CVI

THERE IS A WAY THAT SEEMS RIGHT TO A MAN, BUT ITS END IS THE WAY OF DEATH

PROVERBS 14:12

SEVENIA SALLIE (GIRL PROPHETESS)

“You’re on the run from a voodoo witch?” I asked Oscar Olney. I braced myself for retaliation for the little prank my father and I had played on his old friend only moments ago.

“Sort of,” he replied as he looked around nervously. He ran a hand through his curly, thin, salt and pepper hair. I too gazed around cautiously and ran a hand through my thick, short, auburn hair. I expected my dad to pop out dressed like a headhunter or something.

“Okay, I’ll play along,” I told him. “Who is this voodoo witch, what makes her such, and how did you end up on the run from her?”

“I met her a few months ago,” Oscar said, his whole large body seeming to quiver as he wrung his hands. I began to intuit that this was no joke. But maybe he was a great actor. “I was doing a guest spot at a rock station in Jersey. She asked me for an autograph, and we started talking. We went out for some drinks, went back to my hotel room, and…”

“I see,” I interrupted, fearful that he was going to give me TMI on his intimate life.

“Anyhow, we had a good time and started seeing each other pretty regular,” he said with a shrug. “Long story short, she was into the occult. She was always playing with tarot cards and such. I’m not gonna lie, I found it interesting.

“She had been a fan of ‘The Seven Sallie Showdown,’ and she knew that Felix and I were best buddies, even though we were living a thousand miles apart. In a nutshell, she starts telling me that Felix is a hypocrite by saying he’s cheating on his wife. She said if I don’t warn him, he’s gonna die in his sins. I thought she was nuts! I broke things off with her. Six days later, Felix is dead, and he died with his mistress.”

Oscar groaned, buried his face in his hands, and doubled over. I patted his meaty shoulder. I asked, “Oscar, I don’t know much about voodoo, but did she, I don’t know, mutilate some type of Felix doll or something? I guess what I’m getting at, is do you think she somehow had Felix killed through some type of demonism?”

He lifted his head and gazed at me with sad, scared, hound dog eyes. “Oh, no, nothing like that. Like I said, she told me to warn him. I guess I called her voodoo witch for lack of a better description. I mean, how did she know? Felix was my best friend, and I never would have thought him even capable of cheating on his wife.”

My dad suddenly burst through the door carrying my baby brother. My stepmother, the lovely, graceful Zella was right behind him. Like the flip of a switch, Oscar’s demeanor went from distraught to happy go lucky, good ole boy. Once again, I wondered if I was somehow being played.

“Hey, look what the cat dragged in?” Oscar crooned. “Beauty and the beast.”

“Hey now, them’s fightin’ words!” my dad drawled. “Don’t you be callin my wife a beast.”

Zella giggled as her son reached for her. As she took him from my dad, she said, “I believe he’s calling you the beast, fool.”

“Hey now, double insult,” my dad lamented, although lightheartedly. Then he looked at me. “Care to make it a triple, Sweet Pea?”

“If you add yeast to grow a beast, you will never be a least beast,” I said.

“Was I just insulted, or are you quoting Dr. Suess?” my dad asked with a frown.

“I’m not sure, it just came out,” I replied, and everyone laughed.

“Oh, you’re hungry for some mama’s milk, aren’t you, baby boy?” Zella said.

“Yes,” Oscar said.

Zella frowned, smirked with half of her upper lip like Elvis, then said, “Sorry big boy. My bosom is for my baby and husband only.”

Oscar watched Zella walk away in awe. He began to follow her to the bedroom and said, “But I could use a snack.”

My dad snatched Oscar by the back of his belt, and despite at least a hundred pound  differential in weight, the larger man stopped in his tracks. “How about we see what’s in the fridge?” my dad proposed.

“You’re no fun. I’m not hungry for what’s in the fridge,” Oscar said as he wiggled his eyebrows.

“Well, that’s a first,” my dad replied, then lifted his shirt. “If that’s the case, here ya go, have at.”

“Dad, that’s crude!” I barked.

“Hey, you’re in good shape, Sallie,” Oscar said. “Almost forty and you can still make out a faint shadow of six pack abs. Check out my keg.”

I averted my eyes just in time as Oscar lifted his shirt. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that I was estranged from my father during ‘The Seven Sallie Showdown’ days.

“Oscar, pull down your shirt,” my dad ordered. “You’re frightening my daughter.”

After the mirth settled, my dad asked, “So what were you two talking about? You seemed to be deep in conversation when we came in.”

I raised my eyebrows at Oscar as if to ask if it was okay. He shrugged and said, “He’s gonna find out sooner or later, go ahead and tell him.”

“Me?” I replied with wide eyes.

“Yeah,” he drawled, and his east coast accent became heavier. “It won’t seem so nuts comin’ from you, Sweet Pea. Man, I could use a belt about now. Are you sure you don’t have any adult beverage, Seven?”

“Positive,” my dad replied.

“Surely you have some aftershave.”

“Aftershave?” my dad winced. “Surely you jest.”

“Hey, if you’re desperate enough,” Oscar declared. “And stop calling me Shirley.”

“Oscar, do alcoholics run in your family?” my dad asked.

“No, they don’t run, but they stumble, fall, and break stuff,” Oscar replied, and then the two men laughed heartily.

I hadn’t known whether or not Oscar had been joking about drinking aftershave or not. But then the two old friend’s hilarity made me perceive that he wasn’t serious. Oscar was a hard man to read. This is one example of why I wish people wouldn’t call me a prophetess.

“Okay, Sevenia, spill,” my dad said. “What kind of nonsense was my old buddy spewing when we came in?”

“Oh, ya know, just telling me about his romance with a voodoo witch.”

My dad’s eyebrows shot up. Then Zella appeared in a bedroom doorway with the baby suckling at her breast. This caused Oscar’s eyebrows to shoot up, even though my brother’s head blocked what he had hoped to glimpse. Then my dad and step-mom spoke the same words at the same time. “Say what?”

Even though Oscar instructed me to tell the tale, he began to recount his brief relationship with whom he had labeled a voodoo witch. However when he got to the part about Felix, he passed the story off to me.

“Wow, what a coincidence,” my dad said. “Honey, you used to be a soothsayer, what do you make of this?”

Zella frowned at my father and pursed her lips. Then she replied, “I’m with Sevenia. I think it’s either a coincidence or spiritism.”

“Just to play the devil’s advocate,” my dad said.

“Now there’s something you do quite well,” Zella interjected. My dad looked genuinely hurt, then Zella smiled and giggled. “I’m just teasing you honey, go ahead.”

My dad grinned at his lovely wife, and continued. “Why is it when Sevenia had the dream of two runaway girls, it was called prophetic, and when Oscar’s lady predicted Felix’s demise you two call it spiritism, even demonism?”

“Simple,” Zella replied. “Oscar’s woman is a self-proclaimed occultist.”

“She’s not my woman,” Oscar declared.

“Does this woman have a name?” my dad asked.

“Donna,” Oscar replied. “Donna Dalial.”

I felt my whole body go ridged as Zella gasped.

“Did you say Dalial?” I inquired.

Oscar nodded, and my dad frowned and said. “So?”

“Don’t you remember Devin Easton’s angelic encounter?” I asked, using air quotes for angelic. “Her name was Dalial.”

“That’s right,” my dad said with wide, astonished eyes. “Oscar, do you have any pictures of her?”

“Sure,” he said and grinned mischievously. “Most are indecent, but I do have one selfie of us at a Mets game.”

Oscar pulled out his phone and began searching. Then the blood drained from his face. “They’ve all disappeared!”

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES)

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH: LUTHER BEFORE THE DIET (Part 1 of 2)

A new emperor, Charles V, had ascended the throne of Germany, and the emissaries of Rome hastened to present their congratulations and induce the monarch to employ his power against the Reformation. On the other hand, the elector of Saxony, to whom Charles was in great degree indebted for his crown, entreated him to take no step against Luther until he should have granted him a hearing. The emperor was thus placed in a position of great perplexity and embarrassment. The papists would be satisfied with nothing short of an imperial edict sentencing Luther to death. (D’Aubingne, B. 6 Ch. 11).

In that vast assembly the subject that excited the deepest interest was the cause of the Saxon Reformer.

Said Martin Luther: “If they desire to use violence against me, and that is very probable (for it is not for their instruction that they order me to appear), I place the matter in the Lord’s hands. He still lives and reigns who preserved the three young men in the fiery furnace. He will not save me, my life is of little consequence. Let us only prevent the gospel from being exposed to the scorn of the wicked, and let us shed our blood for it, for fear they should triumph. It is not for me to decide whether my life or my death will contribute most to the salvation of all…. You may expect everything from me except flight and recantation. Fly I cannot, and still less retract.” (Ibid. B. 7 Ch. 1.).

With all the power of learning and eloquence, Aleander set himself to overthrow the truth. Charge after charge he hurled against Luther as an enemy of the church and the state, the living and the dead, clergy and laity, councils, and private Christians. “In Luther’s errors there is enough,” he declared, “to warrant the burning of a hundred thousand heretics.”

Said Luther: “The papists do not desire my coming to Worms, but my condemnation and death. It matters not. Pray not for me, but for the word of God… Christ will give me His Spirit to overcome these ministers of error. I despise them during my life, I shall triumph over them by my death. They are busy at Worms  about compelling me to retract; and this shall be my retraction: I said formerly that the pope was Christ’s vicar; now I assert that he is our Lord’s adversary, and the devil’s apostle.”—(Ibid. B. 7 Ch. 6).

The news of Luther’s approach to Worms created great commotion. His friends trembled for his safety.

Luther, still unshaken, declared: “Even should there be as many devils in Worms as tiles on the housetops, still I would enter it.”—(Ibid. B. 7 Ch. 7).

One of the bishops, a rigid papist, declared: “We have long consulted on this matter. Let your imperial majesty get rid of this man at once. Did not Sigismund cause John Huss to be burnt? We are not bound either to give or to observe the safe-conduct of a heretic. “No,” said the emperor, “we must keep our promise.”—(Ibid. B. 7 Ch. 8).

A prayer of Luther’s: “Oh Lord help me! Faithful and unchangeable God, in no man do I place my trust… All that is of man is uncertain; all that comes of man fails… Thou has chosen me for this work… Stand by my side, for the sake of Thy well-beloved Jesus Christ, who is my defense, my shield, and my strong tower.”—(Ibid. B. 7 Ch. 8)

With his mind stayed upon God, Luther prepared for the struggle before him.