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"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.