Welcome back! I hope that your smiles per day have doubled this week. My fingers are loose and my mind is charged with a new story blog. Like NASA used to say, everything is A-OK. We are a go for blogging.
“Hey C-Chain, who’s the dude stepping up by the corner store?” “I don’t know Larry D. But c’mon man, we bout to go find out.”
C-Chain and Larry D start making their way down the old worn down city sidewalk. The corner store is only thirty feet away. Their eyes are locked on the stranger, as their feet quick-walk them over to meet him.
C-Chain and Larry D joined the local street gang a year ago, when they were both fifteen. Neither of them showed any fear as they approached the corner store. Ever since the day they started carrying guns pushed down into the waistband of their baggy, sharply creased jeans, their fear had miraculously shrunken down to the size of a nine millimeter weapon.
Just after they pass the neighborhood landmark barber shop, they slow down to take a more detailed look at the stranger who is now only four paces in front of them.
The man at the corner store had noticed the two boys coming his way as soon as he got out of his pickup, and stepped up onto the sidewalk. He had no trouble at all noticing that they were wearing gang style white baseball caps, white tank top T-shirts, and blinding white tennis shoes.
“Hey yo man. What you think you doin here? Ain’t you a little too school teacher-looking to be up in this hood homey?” C Chain asked the man. The man looked like a young adult office professional, wearing blue slacks, a white short-sleeved dress shirt, black slip-in shoes, holding a thick book in one hand.
The man smiled at the boys as though they were his nephews. “Well yes, but you see…” “Holdup school teacher. But? Larry K. Did this man just but me?” “Yeah C-Chain. The man just butted you.” Larry D looked the man up and down and frowned a deep frown. “I guess he don’t know how to answer a straight up question without using his but. I think he might need some help with answerin your question dawg.” C-Chain took a threatening step towards the man, and copied Larry D’s frown. “I think you right, D. Maybe the school teacher need him some help answering my question.”
“Hey wait. I’m not looking for any kind of trouble. I’m a writer for a Christian website. You can check out the website on your phone if you don’t believe me. It’s called Writeteller.com.”
C-Chain almost reached for his phone to check, but stopped, thinking now I know I must be crazy. On the other hand, Larry K was rolling his eyes and saying, “Look man! Do we look like we read off Christian websites???” The stranger didn’t say a word. But Larry D did. “Hey man. Ain’t you got nothing to say?” After a few more seconds of silence, Larry D shrugs his shoulders. “C, it looks like our boy done forgot what your question was. I guess I’ll have to help him remember.” Larry D takes a step towards the man to help him to remember.
But C-Chain’s curiosity was revved up. Why would a man dress up like some kind of school teacher come messing around here for? He held up a hand to stop Larry D. “Holdup D. Let’s check this dude out and see if the brother is who he says he is. If he ain’t, then you can tune him up so he can walk around on his elbows.”
Larry D liked the idea. He nodded that he was okay with C-Chain’s plan, and reached for his cell phone. As quick as he could, he brought up the writeteller.com website. Eight seconds later he asked, “What’s your name homeboy?” “Darvelle Anderson,” the man replied. “Yeah C. The man is who he says he is. His picture and name are on the website.” C-Chain shakes his head sadly and looks over at Larry D. “Ain’t this a hot mess? Bro Darvelle be telling the truth.” “Yeah C. But we still need to know why a Christian writer would be stupid enough to be up in our hood at twelve something in the afternoon.” Both boys folded their arms and fixed their faces to show that they were about to run out of patience.
Darvelle never stopped smiling for a second. Without any interruption, this time, he answered right away. “I know you probably won’t believe me, but I’m here to tell people about how evil gets into people. Influencing them to believe that being tough, cruel, mean, and killer, makes them a good kind of bad.” While Larry D and C-Chain made something-smells-bad-faces, they worked on trying to figure out what in the world Darvelle was talking about. Then they heard him say, “So, is it okay for me to ask you guys what your names are?”
That question got their attention and suspicion. “Why you want to know that?” Larry D asked. All of a sudden Darvelle looked to them more like a cop than a school teacher. But Darvelle quickly put their minds at rest. “I want to know what your names are so that I can pray for you every day, and so that I can know what to call you.” Larry D and C-Chain looked at each other with amazement for the count of three heartbeats, and then started laughing like they had just breathed in a whole lot of laughing gas. “Man, Dar-velle, you is the craziest brother I ever heard of. But you is as funny as a rich comedian!” C Chain was just barely able to say all the words. Darvelle laughed with the boys, and thanked God they thought he was so funny.
People walking down the other side of the street stopped to stare at the laughing group, for a few clock ticks, and moved on. As the fun of laughing began to wear off the boys answered. “Okay man, I’m Larry D.“ “And I’m C-Chain. But is you serious man? …About praying for us everyday?” Darvelle nodded. “As serious as I am about showing up for a free barbeque dinner.” That got the boys to laughing a little more. So while they were still in a good mood, Darvelle asked, “Is it okay I tell you guys about what’s in one of my stories.” C-Chain and Larry D couldn’t see why not. “Yeah Big D. Just as long as you don’t get too preachy. Know what I mean?” “That’s cool with me Larry D.”
“Okay, let’s start with this. A lot of people think being bad is a good thing.” The boys looked like they didn’t know what to do with this kind of information. So Darvelle explained. “In this world, in order to survive or get what they want, people do bad things so they can get what they think are good things.” “Like what kind of good things?” Larry D asks suspiciously. “Like money, respect, happiness, power over people, or a scary reputation.”
“Man. That sounds like how a gang is.” C-Chain automatically put on his meanest frown. “Shut your noise up Larry K!” He points to Darvelle. “Man, you starting not to be so funny now. Cause you startin to sound like a preacher. And I don’t like preachers. But yo homey. I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me somethin worth my time. Or I’m gonna show you how we preach around here.”
Darvelle still hadn’t lost his smile. He pauses the space of two breaths, breaths out and starts again. “Okay, think about this. If I were to give you a gun, would that be a good thing or a bad thing C-Chain?” C-Chain wrinkles his forehead thinking what to answer. But it didn’t take him two seconds to say, “I got a gun.” “So you’re saying that if I gave you a loaded gun you wouldn’t take it?” “Okay. Yeah, I would take it. And that would be a good thing.” Darvelle switches his book to his other hand and says, “What if the gun I give you was used in a murder? Is that good or bad?”
C-Chain wanted to stop talking and start swinging, but he didn’t want to look like he was scared to answer the question. So he said, “Bad.”
Darvelle nodded to C-Chain’s answer. “Why bad?” “Man, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because if I get caught with the gun I could go to jail.” C-Chain almost hollered out every word.
Seeing that C-Chain was about to lose his self control, Darvelle asked him one last question. “The gun you have in your pants, is it a good thing or a bad thing?” C-Chain was surprised that this school teacher looking man had noticed his gun. It was mostly down the front of his pants, and the rest was hidden under his tank-top. Even so, he wasn’t too confident on how to answer the question.
If C-Chain answered good, he figured Darvelle might ask him what he used his gun for. And if he said bad, he figured Darvelle would probably ask him why he carried a bad thing under his clothes. So he chose to answer a different way. He decided to argue. “Man, all this stuff you’re saying is so stupid. Being on these streets without a gun is bad. But if you run into some hard dude with a gun, and you have a gun, that’s good, you feel me?”
“Darvelle scratched his head and softened his voice to ask, “What if you shoot somebody that doesn’t have a gun? Is that good or bad?” It was Larry D who spoke up this time. “Holdup C-Chain. Look bruh Darvelle, what was that you said again, about how evil gets into people? That part about how when people believe that being tough, mean, cruel, and killer, it will make them a good kind of bad.” C-Chain was ticked at Larry D for cutting him off, but was glad for the chance to regroup before he answered Darvelle’s last question.
Darvelle held up the book he was holding and pointed to it. “Right quick, it says on one of these pages, in the part where Isaiah 5:20 is. Wait a minute guys. Don’t worry, I won’t open the book unless you ask me to. But it says on the page I mentioned, that people who say that an evil thing is good and a good thing is evil, or that bad is good and good is bad, they wind up in very big trouble.” Darvelle looked at C-Chain, and asked, “And do you know why?” Neither boy spoke. They didn’t know for sure what to answer, and didn’t want to feel silly guessing the wrong answer. So they waited until Darvelle got ready to give them the answer. They only had to wait three seconds.
“Okay, let me give you the answer this way. I’ll give you an example. Say somebody tells you that if you murder a person for a good reason it’s a good thing. You believe it, go and murder somebody, and then get arrested. Look at the trouble you got in because you believed that there is such a thing as a good reason for murdering somebody. All because you chose to believe that doing something bad was something good.
The boys were stunned, and stood as still as a mountain. This example sounded real familiar to them. “Hey guys, just let me give you two more examples, okay. The boys nodded yes. “Good. Now what if somebody tells you that if you beat up somebody, for a good reason, it’s not a bad thing. The boys could swear that this man must have been spying on them. But before they said or did anything, they wanted to hear the last example first. They could hardly wait to hear what that would be.
Darvelle had stopped smiling at the first example. He was all focused on God and the boys now. He cradled his book under his arm and began telling his last example. “In this book, under my arm, is some information about how the best Angel God had ever made believed that he was as good as God. He thought that that was a very good thing. He convinced other angels that he would be a much better boss, and started his own gang in heaven. Then when he thought that he was strong enough take God out, he started a turf war with God, so that he could take over heaven.”
The boys mouths were hanging open by this time. Was this man telling the truth, they really didn’t know. But they couldn’t shake the feeling that he was.
Larry D came back to life, and spoke up. “Can you show me in your bible where this angel war went down?” “Naw D. Let’s go man. We could be at my girl’s house drinkin us some Big Ounces, eatin up some burgers, and chillin,” C-Chain argued. “Naw C-Chain. I want to hear what else this bruthuh has to say. I’m gonna stay and check this dude out. You can go if you want to.” C-Chain really didn’t want to go either, but he was afraid of not leaving. Because he knew that, if he stayed, he was going to think harder and harder about everything Darvelle was saying. And maybe even start agreeing with him. And he just couldn’t let that happen. Or could he? In the end, C-Chain shrugged his shoulders. “Okay D-man. I’ll hang around another minute with you. But that’s it.”
“That’s great. I’ll make the rest of this real quick. Murdering and stealing is bad because God says it is. He ought to know. He’s seen all the bad and evil things anyone has ever done. Anybody that tells you that a bad thing is a good thing, ask them where they got their information from. And then ask them what they think is good about those things. Then you can decide who’s right. And maybe make a decision about becoming a Jesus gang member.”
Big subject. Good and bad, evil and good. Everyday we get to choose which is good.
Thanks for giving today’s blog a read. And I hope that God show’s you some of His amazing grace.