigpen and gets rescued by a man dressed in white. Would you like me to send it to you? It would make a great children's story.

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I too am devastated when I look at myself, when I realize all the evil I have done or even more striking, the good I have neglected to do.

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Gary, I'm glad you're okay. If I may ask, what made you so upset?

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Children love stories, and I love to tell them ones that have a real purpose. I have one (that's in my head...never written it down really) about that wooly lamb they found about a year ago that had never been sheared (shorn?). Let's swap!

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The Parable of the Lamb and the Pigpen

Once there was a lamb, a frisky, happy little lamb, who was usually pretty good. He lived with his father and mother and brothers and sisters out in the country. On his way to lamb school every day he had to pass by a pigpen, a very large one.

“Stay away from there,” his father and mother both warned, “because it’s a very dangerous place.”

Sometimes he would sneak over and climb a tree next to the fence where he could watch all the fun going on inside. There were slime fights and chases and wallows, and all sorts of adult drinks, adult parties, adult movies, and loud music.

One day he accidentally slipped from an overhanging branch into the pigpen.

“Oh Oh,” he said as he looked all around, “I don’t know how to get back out. The fence is too high for me to climb.” He sighed. The cool, squishy muck felt so good to his hot, tired little feet. After a while, he went straight to the middle and decided to have a little fun and roll around in the mud and the slop. Soon, he was covered from head to foot with all that nasty stuff.

“This is so much fun!” he squealed.

A very large pig came over to him and said, “Hey, you must be new here. Put this on so no one will notice.”

The large pig handed the lamb a scruffy looking pigskin, complete with a hollowed out pig’s head. When the lamb put it on, it was too loose, and the head slipped off to one side. The very large pig cinched the skin on tightly with a strap around his middle so that it would not fall off.

The lamb still had fun, though, and never failed to join in the festivities. This went on for some time, until one day he found himself in a corner near a beautiful watering trough painted white, with a tall, white pole next to it.

“Clean water!” the lamb shouted. “I am sooo thirsty.”

When he bent down to drink, he saw his own reflection and bleated in fright. “Is that really me?” he asked himself in disbelief at the mud-covered image.

He wanted to wash so badly that he jumped right in and washed until he was more or less clean, although the nasty pigskin still hung around his middle. Rejoicing, he found a place nearby where conditions were a little nicer. He liked it there and made regular trips to quench his thirst and wash off after partying out in the middle.

As time went on, though, the more he washed, the dirtier the water became. When the water began to taste like pigpen, he stopped going to the watering trough with the tall white pole.
“I can’t drink this water any more, or wash up in it either, he said. “It’s too dirty.”

The muddy water was of no use to him any more. He sat there in his corner for a long time, looking at the white watering trough and pole, waiting for something to happen.

One day a tall stranger came to the pigpen. He was so clean, dressed in a long white robe. The lamb really liked him. The stranger opened a little gate that the lamb hadn’t noticed before and came in carrying a shovel. He proceeded to dig a pit, a very deep one. Then he filled it with clear, cold water. It took a lot of water to fill it.

When it was filled, the stranger climbed to the top of the mountain of dirt behind the pit and called out, “If anyone wants to wash up and leave this pigpen, come to me.”

Quite a crowd gathered to listen to the stranger as he talked about a better way of life where everyone could be clean, forever. Some were laughing and making fun of the stranger and those who wanted to leave the pigpen. Some just couldn’t seem to decide what they wanted.

“Jump into the water if you want to get out of here!” the friendly stranger called out.

The lamb was afraid. He turned around to look at the pigpen. There were some of his old friends not far away. They were having a good time throwing slime at each other. “Come on over and join in the fun!” they called out. “That waterhole looks sooo boring.”

The lamb turned back to look at the stranger.

“There’s another world beyond this gate,” the stranger said, “a world of beauty and purity. All you need to do is jump in. The water is friendly. It’s alive.”

That made the lamb more afraid than ever, but he knew he had to do it or die. “I'm always dirty, and this pigskin strapped around my middle is really bothering me,” he thought.

He finally made his decision.

“I’m coming!” he shouted as he pushed his way to the edge of the pit. After he closed his eyes and jumped, he went all the way to the bottom. It was so cold and dark down there.

“So this is death,” he thought.

Then he felt a strong hand take hold of him and pull him up and out. All he could do was shiver and gasp for breath and look up at the stranger who pulled him out. The disgusting pigskin was no longer tied to his back, and now his soft, curly wool was as white as snow again.

The stranger led the lamb through the little gate where he found himself looking down a long, straight, narrow road. Everything on this side was so crystal clear: The sky was a living blue, the grass and trees a living green. The sun was so bright he couldn’t bear to look at it. He looked back at the pigpen. Just above it was a blanket of fog, and the clouds above that were thick and heavy.

“I used to like that dark, smelly place, he said as he looked up at the stranger. “I don’t ever want to go back there again.”

“This is the road to Life,” the stranger said. “Whoever travels this road to the Land of God will live forever.”

The lamb noticed the stranger’s hands, then his feet. Now he understood who the stranger was, and he fell down at his feet. He knew what it cost the stranger to come to the pigpen to show him the only way out.

“Father and Mother told me about you a long time ago,” the lamb said, “but I stopped believing their stories.”

After the stranger went back through the gate into the pigpen, the lamb began to walk down the narrow road. From time to time he saw places where a wide road crossed the narrow one. At each intersection there were big signs pointing down the wide roads, some with flashing lights, telling of a place to go to have some real fun.

“I know where those roads go,” he said. “They all go back to the pigpen.”

So, for the rest of his days, he stayed on the straight and narrow road, until he reached the Land of God. There he lived happily, forever, and found his father and mother and brothers and sisters and many other little boy and girl lambs just like himself.

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