Sunday, June 01, 2008

Snake Heaven

I’ll be honest, I have no idea what it’s like in snake heaven. So I was at a loss a few days ago when little Maggie Pelten cried on the phone to me about a lost snake. They thought it might have crawled in to the VCR, but truth be told, they weren’t entirely certain. (I would not eat at the Pelten residence for at least three months, if I were you). She asked me if her snake was going to heaven. I told her of course her snake was going to heaven. Unless her snake has been smoking tobacco cigarettes and marijuana cigarettes, or unless her snake has been writing graffiti messages on the lavatory walls at school. She assured me that her snake has not being doing any of those things and I told her then her snake would be going to heaven. She asked me what snake heaven was like. And I have to be honest with you, I didn’t know what to tell her. See, sometimes, as Bishops, we don’t have all the answers and I don’t think we are expected to. On the other hand, sometimes we are expected to know the answers. This is one of those hands where I didn’t know. What would you have told little Maggie?

1 comment:

Stephen Erastus Knudsen III said...

I would have told her the truth -- that snakes, ye verily all serpents, are of the devil. They are also occasionally used by the Lord to guard narrow necks of land and keep one chosen people from mingling with the seed of another chosen people. Also, a bite from a fiery serpent will kill you, unless you have enough faith to look at a staff with the image of a fiery serpent on it. They will also try to feed you fruit that will kill you even though they say it will make you wise.

Children should know these things already since they are still kind of close to the veil, so just give it to her straight -- snakes are evil and she should never want an evil pet. Better to learn that now instead of later. You should keep your eye on this one.