Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday April 9, 2008

I was reminded of my childhood by the following meant to be humorous story.

"A Sunday School teacher said to her children 'We have been learning how powerful kings and queens were in Bible times. But there is a higher power. Can anybody tell me what it is?' One child blurted out, 'Aces!'"

I opined the other day that if parents taught the kiddies to play poker, at least they would know how to do something. Of course this brought passionate rebuke from adults. I suppose they feared the poker tables would be too crowded if children took up the game. I think it is shameful that most children have no idea as to what you mean if you talk about keeping a 'poker face.' And we brag about our educational system.

I grew up with several boys who became men, though there is serious doubt about one, and one girl who wound up as a Circuit Judge who could have made a decent living playing poker, though I doubt that playing is the proper word, because of the deadly seriousness which they took on when playing. I remember one time a well known gambler came through our little burg and ended up in a 5 card draw game with the said girl. I noticed he had a reddish hue to his eyes and managed to warn the female as to what this usually meant. She never batted an eye and in front of God and everyone at the table read every card in the guy's hand, suggested he remove his infra reds and she in turn would remover hers, and then she proceeded to take him and a few others at the table to the cleaners. A fine Christian girl she was. I'm sure she was a tither!

If you ran some kind of poll you might be surprised at the answers people would give you concerning the highest power. The bulk of humanity has bought into the Hegelian concept that in reality the highest power is the state as God walking around on the earth. No sensible person doubts the power of the state. No knowledgeable person really believes that the state trumps God, yet we for the most part tend to look to the state rather than God given channels for our safety, nurturing and guidance for daily living. If you doubt this, simply listen to the posturing in the current political campaign as to what each candidate is promising they will get the state to do for you, force the state to give to you.

To my way of thinking I suppose a good kindergarten class on the finer art of poker would level the playing field and all children would have an equal opportunity to win big at Vegas, thus having loads of money, which would obviate the need for many of the costly entitlement programs, and this would lead to the congress demanding that we lower taxes for all hourly laborers and lower capital gains taxation and some of the more astute congresspersons would correctly learn the ancient art of poker bluffing from their grandchildren and oh, what a wonderful world it would be. Of course we would all factor in some Sunday School time as our way of expressing our recognition of the true higher power, the one to whom we would offer our prayers when we admittedly, foolishly attempt to draw to an inside straight.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with credit if you dare.

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