Blog

THE FIVE CREEKS TRIDENT

By Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy

         Her name was Miss Lisa “Gravel” Strands, and she was a sophomore at Five Creeks High School in the town of Five Creeks in the Griffin Land.  Being a student of this high school, Gravel was a “Trident.”  But more than being a Trident, Lisa Strands was a swimdress girl.  And more than being a swimdress girl, Lisa was a born-again Christian.  Her one-piece swimsuit had traditional shoulder straps and a high back and a foxy skirt portion.  She had this on in the days and in the evenings and even every night in bed.  This swimdress was Gravel’s special fetish.

         She was attired thus once again here at the Five Creeks Park with her pet griffin “Valiant.”

She spoke now to him, “Valiant, listen to this:” and she recited verbatim, “Shell, 82% nylon, 18% Lycra Spandex; lining, 85% nylon, 15% Spandex; cup lining, 100% polyester.”

         Valiant replied, “Mistress, you memorized your swimsuit label.  Didn’t you?”

         “Yeah,” Lisa Strands said.  Then she recited equally accurately, “Hand wash cold, do not wring or twist, do not bleach, line dry, do not iron.”

         “Ah, the back of the swimdress label at that, my mistress,” said the good griffin pet.

Page 1

         “Yeah, Valiant.  Yeah,” said Gravel.

         “Le Cove!” said the griffin who knew all about his mistress.

         “Le Cove!” said Lisa Strands.

         That was the swimsuit company that made this swimdress.

         The pattern of Gravel’s precious ladies’ swimdress was of alternating V-Stripes of black and white, each V-Stripe two inches wide and all the way across and up and down and front and back.

         “Chevron pattern,” said Gravel the name for maillot patterns of such V-Stripes.

         “Your favorite pattern for one-piece swimsuits, Mistress,” said Valiant.  “And why your swimdress is your favorite one-piece swimsuit.”

         This town of Five Creeks was most duly named.  In this town five separate creeks all flowed together at seventy-two-degree angles into a large lake.  In the middle of this lake was an island.  And this island was the park that griffin mistress and griffin pet were enjoying right now.

         Lisa “Gravel” Strands had a comely light white to her complexion.  As she lived, she spoke, “No tan will come upon this girl.”  Her eyes were a most entrancing brown.  As she bragged in fun, “I’m God’s brown-eyed girl.”  And her strands were wispy, covering her forehead with bangs and gently cascading down the sides of her head to the shoulders and to the upper back.  As she always told her griffin, “My hair is brown, Valiant.”  But Lisa’s hair was really black.  Either way, both brown-haired girls and black-haired girls were categorized as “brunettes.”

         What was this “Griffin Land,” where this town of Five Creeks was located?  These Griffin Lands were a region full of people and griffins.  The griffins of this Griffin Land were either good or evil.  The good griffins were called the “Tawny Benevolent Griffins.”  The evil griffins were called

the “Gray Malevolent Griffins.”  One such good griffin was Valiant himself.  The good griffins became pets of mistresses and masters.  The evil griffins preyed upon people for the hunt.  More than once had Valiant rescued his mistress Gravel from a pursuing Gray Malevolent Griffin.  Indeed Valiant was

Page 2

also a Bible reader among griffin kind.  He knew the King James Bible as well as did his Christian mistress.

         As they sat at this island of a park, the mistress and her griffin looked out upon the wonders of God’s creation here where the five creeks met.  One creek was named the “Pison Creek”; one creek was named the “Gihon Creek”: one creek was named “the Hiddekel Creek”; one creek was named “the

Euphrates Creek”; and one creek was named “the Tigris Creek.”  These five creeks were named after the names of the four rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Eden in the days of Adam and Eve.  According to Genesis 2:10-14, the Pison River “compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good:  there is bdellium and the onyx stone.” Also in that Bible passage, the Gihon River “is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.”  And those same Bible verses say about the Hiddekel River “is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.”  And nothing in that

most early string of verses is said about the Euphrates River.  And, as for the Hiddekel River, further,  that same river later became better known as the “Tigris River.”  Thus the given names of the five creeks to give glory to the first dispensation of creation’s history of six thousand years ago.

         “Valiant,” asked Lisa Strands.  “I am a Five Creeks High School Trident.  Tridents are our school’s mascot.  But I do not know what a trident is.”

         Knowledgeable in many things, the griffin said, “A trident, Mistress, is a kind of sceptre or spear with three barb-pointed prongs.”

         “Like a big three-pronged fork with a long handle,” said Gravel.

         “Like what lost people think of Satan as a red Devil holding a red trident in his hands,” said Valiant.

         “In mythology class, now that I remember, the teacher said that it was a trident that Poseidon the Greek god of the sea held on to…and also that Neptune the Roman god of the sea held on to.”

         “Mythology—the lies of polytheism, O Mistress,” said Valiant.

Page 3

         “Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only true God, O knowing Valiant,” said Lisa Strands.

         “Amen to good eternal truth, Mistress,” said Valiant.

         “Valiant,” said Gravel.  “You know all about my TV show that I watch all the time.”

         “The Bionic Woman,” he said.  “Jamie Somers.”

         “Played by Lindsay Wagner,” said Lisa.

         “The first girl that your big brother discovered a few years ago,” said the griffin pet.

         “Well, I think that I am discovering Steve Austin lately,” said Gravel.

         “Played by Lee Majors,” said Valiant.  “Do you have a crush on the bionic man, Mistress?”

         “I don’t know.  All I know is that “The Bionic Man” is now the show that I will watch all the time for now on,” said the sophomore teenager.  “He’s a real cute guy.”

         “Mistress, it sounds like you’re coming of age now yourself,” said Valiant.

         “Where can I find a boy that makes me feel the same thing inside as Steve Austin does?” asked Lisa Strands.

         “Why, Mistress, does not Five Creeks High School have lots of boys?  They are all about your age.  And they all like girls,” said the griffin confidant.

         “Are you saying that I can go out on a date with a boy, Valiant?” asked Lisa.

         “That is what girls your age do,” said the griffin friend.

         “I never thought of such a thing before,” said Gravel.  “Just think, this Christian girl may soon find herself a boyfriend.”

         “My mistress, a girlfriend,” said Valiant in great novelty and gladness.

         “I think that starting tomorrow I will go around and keep asking the boys at my high school if they want to go on a date with me somewhere, until one of them says to me, ‘Yes,’” said Gravel.

         “My mistress, a word of caution,” warned good and godly Valiant. “Most of the teenage boys of the public high school are still lost in their sins.”

Page 4

         “Pastor taught us teenagers in Sunday School class that we saved people should not go out on dates with unsaved people,” said Gravel.

         “It is a sin for a saved boy to date a lost girl.  And it is a sin for a saved girl to date a lost boy,” said wise Valiant.  “Only bad things would happen to you, Mistress, if you went out with a lost boy from high school.”

         “I believe it!” said Lisa Strands.  “My boyfriend must be a born-again Christian like myself.”

         “Maybe high school boys might not be good for a believer like yourself to spend time with,” said the griffin pet.

         “Where can a Christian girl go to find a Christian boy to spend time with, do you think, Valiant?” asked Gravel.

         “Why, how about our church?” asked Valiant.

         “Yes, Valiant!” said Gravel.  “Five Creeks Free Church!”

         “There are lots of young men who are Christians who go to our church, Mistress,” said Valiant.

         “I can find my first boyfriend at church, and I will be a girlfriend for my first time,” said Gravel.

         “Not only that, Mistress, but in Christ, you will be a girlfriend-in-the-Lord, and he will be your boyfriend-in-the-Lord,” said Valiant.

         “I will become a girlfriend-in-Christ.  And he shall become my boyfriend-in-Christ,” said Lisa Strands, all caught up in a brand new life.

         “Be much in prayer about this, Mistress, and keep your focus on Jesus,” said the Bible-learned pet griffin.

         “Oh, don’t worry about me, Valiant.  My new boyfriend will protect me,” said the Five Creeks Trident most confidently.

         “Go with God, happy mistress,” encouraged her best friend Valiant.

Page 5

         “Let’s just see if God can run and catch me,” said Gravel proudly.

         Gravel’s first date was with an older man of twenty years of age.  He was an eligible bachelor living on his own.  And his name was “Horns,”  And he was a member of her church for almost a year now.  Horns was a handsome hunk in the eyes of the Five Creeks Trident.  And they agreed to meet at a place that he called, “my fun place.”  He asked her to wear her swimdress, and he said that he would wear his swimming suit as well.  When she had asked him if this place had a lake or a river, he said,

“God will provide, Lisa.”  And when she asked him where his fun place was, all he said was, “Follow me.”  He led.  She followed.  And then they were there—a dark forest of much box elders and a canopy way high up in the sky that hid the sun.  Once there, Horns said, “Wait here, Gravel.  I’ve got to go and get something.”  And he climbed way up to the top of a towering box elder, slid a roll of something off of a thin little branch of this tree, and came back down with it.  And he showed it to her.

         “That looks like a cloth measuring tape, Horns,” said Lisa Strands.

         “Cloth measuring tape measures things in inches,” said fascinating Horns.

         “You don’t have to measure me.  I’m five feet six inches,” said the Five Creeks Trident.

         “Ah, good.  Very good, Lisa,” said Horns.  “I am also five feet six inches.”

         Acting frisky and speaking ingenuously, Gravel asked, “Horns, do you like my chevron stripes?”

         “Black and white,” he said.  “They will be just perfect for me this day.”  He then held up his cloth measuring roll in both hands in front of her.

         “Well…what should we do on our first date, Horns?” asked Lisa Strands.

         “Would you stand still for me, Gravel?” he asked.

         “Why, of course, Horns,” said the Five Creeks Trident sophomore girl.

         “You are most complying, girl,” said Horns.  And he unrolled his roll a long distance in front of her.

Page 6

         “You sound horny here now with that cloth measuring tape, Horns,” said the swimdress girl.

         “Don’t let looks deceive you,” he told her.

         “I shall stand still for you,” said trusting Gravel.

         And this older guy Horns then went ahead to spread his measuring roll around her upper back and across her front and around her very breasts.  Holding his cloth tape between her breasts, Horns declared, “thirty-seven inches!”  Then he released this measuring roll from around her.

         “Thirty-seven inches.  Is that good, Horns?” asked the Little Grandee Sprite naively

         “You are a most well-endowed swimdress girl, O Gravel!” he went on to say.

         “I never had a boy or a man say that to me before,” said Miss Strands.

         This strange guy then proceeded to spread his cloth measuring roll around her lower back this time, and around her sides, and across her front to her stomach.  Holding his measuring tape before her belly, Horns proclaimed, “twenty-six inches!” Then he released this tape from around her waist.

         “That must be a good thing, O Horns,” said innocent Lisa, “myself being twenty-six inches across my belly like that.”

         “A great swimsuit girl needs to have a flat belly to catch a guy like myself,” said Horns. “And that is you, Lisa.”

         “This dating thing is good fun,” said Lisa Strands, enjoying all of this attention from a cute older man.

         Then this man all caught up in her went ahead to spread out his cloth measuring tape around her back end and around her hips and across her…nether regions.  Holding this tape in front of her femaleness respectfully, he announced, “thirty-seven inches!”  Then he took away this cloth roll from around herself down there.

         “You make a swimdress girl sound like a one-piece swimsuit goddess, Horns,” said Lisa.  “Are you happy that I am thirty-seven inches across myself right there?”

Page 7

         “Gravel, you are one seductive curvaceous young woman,” said Horns.  “37-26-37!”

         Daring to flirt with this guy who adored her, the Little Grandee Sprite said, “Does that make your girlfriend here ‘an hourglass?’”  She had heard of girls being called “hourglasses,” and now handsome horns saw her just as one of them.

         “Yes!  Yes!” he said.

         “Where do you want to measure me next?  Just ask, and I will let you measure away,” said simple Gravel.

         “Girl, our measuring for the day is all done now,” he said.  And he began to roll back up his cloth measuring tape.

         “What should we do now, Horns?” she asked.

         And he looked upon her with a face much like one of those mythical satyrs.  And he spoke with a most horny voice.  And he said, “We can do it lying down or sitting down or standing up, Lisa ‘Gravel’ Strands.”

         And the swimdress girl now knew what Horns was expecting on this date at his “fun place” here in the middle of nowhere where no one could know.

         “Horns,” she rebuked him, “you are a fornicator.”

         “You can become a fornicator, too, like me,” said Horns.  “Only for you it would be your first, and for me it would be who knows how many times?”

         Strong in the Lord, Gravel said, “My female body belongs to the Holy Spirit.  It is decently covered in my ladies’ swimdress.  I will never take off my swimdress for any man.”

         “Words.  Words.  Words,” said Horns.  “Wait down here while I climb up  to the top of my tree and put back my precious measuring roll in its safe place and come back down for you, girl.”

         And Horns climbed up the tree to its top.  And Lisa Strands fled fornication.  And she escaped cleanly and easily. And when this horny man came back down out of the tree, his Christian date was no

Page 8

where around.  Horns was a most carnal Christian whose life was not honoring Christ.

         Gravel’s next date with a Christian fellow from her church was with a young man in her teen Sunday School class.  His name was “Wants,” and he was a babe in Christ, a new convert to Christianity, who got saved just a month ago on Thursday Evening Visitation.  To her gladness, Wants was sixteen-years-old just like herself.  How good it would be for her to go out with a boy her age.  Older men seemed to be more mature in their expectations with her than she was with them.  Her date with Wants they agreed to be at his Mom and Dad’s house in the dining room at the dining room table.

Wants was at one far end of the table, and Lisa was at the other far end of the table.  Though he was way over there, Lisa did not mind.  Wants proved himself thus that he was no lecher as was her previous date in the forest.  And Lisa already liked him all the more for that.

         There was nothing on this big dining room table between them but a glass jar of pennies.  It was half-full, and it had no cover, and it had a wide mouth at its top.  The Five Creeks Trident and her boyfriend for the day sat there in silence way across from each other.  He was staring at the bottle of pennies.  She was taking secret gazes upon him and his handsome self.  After a long while of silence, Wants spoke up and said, “I want those pennies, Lisa.”

         “Whose are those, Wants?” asked Gravel.

         “Why, they’re Dad’s said Wants.

         “You shouldn’t stare at them like that.  You’re tempting yourself,” said Lisa Strands.

         “Yeah,” said the young man.  “Dad said, ‘Don’t touch my jar of pennies.’”

         “It sounds like you best not touch it then, Wants,” said the Five Creeks Trident.

         “I think that I will just sit here and look at them, Gravel,” said Wants.

         The swimdress girl spoke up and said, “Why don’t you look at me?”

         “You’re a pretty girl, Gravel,” he said matter-of-factually.  But he did not turn right now to smile at her.  He just stared at all of those pennies.  “Some are shiny; some are dull,” he said about

Page 9

all of those pennies.

         Trying to get into his little world for the good of this date, the Five Creeks Trident asked him, “How many do you suppose are in there?”

         Upon hearing this, Wants jumped up from his chair, raced along the side of this table, and grabbed up this contraband jar of pennies in both hands.  He held it tightly against his chest and said, “Don’t tell Dad!”  And he raced back to his chair and sat down and hid it in his lap underneath the tabletop.  And he quickly looked all around to make sure that Dad had not seen him do this.

         “Wants, you ought to put that back where you found it,” rebuked the swimdress gal.

         “I want them,” said Wants.

         “But they do not belong to you,” chastised Gravel.

         But this boy then thrust in his fist into this jar and did grab a hold of a bunch of pennies in all of his fingers.  Greedy, the boy then sought to pull back out his fist back out of the bottle.  But he could not get his hand out of the bottle with his hand so full as it was.

         “Why, you must have a hundred pennies in your hand,” exclaimed Lisa Strands.

         With a bad word, Wants went on to add, “I can’t get my hand out of the jar, Gravel!”

         “Let go of all of those pennies that you have in your hand, Wants, and then you can get your hand out of the bottle,” said Lisa Strands good sense.

         Instead of heeding her words, the greedy boy went ahead to pull harder.  After a while he said, “Ouch!  My hand hurts!”

         “Wants, let go of the pennies,” said Lisa Strands with the tone of a mother.

         “I cannot.  I want them,” said Wants.  And he began to pull with all of his strength.

         With the tone of a girlfriend, Gravel asked him, “What would Jesus do?”

         Then he cried out, saying, “Ow.  My hand is stuck in the jar real bad.  What should I do?”

         “Maybe you should pray and repent and let go of all those pennies that you are holding on to so

Page 10

hard.” preached righteous Lisa Strands.

         Instead Wants said to her, “Go and stand by the window and be my lookout, please.  If Dad comes riding up, then tell me.”  Then he said, “Dad must not see me like this, Lisa.”

         “But I can see you like that, Wants,” said Gravel.

         “You can, because you are my girlfriend,” said Wants.

         “And the Lord can see you like that,” said just Gravel.

         “He can, because He sees everything,” said Wants.  He then pointed with his free hand to the dining room window as a cue, and the Five Creeks Trident obeyed her boyfriend of the day and went over there to serve him as his lookout.

         “I feel like I am a bad girl, doing this for you, Wants,” said Gravel.

         “I just know that I want these,” he said.

         “You want what is not yours, Wants,” said Lisa.

         “Girl, my whole hand hurts, and here you are preaching to me.  You are not Pastor,” said the boy desirous of money.

         Trying to think like him, the Five Creeks Trident said, “What if you were to drop those pennies that are in your hurt hand into the jar, then take out your stuck hand, then tip the jar and pour the pennies into your palm?  Would that help you?”

         Instead of listening to her, Wants asked, “Do you see anybody coming up on a big white horse?”

         She looked and said, “I see no one coming up yet.”

         “Praise God,” said the teenage boy.  Gravel wondered what a strange thing that this date had just praised God for.  And what kind of fellow was this whom she was hoping for to become her boyfriend?  He had not even looked at her swimdress this whole night long.

         She spoke up and asked, “Wants, what do you think of my swimdress?”

         Instead Wants said, “My life dream is to become Silas Marner, that miser in the novel who

Page 11

had a bag full of gold coins.  Just think how happy I would be if I had my own bag of gold coins!  I could empty the bag onto the floor, and I could play with them with my fingers, and I could hear the jingling of gold in my ears.  Amen, girl!”  Gravel wondered what a strange thing this was for a church person like him to say “Amen” to.

         And Lisa Strands could tell that she meant less to this miser boy than did his jar of pennies.

         Just then the sound of whinnying came upon them from outside.

         “I see a guy,” said Miss Strands.  “He’s coming up on a large white horse.”

         “It’s Dad!” cried out Wants.

         “What are you going to do?” asked Lisa.

         “I’m going to hide,” said Wants.  “Don’t tell Dad that I am in the closet.”

         “I shall not be your accomplice any more,” said Gravel.

         “I thought that you were in this with me,” he said.

         “Wants, you are just plain covetous,” said the Five Creeks Trident.  “You covet things.”

         “I am a covetor,” he confessed.  “God made me a covetor.”  Then he quickly sought refuge in the closet.  Gravel regretted having gone out with Wants now after having heard him blame God for his covetousness.

         His father then came into the dining room, and he saw his bottle of pennies no longer on his dining room table.

         Just then there came a sound of crashing coming from the closet.  His dad came up to the closet and opened the door.  Behold, Wants sitting in there, hundreds of pennies all over his person and on the closet floor and in his hands.  Behold, also a shattered jar with broken shards and glass fragments all over the closet floor.  Behold, two cut and bleeding hands that belonged to Wants.  Guilty before Dad and Gravel and God, Wants could only say in a lie, “I was just looking at these, Dad.”  And Lisa Strands’ second date with a church Christian also ended in disarray.  Gravel could only wonder how

Page 12

prodigal a son of God could be who named the name of Christ as Wants did all the time at the church.

         But the Five Creeks Trident did not give up on saved boys.  Her third date in her quest for a boyfriend-in-Christ was with the new usher at church, whose name was “Shrines.”  Shrines was fifteen years old, had been coming to church now with his parents for three years, and always recited the week’s quiz verse from the Bible perfectly every time.  He decided to take her to J.C. Penney’s department store for their date.  And she, at sixteen years old, felt good, being for him an older girl.

He kept saying on their ride here, “Gravel, you and I are the same size as each other.”

         When they got there, she asked him, “Why do you keep saying that?”

         And to this, he gave a sly, “Let’s go shopping and find out together what I mean by that, Lisa.”

         “You know something that you are not telling me, Shrines,” said the Five Creeks Trident.

         “And soon I will tell you, and then you will know all,” said Shrines.

         As they went into the department store, Lisa Strands asked, “Shrines, do you like my swim dress?”

         “Le Cove,” he said with most particular knowledge.

         Gravel was flabbergasted, and she said, “Shrines, only my griffin Valiant and I know that,”

         “Follow me, older woman,” he said in flirt.  And she followed him right up to the women’s swimwear department.  Then he said, “This is where we are going shopping together.”

         “Oh, the junior’s swimwear department is my favorite part of every store, Shrines.” sang out the Five Creeks Trident in delights.

         “Lisa, I dream about one-piece swimsuit racks in the night, and I dream about one-piece swimsuit racks in the day,” said Shrines.

         “Do you dream about my one-piece swimsuit, Shrines?” she asked.

         “I’m dreaming about your one-piece swimsuit right now, Lisa,” he said.

         “You are a lot more fun than my last date, Shrines,” said Gravel.  “He would not even look at

Page 13

me.”

         He turned to her, admired her face, then looked down to admire her swimdress.  He went on to say, “Chevron stripes are my favorite pattern for maillots.  Did you know that, Lisa?”

         Getting swept up in the romance of swimsuit talk with a cute guy who thought like her, Gravel went on to say,  “And Chevron-patterned swimdresses have more V-Stripes than do Chevron-patterned one-piece swimsuits without the skirt portion, Shrines.”

         “That’s because swimdresses go farther down than do the normal maillots,” said her date.

         “So, Shrines, what are you daydreaming about with my swimdress?” asked Lisa Strands.

         “I can’t tell you that,” he said.

         “Is it about me?” she asked.

         “Not exactly, Gravel,” he said.

         “Oh, Shrines, do tell your girlfriend the answer to all of your riddles today,” said Lisa Strands.

         He then took a hanger that was on the maillot rack, lifted it off of the rod, and held it in front of her.  It was just exactly her very own swimdress that she was wearing right now!  He said, “I can begin to tell you why I took you shopping here on our date by saying, ‘This women’s swimsuit is a size eight’”

         “And mine is a size eight, too, Shrines,” said the swimdress girl.

         “This swimdress has a tan liner inside of it,” he said.

         “Just as mine does,” she said.

         “This brand new swimdress has a hygienic liner yet,” he said.

         “All swimsuits on the rack have those,” she said.  “A girl has to take it out when she buys it.”

         “Allow me to take this hygienic liner out of this swimsuit,” he said, holding up the swimdress on its hanger before her.

         “Are you going to buy me this very same swimdress?” asked the Five Creeks Trident.

Page 14

         “I’m going to buy this swimdress for myself, Gravel,” said Shrines.

         “For yourself?” she asked.  “You’re a guy.”

         “I am a wannabe girl,” he said.  “And you are so pretty, Lisa.  I’ve got a crush on you.  And I want to dress like you.”

         Such odd flattery Gravel had never heard before spoken to her.  But she kind of liked what he had just told her.  He was surely a cute guy.  Maybe she could get used to dating him in a women’s swimdress.

         He said, “This is the most exciting day of my life, Gravel.”

         “My most exciting day of my life was the day I got saved,” said Gravel spontaneously and truthfully.  Then she paused to wonder why his most exciting day of his life were not the day of his salvation, too.

         He went on to say, “My day of salvation was my second happiest day of my life, Gravel.”

         “When you buy this swimdress, Shrines, what will you do with it?” she asked.

         “I’ll put it on forever,” he said.

         “And when you have to take it off for a little while?” she asked.

         “I can store it on a hook in my bedroom closet and make a shrine of my closet with it,” Shrines bragged on this ladies’ swimdress.

         “And about your Bible?” she asked.

         “That’s on the coffee table.  It’s quite dusty,” he said.

         “And about your prayers?” she asked.

         “I used to pray in my bedroom.  But now I have no place where I pray anymore,” he said.

         “I still see you come for church all the time,” she said.

         “Next week I’ll come to church in this wonderful marvelous swimdress,  O Gravel.  Just wait and see,” he said.

Page 15

         “You better not, Shrines,” said Lisa Strands.

         “Then I won’t go to church at all,” he said.

         “This swimdress here on the rack and mine that I have on now…are they more important to you than is God, Shrines?” asked the Five Creeks Trident.

         “Oh.  Of course, Gravel,” he said.

         “Shrines, you’ve gone and made an idol out of my swimdress,” rebuked Lisa Strands.

         “It is my god,” he said, most idolatrous.

         “You are an idolater,” exclaimed Gravel.  “And I refuse to go out with a young man with a false god when the real God is ignored.”

         Having heard this farewell, Shrines went on to take his swimdress off the rack, hanger and all, and to go up to the checkout lanes and to buy it all for himself.  How could a Christian boy fall for such false idolatry with a girl’s swimsuit like hers?  He was hardly living for God.  And Gravel’s third date with a church person ended quite unhappily.

         But Gravel was stubborn.  She wanted a handsome fellow to share fellowship with.  And she tried again.  Her next date was with an older man who was thirty years of age.  He was a handsome eligible bachelor, and she felt honored—indeed flattered—that he would deign to go out with a sixteen-year-old girl like herself.  He made her feel like a grown-up.  He had been going to the services of Five Creeks Free Church now for almost ten years.  He was the official church trteasurer.  And his name was “Yells.”  Rumors had been whispered at church lately that Yells had gotten alone with Pastor in confrontation and began to rebuke him.  Pastor was a good man.  If Yells had yelled at Pastor, that was

surely the wrong thing to do.  But Gravel chose to never mind the rumors.  And here she was on a date with the older man, he and she walking together out back of the church in the cemetery.  They were talking and fellowshipping and getting along just right.  And he was happy, and she was happy.

         Then, from out of the blue, her date turned and looked behind himself and glared at something

Page 16

that he seemed to see, and shouted out to it, “The same to you, buddy boy!”  Then he turned back and resumed walking. She ran a couple steps to catch up and resumed walking at his side.

         “Who was that back there, Yells?” asked the Five Creeks Trident.

         “No one was there,” he said.

         “You were hollering at no one, Yells?” asked Gravel.

         “I was shouting at Dad,” he said.

         “You were shouting at your dad who was not there,” she said, trying to figure out her date.

         “Yesterday, Dad told me that I was hard to get along with,” said this older man.  “So just now I gave him a piece of my mind.”

         “Yells, you frighten me,” said Lisa.

         “Don’t be frightened,” he scolded her.  “At least I am not yelling at someone who is here, little girl.”  He meant Gravel.

         “Yells, may I ask you a question?” asked Gravel.

         “Ask away.  I do not bite,” he said in charm once again.

         “Do you promise not to yell at me, Yells?” she asked.

         “I promise, pretty swimdress girl,” he said.

         “Did you really go and yell at our pastor?” she asked him.

         “I did, Lisa,” he said.

         “That is wrong for a member of our flock to yell at our Pastor,” said the Five Creeks Trident.

         “Someone had to,” said Yells.  “Pastor was wrong, and God told me to rebuke him.”

         “God would never tell a sheep to rebuke a shepherd, Yells,” said the born-again Christian Biblical truths of a church of God.

         “He does,” said Yells.  “It’s in the Bible.  The written Words of God are my defense for what I

did, Lisa Strands.”

Page 17

         “I do not believe that,” said Miss Strands.

         “Proverbs 28:1:  ‘…, but the righteous are bold as a lion.’” recited the shouter both reference and verse.

         “But doesn’t the Bible say in I Timothy 5:1, ‘Rebuke not an elder,…?’” asked Gravel.  “And doesn’t the Bible say in I Timothy 5:17, ‘Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour,…?’”

         “Shush, girl,” yelled Yells at her.

         “Yells, you make me want to yell right back at you,” rebuked the sixteen-year-old Sunday School student.

         “Yell at me, and I will scream at you,” threatened Yells.

         In a calm voice the swimdress girl said, “Doesn’t it make sense that if our good pastor did need chastisement, should not we of the flock leave this chastisement to God?”

         “Our good and godly pastor taught false doctrine to my little children in Sunday school class!”

claimed Yells.

         “What did Pastor say that was supposed to be false doctrine?” asked the born-again believer.

         “He went on and on about how the Christmas tree is a good thing that glorifies God,” said Yells.

         “It is.  And it does,” said the stalwart daughter of God.

         “The Christmas tree is blasphemy!” yelled Yells.  “The Christmas tree is called ‘a false idol’ in Jeremiah chapter ten, my girl,”   Further he went on to say, “The Christmas tree is of the Devil, and it comes straight from the pits of Hell.”

         “I am familiar with Jeremiah ten, Yells.  So is my wise griffin Valiant.  And Jeremiah ten is not talking about a Christmas tree.  Jeremiah ten is talking about Old Testament graven images that people fell down before and worshipped.  We people of the Griffin Lands do not bow down and worship our Christmas trees.  Nor are our Christmas trees graven images.  And Christmas trees are testimonies to

Page 18

the Christ of Christmas—He who is the Creator of all things. Pastor is right, and you are wrong, Yells,” said Lisa Strands, standing strong for Jesus and truth.

         The face of this man on this date was turning red with rage.  And he said nothing.  And he would not look her in the face.

         “Yells, you’re mad.  Aren’t you?” asked the swimdress girl in fear.

         “Dogs get mad.  People get angry,” he snapped at her.

         Gravel remembered what she had heard at church about that day that Yells had taken upon himself to holler at the pastor.  They all said how Yells was doing all of the yelling; and how Pastor, strong in Christ, was standing his ground with longsuffering and meekness.   She thought now to try to be just like Godly Pastor.  And she sought to bail out this date with a change of subject.  She asked him, “Yells, do you have anything to say about my pretty little swimdress?”

         And yet the man said to her, “Dogs get rabid.  People don’t get rabid.”

         Pursuing the quest for peace with this man and seeking reconciliation with him, the Five Creeks Trident said, “I’m sorry I made you yell at me.  Let’s talk about more agreeable things.”

         “Like what, swimdress girl?” he asked her.

         “Like my swimming suit, maybe, Yells,” she suggested.

         “Yells does not yell,” he went on to say to her.  “Tell me that I am not a yelling man.”

         What could Lisa Strands say to that?  She could not lie before her Heavenly Father and say to Yells, “You do not yell.”  She had to tell the truth.  Instead she tried to change the subject again.  And she swallowed her pride, silently asked God to bear with her, and shook her hips about to assuage Yells’s great rages.  And she said to this man, “Am I not prettier to you than any other girl in our church?”

         And Yells erupted like a volcano, yelling in a stentorian tone for all the countryside to hear,

“Anathema to you, Lisa ‘Gravel’ Strands!  How dare you say to me that I am a man who yells!”

Page 19

         “Yells, you are a man who yells!” said the angry offended teenage girl.  “You rail on me.  You rail on Pastor.  You probably rail on God.  I shall not go out with a railer.”

         And having said this, the Five Creeks Trident Gravel turned and ran away from Yells in fear for her well-being.  As she fled she heard words never dared spoken in church hurled at her in hollers from this man.  And she was never so happy to run away from a man on a date as she was this time with this guy.  And she pondered, How could a man who was saved yell such words as of a man who was unsaved?  Thus ended most abysmally Lisa Strands’s fourth date of her discovery of boys and men.

         Gravel was quite disheartened now with church people who were supposed to be born-again believers.  It seemed to her now like most of the saved people out there lived their lives no differently from how the unsaved people out there lived their lives.  She asked Valiant, “Am I the same way as all of them, best friend?  Am I a saved girl living like a lost girl?”

         And dear Valiant said to her, “Do not give up on Christian men, my mistress.”

         And she came to God in prayer, and the still small voice of the Holy Spirit said to her, “My daughter, it is written, ‘…:  but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.’  Romans 16:19.”

         And the Five Creeks Trident girl did try good wholesome romance once again, for her fifth time.  It was with a loner boy called “Bottles.”  Bottles had come to church a month ago as a first-time visitor, and he said to the good minister, “I loved your sermon, Pastor.  I’m definitely coming back to your church.”  But Bottles did not yet come back as he had promised.  She would ask him out and encourage him to come back.  He was nineteen years old, and he had a thick black beard and a long black mustache and bushy black eyebrows and much black hair.  Even his eyes were black.  He suggested to meet on their first date down in his pantry.  There she would pop the question and ask him to come to church with her on their next date.  But first his place.

         She met him at his door in the back of his house.  He was singing a strange song so out of

Page 20

place for a born-again believer:  “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.  Ninety-nine bottles of beer.  Take one down.  Pass it along.  Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall.”

         She quickly looked down upon his hands to see if he were actually holding a real bottle of beer in them.  She saw none.  “Bottles,” she asked.  “You don’t really drink bottles of beer.  Do you?”

         “I do not drink beer, pretty Gravel,” he said in apparent sincerity.

         “Then how come you started singing such a song?” asked the Five Creeks Trident.

         “I’ve got an even better song to sing with you here, Lisa,” he told her.

         “Do I dare ask you to sing it for me?” asked Lisa Strands.

         “Mario Lanza sang this song on my Dad’s record album,” said Bottles.

         “I heard of him.  He is that famous opera singer,” said Gravel.

         “It is called, ‘Drink.  Drink.  Drink,’” said Bottles.

         “Is that what it is called?” she asked.  He nodded.  “I ask you not to sing it for me, Bottles,” said Gravel.

         But Bottles went on to sing this drinking song.  In a believer’s disfavor with sin Gravel put her hands to her ears to shut out this so-worldly song.  But she could still hear it.  After a while, she took away her hands from her ears and asked, “Bottles, please do not sing any more songs to me.”  And he stopped singing this classic drinking song. Then she felt better.  “You said that we could get together in your pantry,” she said.  “Is that in the basement?”

         “Aye.  There it is,” he said.

         “Let’s go see what you have in your pantry,” she said, more sure of this date now.

         “Wait till you see what I have in my pantry, woman,” he said with a sly grin.  And she followed him down the basement steps.

         “Cans?” she asked, thinking about canned vegetables and canned fruit.

         “Bottles,” said Bottles.

Page 21

         “Bottles of vegetables and bottles of fruit?” she asked.

         “Woman,” he said to her in condescension, “your Bottles is not talking about Kerr Bottles or Ball Bottles.”

         They now stood in front of this pantry’s closed little narrow door.  He was confident in his telling of his little secret.  She was not sure now that she was supposed to be here.  She spoke up and said, “Maybe you should not tell me about what kinds of bottles you have in there that you want to show a Christian girl.”

         Boorish now, Bottles began to sing a drinking song of contemporary popular music called “Red Red Wine.”  And then he opened this pantry door and showed the Christian girl what he had in there.

         Behold, bottles of unopened red wine and bottles of unopened white wine in a little storehouse of shelves.

         “Well, what do you think, Lisa?” he asked.

         “These are not really yours.  Are they?” asked the Five Creeks Trident.

         “Yes.  They all are,” he said.

         “You don’t drink these,  Do you?” she asked.

         “Yes.  I do,” he told her.

         “But you don’t really go and get drunk.  Do you?” she asked.

         “Yes.  That I do,” said Bottles.  “Would you like to share a bottle of red wine or a bottle of white wine with me, Gravel?” asked Bottles.  He showed her a bottle of red wine.  She shook her head.  He showed her a bottle of white wine.  She shook her head again.

         “The Bible says that it is a sin to drink alcohol, Bottles,” said Gravel.

         “Did you get that from your strict pastor?” said the drinker.

         “It is Proverbs 20:1,” she said.  “And it goes like this:  ‘Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.’”

Page 22

         He then took out a bottle of red wine and sat down on the floor in the little pantry.  And he said, “All that that Bible verse says is that drinking my red wine makes me not wise.  It does not say that this bottle is a sin for me.”

         “It is also written in Leviticus 10:9, ‘Do not drink wine nor strong drink,…’” recited the Five Creeks Trident the Word of God.

         “That says that this bottle is a sin for me, girl,” he said.

         “Would you put it down for God?” she asked.

         “I will put it down for God, indeed, Lisa” he said.  “I will put it down the hatch.”

         “I refuse to drink with you, Bottles,” said Lisa Strands.

         She saw him struggling with his bare fingers to try to pull out the cork out of this red wine bottle.  “Blasted Lambrusco!  My favorite!  And I can’t get the cork out!” he murmured.

         “Maybe God is keeping you from drinking with me on our date, Bottles,” said Lisa.

         “My corkscrew will prevail over God, pretty Gravel,” he said.  And he reached up from where he was sitting to a shelf, and he grabbed his dear corkscrew.  “Best friend,” he called out to this corkscrew.  “You’ve saved me many times over.”

         Trying to take his focus off of this red wine in the bottle, Gravel asked him, “Bottles, do you like my one-piece swimsuit?”

         “Yeah.  I do, Gravel,” he said.  “It looks like a one-piece swimsuit with a skirt portion on it.  Neat!”

         “This is called a ‘swimdress,’” she said.

         “Pretty swimdress, pretty Gravel,” he said to her.  “Let me look at it in its catchy V-Stripes.”

He then bore the metal corkscrew into the cork.  He said to her, “Look out, girl.  These corks like to shoot off like rockets.  Who knows where this one ends up or what it might hit?”

         “Bottles, please be careful.  You’ve got the bottle pointed right toward your face,” said Gravel.

Page 23

         “Don’t worry about this guy, swimdress girl,” he said.  “A veteran with wine like myself can open a wine bottle and look at his pretty girlfriend both at the same time.”

         Bang!  The cork shot out of the bottle like a cannon.  Pow!  It popped him hard right in his forehead.  Boom!  He fell backward where he sat and smashed the back of his head on the cement floor  of this pantry, and he lay there in a bewilderment.  The bottle of red wine was still in his left hand, quite  opened now, and yet not spilled.

         “Bottles, are you all right?” asked Lisa, afraid for him.

         “Momma Mia.  Momma Mia.  Momma Mia,” he said in a daze.

         “Bottles, I’ve got to call 9-1-1,” she said, worried.

         Lo, he began to laugh, despite the accident that just befell him.  He rallied and sat back up upon his bottom.  His head was bleeding some in the back.  And he looked down through the neck of this bottle of red wine.  And he sang a polka drinking song, “Roll Out The Barrel.”

         “Are you okay…Bottles?” she asked, unsure.

         He then prayed, “Lord, give me another good drunk.”

         “Bottles, you are a drunkard,” she said.

         “I drink to that, swimdress woman,” he said.  And he took a drink from the bottle, and he said, “Ah, a taste of Heaven to come for me.”  What blasphemy the Christian girl had just heard spoken.

         Remembering what she had come to ask him, Gravel now asked him, “Bottles, would you come to church with me this Sunday?”

         And to this he said, “Could I come drunk this time?”

         “You must come sober,” she said.

         “Not ever again, Lisa Strands,” he said.

         “Bottles, I refuse to have a drunk for a boyfriend.  You are a drunkard, and God does not want me dating a drunk.  I am through with you,” declared the Five Creeks Trident.

Page 24

         And Gravel left the pantry and returned home, and Bottles was happy with his bottles in his pantry.  She wondered, How can a man who was a believer like herself live only for strong drink?  Red wine never died for his sins as Jesus did.  And drinking oneself drunk was so worldly that one could not see Christ in his life at all.

         Gravel felt like maybe giving up on boyfriends who named the name of Christ.  She was beginning to see that oftentimes the saved did not make Christ the Lord of their lives. Many Christians were indeed hypocrites.  And most who did find Christ never went on to grow in Christ.  What a shameful testimony to Christendom.

         But still there must be at least one person who went to her church who lived for God as Pastor did.  She must keep trying, and she must not quit.  Boys were the most exciting thing that she had discovered since her born-again conversion.  She wanted a boyfriend.  And surely she could find one that God would have for her.  And she went and asked out a sixth believer for a date.

         His name was “Tips.”  He was a bag boy and a carryout boy at the local grocery store.  His job was to bag people’s groceries and to carry these groceries out to their wagons.  Tips played both the piano and the organ at Five Creeks Free Church.  And he was good at both.  And he was also an upperclassman at her Five Creeks High School.  His favorite class was Economics—both microeconomics and macroeconomics.  And he was voted the future most successful student of the school.

         The two Five Creeks Tridents got together for their date at her parents’ front yard in the short green grass.  And the first thing she said was, “You play the church piano and the church organ very well, Tips.  The music adds a lot to the service.”

         “Thank you.  Thank you,” said Tips.  Then he went and said, “I’ve been meaning to ask Pastor if he would make that a paid position at church.”

         Upon hearing this said with a serious tone and with a serious face, Lisa Strands’s mouth flew

Page 25

open.  Surely he did not really mean that.  She asked, “Tips, I took you seriously when you said that just now.  You teaser you.”

         “I am not laughing, Gravel,” said Tips.  “Pastor gets paid for preaching.  I should get paid for playing the church music.”

         “Then you were serious about what you just told me,” said the Five Creeks Trident.

         “Tips does not do things for free,” he said in the third person point of view of himself.

         “Tips who do you play your music for at church—for the praise of God or for the praise of men?” asked Lisa Strands.

         “I do not want praise.  I want money, woman,” he said with a huff.  “As they say out there in the world, ‘Money talks.’”

         “Money sounds more important to you than serving the Lord, Tips,” said Gravel.

         “As Mr. Howell said on Gilligan’s Island, ‘The purpose of money is to make more money.’” said Tips.

         “Do you give tithes and offerings to our church?” asked Gravel.

         “Pastor will never get one penny from me,” snapped Tips.

         “How about the work of the Lord that Five Creeks Free Church does in supporting other missionaries and spreading the Gospel and, of course, helping Pastor to pay his living expenses?” asked Lisa.

         “I don’t care,” said Tips.  “The Lord’s work will never get one penny from me,”

         “It sounds to me that you are the kind who goes around and asks for money, Tips,” said the swimdress girl.

         “And I am the best at that game, Gravel,” he said.  “You should see all the tips that I get from all of the customers at work.  As a bag boy and carryout at the store, I make more on my tips than I do on my wages.  I make more on Christmas tips than all the rest of my workers all put together make on

Page 26

Christmas tips.”

         “How do you do it, Tips?” asked the Christian girl in offense.

         “A little subtle comment here.  A half-truth there.  And lots of creativity,” said Tips.

         “You tell tales to the customers,” said Gravel speaking plainly about his words just now.

         “I make up hard-luck stories to make the customers feel bad for me, and they give me money to help me out, and who am I to turn down a tip from a customer?” said the shyster.

         “Let me guess,” said Miss Strands.  “You tell a customer for whom you carry out their groceries that you have come upon unexpected expenses, that you do not have enough to get by, and that you need a few ones or a five to tide you over for a while till you get back on your feet.”

         “Simple girl, I do not ask for ones or a five.  I ask for a ten or a twenty, sometimes a fifty,” said Tips.

         “These are false stories that you tell them.  Aren’t they?” asked the swimdress girl.

         “More like partly false and partly true,” he said to her.  “And I am rich!”

         “Tips, you are a real scoundrel,” said the Five Creeks Trident.

         “But I’m the best at what I do,” he said.

         “You don’t mean being a grocery store worker,” she said.

         “I mean making money in my own ways,” said Tips.

         “Why do you come to church?” she asked.

         And he said, “I walk up to a member of our flock, and I say the words from the verse Acts 20:35, how it is more blessed to give than to receive, and he or she, being a Christian gives me lots of money.  I tell you woman, the flock is even more generous than the customers.”

         “Didn’t Pastor just last week take up a love offering from the congregation for your future college expenses, Tips?” asked Lisa Strands.

         “Uh huh, Lisa,” he said.  “But now I won’t go to college.”

Page 27

         “Did you decide that before or after Pastor took up this offering for you?” asked the Christian girl.

         In reply he said, “It was an even bigger collection than any collection of our church for a visiting missionary, O Gravel.”

         “Doesn’t it bother you to go and keep asking for money that you never needed, Tips?” asked Miss Strands.

         “That’s a sexy swimsuit you have on right now, Gravel,” he said.

         “It’s called a swimdress,” she said.  But she did not fall for his dishonest compliment.  She became wary.

         “Does your swimdress have any pockets?” he asked.

         “One-piece swimsuits do not have pockets,” she said.

         “Too bad,” he said.

         “Why do you ask?” asked the suspicious swimdress girl.

         “Because usually people have money in their pockets,” said Tips.

         “All you care about for me is to borrow money from me.  Isn’t that right, Tips?” asked the Five Creeks Trident.

         “No, Lisa,” he said.

         “Then why did you ask that then?” she asked.

         “Because I wanted a grant of money from you, Gravel,” he brazenly replied.

         “You are trying to extort money from a girl who is on a date with you,” said the swimdress girl.

“And that is the only reason you had for going out with me here in my front yard.  You saw me as a Christian woman who would feel sorry for you and give you money.  You do not find me attractive, unless I hand out free money.”

         “A little extortion cannot hurt,” said Tips.  “Can it?”

Page 28

         “Tips, you are an extortioner,” said the Five Creeks Trident the plain truth.  “And a Christian girl ought not to go out with an extortioner like yourself.  Would you go away now, Tips, and leave me alone?  I no longer find you handsome.”

         And Tips left the yard and her life.  This sixth date was yet another bust.  How could a brother-in-the-Lord fall for the love of money as he did and still wish to keep coming to a good church with a good pastor?  Why would a Christian who was supposed to love his Saviour love tips instead as Tips did so avariciously?  Where could this swimdress girl find a boy who loved the Lord most of all?

Was there such a boy in her church?  Was there any such man anywhere? Were there no good Christian guys out there? She really needed to talk to her best friend Valiant now.  Her pet griffin could help her out now with all of these dates having gone bad on her as they did.

         And Lisa Strands found dear Valiant in the backyard, eating meat from the hunt.  “Wolf again, Valiant?” she asked.

         “This time coyote, Mistress,” said the griffin best friend.

         “I’ve missed you, good friend,” said the swimdress girl.

         “You have been seeing boys,” said Valiant in understanding.  “It is good to be with you again, O

Mistress.”

         “Born-again Christian boys,” she said.

         “Ah, godly boys,” he said.

         “No, Valiant.  They were most ungodly boys,” said Miss Strands.

         “Carnal believers?”” said Valiant.   She nodded.  He said, “They are out there everywhere.”

         “”I did not know about such Christians before until I started looking for my first boyfriend-in-the-Lord,” said Lisa.  “I had six dates, six different boys, and they were all a disaster for me, O faithful confidant Valiant.”

         “My mistress, I’ve been praying every day for you in your new life with young men,” said the

Page 29

Tawny Benevolent Griffin.  “And God had led me in my Bible-reading to II Thessalonians chapter three where were verses that God wish that I share with you.  I never noticed these verses before, and I do not think that you saw them earlier in any of your Bible readings either.  It was an answer to my prayers for you, good mistress.”

         The swimdress girl raised her King James Bible in both hands, and she said, “Tell me where in II Thessalonians chapter three they are, and I will read them out loud most humbly, good Valiant.

This girl new with romance desires has a lot to learn about boys,” promised the Five Creeks Trident.

         “First, verse six, Mistress,” said the good griffin.

         Gravel found it quickly and did read this Scripture out loud:  “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.”

         “What do you think God is saying?” asked Valiant.  “Are you thinking what I am thinking?”

         “I think that God is telling me that there are Christian men who are living for the world, Valiant,” said Gravel.

         “Second,  verse fourteen,” said the good griffin.

         And in humility the swimdress mistress read this Scripture out loud:   “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.”

         “What do you think?  The same thing?” asked Valiant.

         “Yes.  God tells me here that I should not go out with a Christian guy who is living for the world,” summed up Lisa Strands.

         “Thus an answer to my prayers for you, Mistress,” said the Tawny Benevolent Griffin.

         In sum of what she had learned just now all at once, Lisa went on to say, “For myself as a born-again believer, it is not enough that my boyfriend be saved, but that he be saved and living for Jesus.

A Christian girl like myself can be sinning with an unequal yoke of a boyfriend who is a backslidden

Page 30

Christian just as much as she can with an unequal yoke of a boyfriend who is yet utterly without Christ.

Further, just because a boy goes to a fundamental church with a good and godly pastor, that does not mean that he would be the boyfriend-in-Christ that God would approve of for myself.”

         “Well said, Mistress,” said Valiant.  In his own summary of this same doctrine from the Bible, the griffin pet adjured her, “A spiritual believer like yourself must not seek for a boyfriend a carnal believer or a nonbeliever. O Mistress.”

         “I promise you and God never to do that again, best friend,” said the Five Creeks Trident.

         “You will have happy dates with such boys who live for God as you do,” said the good and wise griffin.

         “Do you wish to hear all about my six disastrous dates now, good and faithful griffin?” asked the swimdress girl.

         “I have been most curious about how bad that these prodigal boys were, who professed Christianity,” said Valiant.

         “My first date was with a fornicator.  My second date was with a covetous man.  My third date was with an idolater.  My fourth date was with a railer.  My fifth date was with a drunkard.  And my sixth date was with an extortioner,” the Five Creeks Trident told about her pursuit of male companionship.

         “Ah, my fine mistress,” said Valiant.  “the very message of I Corinthians 5:11.”  And Valiant recited I Corinthians 5:11 to his beloved mistress:  “But I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat.”

         In awe and wonder and enlightenment, the Five Creeks Trident could only say, “Glory!  Glory!  Glory!”

         “Amen!  Amen!  Amen!” said the griffin of God.

Page 31

         “Enough said,” said Lisa “Gravel” Strands.  “I shall never go out on a date with such a guy as that again.”

         “Jesus will find you the right man,” said Valiant.

         “This time I shall wait upon God and be much in prayer,” promised Lisa.

         And griffin mistress and griffin pet bowed their heads and prayed in a spontaneous prayer meeting that God give into her life a fine young Christian man to date as boyfriend.

         It was a week later.  And mistress and griffin were in great danger in the tall field grass of their countryside yard.  The Christian girl and her protector were surrounded by four Gray Malevolent Griffins who were hungry and vengeful of any that were God’s.  Gravel and Valiant stood back against back before them, as her griffin soldier had them to do.   And she prayed out loud for God’s divine intervention.  The four evil griffins stood there fifty feet away.  One was in front of Valiant; one was in front of Gravel; one was off to the one side; and one was off to the other side.

         Lisa paused in her prayers and cried out,  “Valiant, I am afraid to die!”

         “It is written, my mistress, ‘The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and he delivereth them out of all their troubles.’  Psalm 34:17,” recited the griffin the encouraging Word of God.

         “God’s Word is truth,” said the Five Creeks Trident.

         The four Gray Malevolent Griffins advanced ten feet in march.  Now they were only forty feet away from griffin and mistress.  Lisa knew why her guardian from God did not attack the evil griffins on his own right now; if he did so, he would be leaving his mistress alone against the three other evil griffins.

         The swimdress girl went on now to say, “Pastor always tells us of the flock that for the Christian, dying is like going to sleep and waking up in Heaven.”

         “God’s promise to all born-again believers,” said Valiant.

Page 32

         “I am not afraid to die,” said Lisa.  “God is good.”

         “It is written, ‘I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me:  I girded thee though thou hast not known me:’  Isaiah 45:5,” recited the learned griffin more scripture.

         “Is God girding us right now, Valiant?” asked the swimdress girl.

         “It is written, ‘(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)’  II Corinthians 10:4,” said the griffin of God the Word of God.

         The daughter of God said, “I do not see anything happening for us right now, but I believe God.”

         Then the griffins of the Devil advanced another ten feet from each of the four directions.  Now they were all only thirty feet away.

         “I don’t know about you, Valiant, but I do say that God is cutting it close for us right now,” said

Gravel.

         “It is written, ‘Remember the former things of old:  for I am God, and there is none else;  I am God, and there is none like me.’  Isaiah 46:9,” said the griffin Bible student.

         “Former things of old,” said Lisa Strands.   “I remember former things, Valiant.  God had never let me down.  Is it not written in Psalm 56:13, ‘For thou hast delivered my soul from death:  wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?’”

         “Most aptly and well spoken, faithful Mistress,” said the Tawny Benevolent Griffin.

         Then the wicked gray griffins each advanced another ten feet.  Now they stood there, ready for the kill, each of them only twenty feet away now from the two of God.

         “This could be it, dear Valiant,” said Lisa Strands.

         “Are you ready to meet our Maker, O Mistress?” asked the griffin warrior.

         “Should we give the devils a good fight, Valiant?” asked the Five Creeks Trident.

         He paused, then said, “Yes.  Let’s.”

Page 33

         “Now?” asked Lisa, ready for battle.

         “When I say, ‘Charge,’” said Valiant.

         Then the four demonic griffins each advanced another ten feet.  Now they were all only ten feet away from mistress and pet.

         Then Almighty God acted.

         Hearken, the voice of a man singing off in the distance!  The Gray Malevolent Griffins stood there and did not advance.  The Tawny Benevolent Griffin paused and did not give the order to charge. He listened.  She listened.  It was a hymn that was being sung.  And it was the hymn “The Old Rugged Cross.”

         Then the sound of pounding hooves came upon the six who were here in the countryside grass.

This hymn singer was riding a horse.  The four wicked griffins began to stamp their claws and paws upon the earth in uneasiness.   The Christian girl felt the Holy Ghost in the air.  The good griffin soldier felt Goodness in the air.

         Then this song ended, and another song began.  This mystery singer from God was now singing the hymn, “At the Cross.”  There seemed to be Holy Spirit power in this man’s singing voice.  The devils trembled.  The saints took comfort.  As the six here listened, they also looked.  Whoever this man of God was, he was definitely making his way here with Godspeed.

         Behold, a man on a horse, galloping with great speed, and a book open in this man’s hands as he rode.  The evil griffins panicked where they stood, and they began to argue among themselves.  Gravel watched this good fellow in great admiration.  Valiant praised God for this hymn singer.

         Then this hymn man finished this hymn and went on to sing another hymn.  This one was the hymn, “Near the Cross.”  And the peaceful countryside here in the middle of the Griffin Lands resonated with the comforts of the Holy Comforter as this man from God sang thus from his book of hymns.

Page 34

         The four griffin foes of God began to chatter and to move about and to fall into panic where they stood.  This man who sang hymns had a power over even them.  Yet, for Valiant and Gravel, this man who sang hymns had a love of God for them.  And he was coming in upon them very rapidly on his fiercely galloping horse.  Then he finished this hymn, and he began to sing the hymn, “At Calvary.”

         Lisa “Gravel” Strands spoke and said, “A savior is coming from our Saviour, O Valiant.”

         “Riding a tawny horse,” said the Tawny Benevolent Griffin.

         Lo, this horseman with the hymnbook came charging most effectually in upon the whole group of the four Gray Malevolent Griffins.  In fear of Almighty God, the four dread demonic griffins scattered and screeched and fled for their lives.  And just like that, the evil was gone now from here in these Griffin Lands.  The horseman of Christ then stopped his horse and turned back around and smiled at the swimdress girl.  His fourth hymn now done, he began to sing a fifth hymn with his hymnbook open before him.  This was the hymn “Lead me to Calvary.”

         And the discerning Five Creeks Trident came to understand that these hymns sung by this good man that so overwhelmed the four devil griffins were all songs about the cross of Calvary.  She listened to this good man of God, and he soon finished this song about the cross of Christ.

         Then this hymn singer dismounted his horse, stood before her, and bowed before her, saying, “Righteous swimdress girl, my name is ‘Proffery.’”

         And the just swimdress girl curtseyed before this great man of God, and she said, “My name is ‘Lisa.’”

         “I have been sent by our Good Lord Jesus Christ to ask you if you would like to go out on a date with me, fair Lisa,” said Proffery.

         Heeding the lesson that she had learned from six other men who were also handsome, Gravel spoke and said, “Forgive your humble lady, so true and holy Proffery.  I must ask you where you stand with God about boyfriends-and-girlfriends-in-Christ.”

Page 35

         To this, Proffery spoke and said most due Scripture, saying, “It is written, fair Lisa, ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.’  Romans 16:17.”

         Valiant exclaimed, “He’s the one, Mistress!”

         “You’re my one, most handsome Proffery,” said Lisa Strands.

         “And you are my one, most foxy Lisa,” said Proffery.

         Lisa looked up to Heaven and prayed, “Thank You for everything, O Heavenly Father Above.”

         And right after this, Proffery asked, “Lisa, my fox, would you like to go out with me on a date and go riding around with me on my horse throughout these beautiful countrysides of the Griffin Land?”

         “Yes!  Yes!” said Gravel.

         And the Christian swimdress girl rode off with her new boyfriend-in-the-Lord sent to her by the God of answered prayers.

         It is written, “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”  Jude 24.

Page 36