"First Stone" by Gale Acuff
Last night I dreamt that Miss Hooker died for
my sins and not Jesus. She's my Sunday School
teacher and I love the Hell out of her,
not that I don't love Jesus, too, but He's
long gone, up there in Heaven eternally,
which means how long forever lasts. It's just
that I need someone to die for my sins
now, not long ago. I mean I need to
see it for myself and not just be told
about how it happened on Calvary.
I mean I'd like it to go down again,
somebody who will die for all-new sins.
Miss Hooker's as good a choice as any,
even better, because if anyone
I know is without sin then she's the one.
Tell me she sins and I won't believe it.
Tell me she's not perfect and I'll point out
her red hair and green eyes and freckles and
she drives an American compact car
so she doesn't waste gas, wasting gas is
a sin, and she's going to vo-tech so
she's bettering herself, making perfect
even more so, and after class last week
I asked her to marry me and she laughed,
I'm only ten years old, shes 25,
but I knew she wasn't laughing at me,
her spirit told me that though not in words,
she laughed because I made her feel younger,
that's what she told me so it's the gospel.
And then she told me to ask her again
when I'm older and I just might do that.
Knock and the door shall be opened, seek and
ye shall find, ask and the answer will be
given. I'll try again in a few years.
But in my dream we were in Sunday class
when a mob, a mob's a slew of people
none too happy, broke in on us and took
Miss Hooker away and when I asked why
they said that she blasphemed just by being
as good as she is so she had to die
so I said, If there's one of you
who is without sin then cast the first stone
and one of the mob plunked me in the head
with a hymnal, there were no stones in class,
and knocked me out and when I woke I was
bent on justice. I just followed the crowd,
which was right outside because they hung her
on the Cross on our church steeple and used
ladders to put her up there and poke
and poke her until her body and dress were
as red as her hair. But she didn't cry
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me. So I hollered it for her and then
everyone stopped and looked pretty sheepish,
I mean, boy, were their faces red, so they
took Miss Hooker down again but it was
too late, she was as dead as you can get
but even so she didn't die in vain
because then I woke, from my dream I mean,
for real, and now I really believe all
that Bible stuff and don't care if Adam
had a navel or not or Ezekiel
saw a UFO. I guess that means I'm
saved, saved in the caught-up way, it's all
a good story from a good book. Amen.
And anyway she isn't really dead.
In fact, I'm deader, so my dream came true.