Ken’s e-Pistle

March 6, 2024

It has been a little warmer than usual on our side of the mountain.  Just enough to encourage the Redbuds and Bradford Pears to join the daffodils in a tentative rehearsal of the spring symphony of colors and smells which is my favorite music.

Then, as I was walking the yard, making plans for plantings and projects which come along with the other joys of home ownership, I saw him.  The first snake of spring. He was lying in the sun on the pool deck, re-charging his reptilian batteries for whatever mischief he was plotting.

Now, in case you have not already surmised it, I am no great lover of snakes.  If reincarnation is a thing, I will probably come back as a herpetologist if not some actual belly-crawling sinner with scales, black beady eyes, and poisonous fangs.  I simply try to stay on my side of the street and let them stay on theirs.  Selah.

But there he lay; sunning on MY side of the street.   I sat in one of the nearby chairs (not TOO nearby, mind you) and willed him to leave the premises. A staring match ensued which seemed to last the better part of a week but which, in actuality, probably took no more than 10 minutes.  Finally, he decided that I wasn’t good company and went on his way to the wood line.

Miss Vicki, the lover of all life-forms, asked if I could have handled the encounter in a different way.  I replied that the garden hoe was still in the garage and the application of my 10-gauge double barrel goose gun might damage the pool deck. The look on her face let me know in no uncertain terms that those were poor choices.

“You should have just moved him with a stick and let him go on his merry way.”

Sometimes a response of silence is best.  She obviously knows nothing about snakes. Years ago a sexton at my Atlanta church ran over a snake in the field next to the church cemetery. He was riding atop a large John Deere mower and the event traumatized him so much that he came into my office for solace.

“Reckon what kind of snake it was, Mr. Oscar.”

He looked at me as if I were the stupidest man ever to draw a breath.  “Pastor,” he declared. “ain’t but one kind of snake: the cotton-headed-rattle-tailed-water moccasin. They all bad!”

Our Old Testament Lesson this Sunday comes from Numbers 21.  Read it HERE, each and every one of you and see if you don’t agree with me!

Meanwhile, I bid you peace!