Tuesday, February 11, 2003

The Power of One

Exerpt from Bryce Courtenay's The Power of One:
I remained unsaved, unborn-again, despite the fact that I was officially slated in the minds of every lady in the church as my mother's special prayer burden. I guess if they'd known what was going on in the prison they'd have mounted a whole revival campaign to try to bring me to the Lord. Once I asked in Sunday school if black was equal with white in heaven. The Sunday school teacher, a lady with big breasts and a sharp nose named Mrs. Kostler who looked like a fat pigeon, stopped in midreply and sent one of the other kids to look for Pastor Mulvery.

"Not exactly, but not exactly not," Pastor Mulvery said and then, thumbing through Mrs. Kostler's Bible, he read, "In my father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." He put the Bible aside. "'Many mansions' is the Lord's way of saying that he loves all of mankind but that he recognizes there are differences, like black and white. So he has a place for black angels and another place for white angels," he said smugly. I could see he was pretty pleased with his reply.

A girl called Zoe Prinsloo asked, "Does that mean we don't have to have dirty kaffirs* in our mansion?"

"Ag, man, Zoe," Mrs. Kostler cried, "In heaven nobody is dirty, you hear, not even kaffirs!"

"Will they still work for us?" I asked.

Mrs. Kostler looked to Pastor Mulvery for a reply. "Of course not. Nobody works in heaven," he said, a little impatiently.

"If nobody is dirty and nobody works in heaven and black and white are equal, why then can't they live in the same place as us?"

Pastor Mulvery gave a deep sigh. "Because they are black and it wouldn't be right, that's all. The Lord knows more about such things that we do, man. We mustn't question the wisdom of the Lord. When you are born again you'll understand his infinite wisdom and you won't ask such silly questions." I knew Mrs. Kostler would report all this at the next ladies' prayer meeting and I'd have to face another session with my mother. It wasn't easy being a sinner.

*kaffir -- black person

No comments:

Post a Comment

Circa Now