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Elysium—The Girl

Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy

The Table of Content

Chapter I……………………………………………………………………………………………Page 1

Chapter II………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 18

Chapter III…………………………………………………………………………………………Page 35

Chapter IV…………………………………………………………………………………………Page 53

Chapter V…………………………………………………………………………………………Page 76

Chapter VI………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 88

Chapter VII………………………………………………………………………………………Page 103

Chapter VIII……………………………………………………………………………………..Page 121

Chapter IX……………………………………………………………………………………….Page 139

Chapter X………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 157

Chapter XI……………………………………………………………………………………….Page 174

Chapter XII………………………………………………………………………………………Page 194

Chapter XIII……………………………………………………………………………………..Page 213

Chapter XIV……………………………………………………………………………………..Page 231

Chapter XV………………………………………………………………………………………Page 250

Chapter XVI……………………………………………………………………………………..Page 269

Chapter XVII…………………………………………………………………………………….Page 287

Chapter XVIII……………………………………………………………………………………Page 306

Chapter XIX……………………………………………………………………………………..Page 324

Chapter XX………………………………………………………………………………………Page 341

CHAPTER I

            Her name was “Elysium—The Girl,” and she was the pom-pom-girl for Christ.  She was an older girl and a younger woman of twenty years of age.  And right now she was in her closet, getting ready for a wonderful new day in Christ.  She was a born-again believer living for Christ her Saviour.

She took a look at her closet pole that held her especial prize of a garment.  Upon this was her hanger that held her beloved pom and dance girl uniform dress.  This hanger indeed she spared no expense upon.  It cost almost as much as a day’s wages.  It was coated with silver, and it was specially made by a metal-smith.  And it had two ways with which to hold up her prized garment:  either by way of two slots on top near the ends, or by way of two little clothespins on the bottom bar near the ends.  This treasure of a pom and dance girl uniform glittered in glossy black and shiny white and glistening silver.  It looked great to have on.  It felt even greater to have on.  And it was her most favorite possession of all her Christian life—second only to all things in Jesus.  This beloved pom and dance dress had a white collar on top; and it had white puffed shoulders along both sides of her neck; and it had a deep field of white in the middle on top that descended down into the bodice in a deep “V.”  Below this

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white was deep black descending down the rest of this dress.  Sparkling silver spangles separated the

white above from the black below—both on the bodice and on the upper long sleeves to both sides.  And the “V” on the front and the “V’s” on both upper sleeves formed an “M” upon the whole front left to right—these all were lined with those same bright silver sparkles.  This little black dress had a Basque waistline, and its skirt portion had a V-shape hem that reached much of the way toward the knees and was bordered by those same luminescent silver sparkles at the bottoms.  Even the long black sleeves ended in a “V”  at the cuffs, full of more of those silver studs.  And a little loop at the end of the sleeves went around the middle finger.  In the back was all solid black from just beneath the white collar all the way to the bottom of the skirt portion.  And back here was a most long zipper from the back of the neck all the way down to the rump.    Truly this pom and dance girl outfit shone with the same fabric that one-piece swimsuits were made of—spandex.  And right now it was held up by her special hanger’s two silver clothespins on its own short little closet pole one foot long along a little space between two walls along the left of this closet.  Also in this closet of hers were her accessories to this cherished pom pom dress:  In the front corner by the right wall were her two little wooden barrels that contained her pom poms.  The barrels were old time apple cider barrels with wood boards and metal bands, measuring about two feet high by one-and-one-half feet in diameter.  In the little barrel to the left of the two was a solid black pom pom.  In the little barrel to the right of the two was a solid white pom pom.  Along the right wall in the middle were two wooden pegs affixed to the wall at an upper angle.  They were at eye level and were right next to each other.  The one on the left held her black fishnet stockings.  The one on the right held her black tights.  Along the back wall of this closet was a wooden shelf attached to the wall at about the height of her waist.  Upon here were her shoes—a pair of black pumps with block heels.  To the left of this shoe shelf and within the back wall was a little cubby which held her pair of black and white ribbons.  And, lastly, she had her little wooden chest on the floor along the back of the left wall of this closet for her inner attire.  In this chest were her black

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lingerie–both the top piece and the bottom piece.  Elysium—the Girl then went ahead and dressed up for the day as the full pom-and-dance girl for Christ.  And as when she was dressing up into something comfortable, she said, “It is written, O Good Lord, ‘This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.’  Psalm 118:24,”  And she paused there in the closet to sing that happy church song whose lyrics were this very verse of the Psalter.  Then she went out into the world to show everybody out there her dear pom pom girl uniform on herself, shaking her pom-poms as she did so and skipping and hopping and dancing down the roads on the countryside in joy of the Lord.  And she brought her salvation tracts with her to give out, that she might spread the Word of God.

            The first person she met was her next-door neighbor fellow, a friend with a good wit to his words often.  He saw her do a cartwheel on the sidewalk and stick her landing like a real gymnast.

He began to clap, and he said, “I can see that the old saying is true, Elysium,”

            “What’s that, Tyrannus?” asked Elysium.

            “That blondes have more fun,” he said.

            “I’m a blonde, and I am having fun,” she said.  And she shook her head of much straight long blonde hair about in flirt.  And she gave him a tract.

            And she continued her happy little parade down the side of the road.  She then came up to her next neighbor.  And this was a little girl about ten years old.  Elysium put her arms akimbo, and she kicked up her right leg.  And the little girl said to her, “Elysium, when I grow up, I want to be a pom and dance girl just like yourself.”

            “It’s a great life, Euphrasy,” said Elysium.  “A girl can dress up in a way most exciting being what I am.”  And she gave her a tract.

            She then moved on, and she came to a third neighbor down the road.  This was her fellow worker woman at the grocery store.  Again Elysium put her arms akimbo, and this time she kicked up her left leg.  “Showing off your legs again, Elysium?” asked this colleague.

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            “Yep!” said Elysium, all caught up in the day.

            “You’ve got good ones to show off, woman,” said her fellow employee.

            “Thank you, Bonnie,” said Elysium.  And she gave her a tract.

            Then Elysium skipped on to her next neighbor.  This was a little boy who was riding his tricycle down the side of the road.  He was about four years old.    “Do you want to see me do a trick, O Sonny?” asked Elysium.

            “Yes,” said the little boy.

            And the pom pom girl for Christ stood before him, then leaped, holding both pom poms straight out to her sides, and landed upon the other side of the boy on the trike, again sticking her landing like a woman gymnast.

            “Wow!  That’s real neat,” said the boy.

            “That’s one of the things that we pom and dance girls practice on lots,” said Elysium.

            “They do?” asked the boy.

            “Well, I do,” she said.  “Maybe not so much any other pom pom girls.”  She gave him a tract.

            Then she moved on to the next house.  There was a young man who was on his porch with a bottle of root beer.  He called out to her, “How’s it going, Elysium?”

            “Another good day in the Lord, Morton,” said Elysium.

            “Love your outfit,” he said in kindness.

            “Thank you,” she said.

            “What school do you dance for?” he asked.

            “I dance for God,” she said humbly.

            “Is it for De Pere High School?  Is it for West De Pere High School?” he asked.

            “I dance not for any high school,” she said.  “I am neither a Redbird, nor a Phantom.”

            “Is it for St. Norbert College then?” he asked.

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            “I dance not for any college,” said Elysium.  “I am not a Green Knight.”

            “It is for a dance company then?” he asked.

            “I dance for no dance company,” she said.

            “Then you must dance for yourself,” he said.

            “For myself, also,” she said.

            “Then you must be a pom and dance woman for the Lord,” he said.

            “Yes.  I am a pom pom girl for God,” she said.

            “Why didn’t you tell me that?” he asked.

            She rolled her eyes in game and cocked her blonde head to the side at him in irony.  He laughed. She laughed.  And he said, “Looking good, woman.”   And she came up to him and gave him a tract.

            And she continued on her way.  Then she came to an older man.  He was lying on a hammock in the front yard, a hammock tied up to two big trees.  He turned his head where he lay and saw her shaking her pom poms and doing pirouettes on the ground.  “Good Elysium,” he called out, “my pretty granddaughter in Pulaski High School is a Red Raider pom pom girl.”

            “Really, Mr. Mann?” asked Elysium.  “That’s great to hear.”

            He then sat up upon the edge of his hammock, and he said, “She’s just learning the dance steps.

She is not as good at it as you are, of course.”

            In show, Elysium did a front flip in the air, holding her pom poms against her sides, and landed surely upon her feet back upon the ground.

            “Well done, young lady,” said the old man on the hammock, clapping.

            “Your granddaughter might already know how to do that, Mr. Mann,” said Elysium in flattery.

            “She’s learning much about that kind of thing, Elysium,” he said.  She gave him a tract.

            Next she came to Miss Lass, the principal of the new grade school in town. Miss Lass called out, “God be with you, O Elysium.”  Everybody loved Miss Lass.  She abounded in good cheer and

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good words to all whom she met.  And she was a born-again Christian like herself.

            “And God be with you, also, Miss Lass,” said the pom and dance girl for Christ.

            “I was wondering if you would come to my school and teach some of my girls a little about being a pom pom girl, Elysium,” asked the principal.

            “I never did that before,” said Elysium, flattered and appreciative.

            “Would that be okay with you?” asked the grade school principal.

            “I would love to do that, Miss Lass,” said Elysium.  “As fun as my pom pom girl dancing is for me to do, it would be all the funner for me to go and teach,”

            “They will all love you there,” said Miss Lass.  “Thank you, Elysium.”  She did not give Miss Lass a salvation tract; she was already saved.

            And the pom pom girl continued on her way.  And she met the head St. Norbert College pom pom girl, a woman older and more experienced at dance than herself.  This girl was dressed in the Green Knight’s official colors of green and gold.  And the first thing she said was, “I apologize for that scene I made with you at the park, Elysium.  I was wrong for what I did.  Could you forgive me?”

            “I forgive you, Carol.  Would you forgive me?” asked Elysium.

            “I do,” said Carol.  “But I was in the wrong.  I should never have interrupted your practicing in the park.  I saw you doing things with pom and dance that I never saw done by any other pom pom girl before—even by myself, St. Norbert’s head pom and dance woman.  And I got jealous.”

            “You’re good, Carol,” said the pom pom girl for Jesus.

            “But you’re great, Elysium,” said Carol.  “You dance better for God than I can for my college.”

            “Not every pom and dance girl gets knocked down for practicing in the park,” said Elysium.

            “Yeah.  I was wrong,” said the college pom pom girl.  “For now on, you are the pom pom woman—not myself.”

            “You do our skills most worthily,” said Elysium.

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            “Could you teach me how to do a triple pirouette?” asked the college pom and dance woman.

            “I’d be glad to, Carol,” said Elysium.

            “A pom pom woman can learn much from you, O Elysium,” said Carol.  “Thank You.  I can see God in you.”

            “To God be the glory,” said Elysium.  And she gave her a tract.  And she taught her how to perform a triple-pirouette.

            Next Elysium came to a Redbird varsity football cheerleader attired in maroon and white and some blue.  Do cheerleaders and pom pom girls get along?  Are cheerleaders jealous of pom pom girls?  Are pom pom girls jealous of cheerleaders?  If there were rivalry between two such women, Elysium herself did not feel it inside of herself.

            “Hello there, fair and kind cheerleader,” called forth Elysium.

            “I think that I know you,” said this cheerleader.  “Hi there.”

            The pom and dance girl offered her hand.   And the cheerleader gladly took her hand.  And they shook hands in greeting.

            “I know you now,” said this cheerleader.  “You are that Christian girl who does pom pom routines for Jesus.  You are that celebrity in town..”

            “Your humble servant at your service,” said the pom pom girl.

            “”I am Tracy,” said this girl.  “You are that famous ‘Elysium.’  I never met a star before.”

            “I am glad that I met you today, Tracy,” said Elysium.  “I do confess that sometimes I do wonder what it would be like for me to have been called of God as a cheerleader for God instead of as a pom and dance girl for God.”

            “Really?” asked Tracy.

            “Those pleats, that chenille emblem, those knee socks, those saddle shoes.  I do say that you do make me a little wishful to have taken up cheer leading,” said Elysium—The Girl.  “Your cheerleader

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uniform has special things that I do not have in my uniform.”

            “I do like my cheerleader uniform a lot,” said Tracy.  “I am thrilled to hear how you like it, too.”  Then she said, “But pom and dance women get all the guys,”

            “I know lots of cheerleaders who get guys, too,” said the pom pom woman.

            “I’ve got a guy,” said Tracy.  “He’s the quarterback.”

            “I’ve not got a guy of my own yet,” said Elysium.

            “You will someday,” said the cheerleader.  “And he’ll be famous just like you are.”

            “All guys love pom and dance girls, and all guys love cheerleaders,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “All guys think alike.  Don’t they, Elysium?” asked Tracy in a unique bonding between a classic rivalry among student bodies.

            “All men think alike,” said Elysium—The Girl in the mirth of this moment.

            And with these good words, Elysium gave her a tract, and they parted in amity.

            And Elysium’s fun little walk continued on.  And she soon settled into her groove of sharing the Gospel to her fans and her passersby.  She once again got back to preaching salvation to the world of the lost.  And everybody listened to what Elysium had to tell them about the Saviour of the world.  And this born-again pom pom girl got many unsaved people to think about getting saved themselves.  And all heard this Elysian Girl proclaim, “The Son of God died for all of our sins and did rise from the grave the third day.”  And this witnessing part of the walk was even more satisfying to this woman of God than was her dancing part of the walk that preceded it.  And after a while, she was home.

            And the first thing that she did was to take her King James Bible and her little notebooks and her pencils and to begin today’s Bible study between herself and her Heavenly Father alone together in her backyard.  Today, she would write down verses about Christophanies and angelic sightings mentioned in the Holy Bible.  Being most adept at the Bible beyond the number of her years, the pom pom girl knew things about the Scriptures that even Sunday School teachers did not know.  And

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she knew that a “Christophany” was a showing of a pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament.  She did not know of any showing of a post-incarnate Christ of the world of today that was valid.  A similar word for “Christophany” was “Theophany,” which meant “a showing of God.”  Since God the Father was a Spirit, and since God the Holy Spirit was a Spirit, this could only mean God the Son, Who was God in the flesh.  So, a Theophany must have been a Christophany.  The first Scripture passage that the Elysian Girl thought about now that described such a revealing of Christ was the vision of John the Apostle who saw a post-incarnate Christ in Revelation chapter one.  It was the four verses of Revelation 1:13-16, which said the following:  “And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.  His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;  And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.  And he had in his right hand seven stars:  and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword:  and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.”  At once Elysium took her pencil, sharpened it, and wrote down this Bible passage in an index card notebook to memorize it again sometime down the road.  Reflecting upon this verse, the pom pom girl remembered how her mentor Proffery had once told her something that he was not sure that he believed.  He told her that once he would see Jesus in Heaven and could see what He looked like in His Regal Glory that he would never see girls the same way again.  What he meant was that the glory of the deified Lord far surpassed any beauty that any woman had in her feminine comeliness.  And he said that even girls were nowhere near as attractive in their femaleness than was Christ in His Divinity.  And he did not like to think that even

beautiful pom and dance girls would no longer be beautiful creatures in the universe to him anymore.  And he thought that he might lose interest in women in Heaven right after he saw Jesus and what He looked like in His Deity.  And he said this because he, as a straight man, did not like the idea that a Man could be more resplendent than a woman, even though it were God Himself and for Godly reasons.

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But Elysium did not have a problem with this as her mentor did.  If she were to discover Jesus as a man more divinely aesthetic than was any future cute boyfriend and if it were because of God’s Deity and for Godly reasons, all the more power to God then.  After all, should not the Creator shine brighter than His creatures?

            Next, the pom and dance girl looked up another appearance of Jesus, this one that she knew about in the Old Testament from the book of Daniel.  It was Daniel 10:5-6.  In her mind, she was not sure if these two verses were about Christ or about an angel instead.  This was how these verses went that she went on to write in her index card notebook now for re-memorizing later on sometime:  “Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz:  His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.”  Whether this was clearly a celestial beauty or instead an overwhelming brightness, one thing that this woman thought about for sure as she wrote this was, “If I see the Lord thus, I will surely fall down upon my knees and worship Him.”  Looking upon this Bible passage that she had just written, fear and trembling of God Almighty justifiably came upon this Christian pom and dance woman for a moment.  Then she went on to another passage in this same book of Daniel, whose reference she still remembered from her memorizing, but whose verse she had to re-memorize.  It was Daniel 7:9-10, and this was how these verses went that she now went on to write into her index card notebook with her pencil:  “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool:  his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.  A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him:  thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him:  the judgment was set, and the books were opened.”  She wondered in the speculation of her heart,  Could this be God the Father?  Was this “Ancient of Days” her Heavenly Father?  Was this hoary

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Personage the First Person of the Trinity in visual form?  Surely this Wise Man upon His throne could be the same God as the flaming fire upon the Mount of Sinai in Moses’s days of the giving of the ten commandments.  The Manifestation on the mount brought about great fear of God Almighty in His sovereignty.  So, too, could this Manifestation sitting upon His throne in Heaven.  Then Elysium remembered the time that Moses saw God, but did not see God.  That great prophet had seen the back of God, but not the front of God.  Where was that in the Bible?  She searched the Scriptures around Exodus for a while.  And then she found it in Exodus 33:18-23, and she read it a couple times:  “And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.  And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.  And he said, Thou canst not see my face:  for there shall no man see me, and live.  And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:  And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of a rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:  And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts:  but my face shall not be seen.”  And the pom pom girl for Christ then took up pencil again and did write this Scripture passage down for study later as well in her index card notebook.  It was said about this man Moses in Exodus 33:11, “And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend…”  And it was written about this same Moses in Numbers 12:8, “With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold:…”  Truly who other than this Moses, the prophet of prophets, for Jehovah to present Himself to in the Old Testament dispensation of law?  In I John 4:12, God’s Word says, “No man hath seen God at any time.”  Moses probably came the closest to seeing what God looked like.

            Next, the pom and dance lady looked up the familiar passage Revelation 10:1-3, and she wrote down these three Bible verses in her index card notebook:  “And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud:  and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it

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were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:  And he had in his hand a little book open:  and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,  And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth:  and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.”  A good preacher of prophecy claimed in his book that this mighty angel was Michael himself.

            Another place that talked about angels in their appearance was found in Ezekiel chapter one, referring to cherubim that the major prophet saw in the skies:  She turned there now and did read such descriptions as thus:  “every one had four faces,” “every one had four wings,” “their feet were straight feet,” “the sole of their foot was like the sole of a calf’s foot,” “they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass,”  “their wings were joined one to another; they turned not as they went; they went every one straight forward,”  “they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side:  and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they also had the face of an eagle,”  “as for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps:  it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.”  Such supernatural wonders did the major prophet Ezekiel see in the cherubim.  Knowing some of Ezekiel, despite its mystery to her, Elysium knew also about the angels in Ezekiel chapter ten, and she turned to Ezekiel ten and did read this about the angels therein, such descriptions as the following:  “behold the four wheels by the cherubims, one wheel by one cherub, and another wheel by another cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl stone,” “they four had one likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel,” “when they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went,” “their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had,”  “as for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel,” “when the cherubims went, the wheels went by them:  and when the cherubims lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels

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also turned not from beside them,” and “when they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these lifted up themselves also:  for the spirit of the living creature was in them.”  These angels looked to the reader Elysium to be “wheel-creatures.”  Such angels were the cherubim of Ezekiel.  She wrote none of these excerpts down into her index card notebook.

            But there were also seraphim mentioned in the Holy Bible.  And the pom pom girl for Jesus went and looked up Isaiah chapter six to read about the seraphim of God, and this was what they looked like to the major prophet Isaiah in verse two:  “Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.”

Right away the pom pom girl wrote down this Isaiah 6:2 about angels into her index card notebook.

            She then said to God in spontaneity, “Whoever says that angels don’t have wings are dead wrong, O Lord.”  Then she prayed, “Woe unto those Bible teachers who say that the cherubim are not angels!  Woe unto any Bible preacher who says that seraphim are not angels!  What else could they be but angels?  And I see lots of wings in these verses I just read upon these cherubim and seraphim.”

            Having satisfied herself with much Bible study out back for now, Elysium—The Girl then turned in for the day to watch TV.  She loved retro TV and its old time black and white TV shows.  This time she decided to go and watch “Timmy and Lassie,” and “Jeff’s Collie.”

            Later that night, the pom and dance woman went out to her front yard and turned on all of her Christmas trees to light up the dark outside here.  She loved to pray every day, and praying outside in the dark of night made her prayers the most fervent.  She had several Christmas trees.  Even though it were not now Christmas.  For Elysium, Christmas trees were not just for Christmas.  For her, Christmas trees were for all year round.  The one Christmas tree was six feet tall and full of garland and big colored lights.  Another Christmas tree was five feet tall and full of tinsel and big colored lights.  Another was four feet tall and full of bulbs and big colored lights.  Another was three feet tall and full of wooden ornaments and big colored lights.  Another was two feet tall and full of candy canes and big

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colored lights.  And another was one foot tall and full of big colored lights and nothing else.  These were her six wonderful Christmas trees in her front yard.  And they all had gold crosses upon their tops.  This was her favorite prayer site outside.  Alone in the countryside of late night, Elysium sat down here, set her mug of cold apple cider to her right side, set her package of cinnamon sticks to her left side, and began to pray a verbal thanksgiving prayer here amid her little Christmas tree farm.

            “Dear Heavenly Father:  Thank You, God, for this nice summer night.  Thank You for the nice south wind.  I feel it blowing upon my hair.  I see it playing nature’s games upon the black skirt portion of my pom pom dress upon my lap.  I see it swaying the Christmas trees.  Thank You for the unexpected inheritance I got a few years ago.  Because of that I was able to go shopping with my ten griffin pets all day at a Christmas tree farm until I found my perfect six Christmas trees just right for my front yard where I am now a few years later.  That day we eleven were singing ‘O Christmas Tree!’ in English.  And we were singing ‘O Tannenbaum’ in German.  And when our breaths were winded and hoarse from our caroling, behold, our project was done, Father.  The six Christmas trees were successfully transplanted into my front yard.  I remember saying to my best friend griffin,  ‘I hope that they don’t die.’

            And he said to me, ‘Let us pray, Elysium, that they do not die, that they live, and that they thrive and grow and stay green.’

            And that we did, Father.  We had a prayer meeting, my griffins and I.  And You answered our prayers.  Now here it is a few years later, and they are all green and well and beautiful.

            That was the first day with my Christmas trees here in the front yard.  But they needed to be

decorated.  That was where the next day came.  My ten beloved griffin pets helped me out with that, also, Lord.  We talked together about what would make the Christmas trees look their very best here scattered about in the front yard in the dark of a Wisconsin night all year round with our four seasons here in the Midwest.  And I said to my best friend of my ten griffins, ‘Too bad they don’t make big

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colored lights anymore for Christmas trees.  Nowadays all of them are small and dim.’

            But my best friend of my griffins went and told me, ‘There’s lots of them out there, O Mistress.’

            ‘Where, O griffin friend?’ I asked him.

            ‘They’re out there now, my mistress,’ he said to me.  ‘They’re different from how they used to make them.’

            ‘They used to be electric light bulbs with colored glass around their filaments,’ I said.  ‘Those kind of got hot.’

            And he said to me, ‘Nowadays they use LED lights, and they put them inside colored plastic bulbs, and they can’t get hot.’

            ‘Oo!  Are these new kinds any good?’ I asked him.

            ‘They are just as good, Mistress,’ he told me.  ‘They are as big as the good old ones, and they are as bright as the good old ones, and they are as colorful as the good old ones.’

            ‘I want my new Christmas trees to be full then of these modern large colored Christmas tree lights,’ I said.  ‘All six trees all full of them.’

            ‘That we can do, Mistress,’ he said to me.

            And the other nine griffins put in requests for tinsel and garland and wooden ornaments and glass ornaments and candy canes.  And I liked all of their requests.  And so we eleven went shopping at all the malls that Christmas on that second day of my Christmas trees.  And we came home and decorated the Christmas trees.  That was the second day.  And I said to my ten griffin pets, ‘There, good griffins, now our six Christmas trees are now just right.’

            But they all said to me, ‘They need to have something on top, Mistress.’

            And I pondered their suggestions, and I quickly agreed.

            Thanking them most gratefully for their great idea, I left it up to them as what I should buy to put on top of the six Christmas trees.

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            One of my griffins said, ‘Let it be a star, Mistress.’

            Another said, ‘Let it be a little flag, Mistress.’

            Another said, ‘Let it be an angel.’

            Another said, ‘Let it be a little globe.’

            Another said, ‘Let it be the word, “Nöel.”’

            Another said, ‘Let it be the word, “Bethlehem.”’

            Another said, ‘Let it be a snowflake.’

            Another said, ‘Let it be ‘the three wise men.’

            Another said, ‘Let it be the word, ‘Christmas.’

            Another said, ‘Let it be the cross.’

            And I at once asked, ‘A cross?’

            And all eleven of us agreed, ‘Let it be a cross to put upon the tops of each of these Christmas trees.

            And I went and bought six gold crosses and put them on my six Christmas trees.  That was the third day.

            And then, in the end, my Christmas trees were now just right for me.  And my griffin pets loved them just as much as I did.  And we all eleven still do even now a few years later in summer.”  Then she finished her prayer with the closing, “In Jesus’s name.  Amen.”  And she focused on the sights of her Christmas trees, enjoying them with her indwelling Holy Spirit, here in the dark of night.

            And she sang a stanza of her favorite Christmas carol in English:

“O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,

O tree of green unchanging.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,

O tree of green unchanging.

Your boughs, so green in summertime,

Do brave the snows of winter time.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,

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O tree of green, unchanging.”

            Then she sang a stanza of this same favorite Christmas carol in German:

“O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,

Du kannst mir sehr gefallen;

Wie oft hat nicht zur Weinachszeit,

Ein baum von dir mich hoch erfreut;

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,

Du kannst mir sehr gefallen.”

            Having sung these two Christmas carols, Elysium—The Girl said, “Merry Christmas all year

year round, O Lord Jesus.”

            Then, here in this prayer site, the pom and dance girl remembered her apple cider and her

cinnamon sticks.  The cider was still cool.  And with a “Thank You, Lord,” she drank it all down in one

big series of gulps and set the cup back down upon the grass.  It was too late now to stir a cinnamon

stick in the mug.  But that was all right.  She got a great prayer anyway without having shared her drink

with it.

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CHAPTER II

            Elysium—The Girl, as a daughter of God, was the pom and dance girl for Christ.  But Elysium—The Girl, as a servant for God, was also the famous griffin keeper.  And her ministry for Christ as the griffin keeper was to slay dragons.  She was a lady archer.  She and her ten pet griffins were called of God to be dragon-slayers.  The ten were he-griffins, fierce in battle, uncanny in sport, and noble in looks.  The following were the names of Elysium’s famous griffin pets:  Her best friend and confidant Gryphon, Seven, Street of Gold, Bow, Covenant, Testament, Six Days, Tawny, Aquilinae, and Felis Leo.

            Gryphon, the griffin leader of the ten griffins, was the closest of the ten griffins to their griffin keeper.  His name “Gryphon” was the British variant of the American word “griffin.”  Many times did Elysium walk and fellowship with her ten griffins.  But the only times that she chose to walk and fellowship with only one of her griffins it was always with dear Gryphon.  Where Proffery was her friend who was a guy, Gryphon was the listener to her secrets that she would never tell Proffery.  Only

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God heard her secrets that she could not tell Gryphon.  “Gryphon,” she always asked him, “what do

you think that Heaven will be like?”  And he always had most wise answers to this question.  One time he answered her, “You will find out when you get There.”  Another time he answered her, “Heaven will be as opposite to Hell as God is to Satan.”  Once he began to sing from a hymn his answer, “Perfect rest to [you] is promised in [your] Father’s House Above.”  One time he answered her with a title of a hymn, saying, “Shall We Gather At The River?”  Once he replied to her question, “You will have come Home to the Sweet By and By,” another reference to a hymn about Heaven.  Other times she asked him, “Gryphon, what do you think that Jesus looks like?”  His first answer to this question was a wise, “The secret things belong to the Lord thy God.”  Another time he said, “Jesus will be either taller than you or shorter than you or the same height as you.”  That got her thinking.  Another time he said, “He could be dressed in a first century tunic as of His days when he walked about the Holy Land.”  That got her desirous of meeting Him.  Another time Gryphon replied, “Pastor says that Jesus really has short hair and not long hair.”  And Elysium remembered, and she could see the Lord’s holiness with those words about Christ.  And one time Gryphon said, “You will know this Man to be Almighty God Himself immediately when you first see Him.”  And she came to more fully understand how Jesus was both Man and God in His Second Person of the Trinity, and she knew her own unworthiness to stand before the all-holy God in His Deity.  And in the end, she said, “Gryphon, what can a girl like me say to a God like Him?”  And Gryphon said, “Mistress, just say, ‘Thank You, Lord.’”  That she would do.  Her Gryphon was most wise.

            As for the griffin named “Seven,” he was so named after God’s perfect number of completion.  That is, as a griffin warrior, Seven was the complete soldier.   He was the biggest and strongest and most clever in battle of all ten of the griffin keeper’s griffins.  Seven one time took on a wyvern single-handed and slew him in his own den.  In a contest, Seven, using his eagle beak, cleaved a log before a lumberjack could with his ax.  In a contest at a county fair, Seven with his talons grabbed a hold of a

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chain of a team of four horses in a mighty tug-of-war, and he held his own and it was a draw.  One

time Seven grabbed a hold of a runaway dairy cow in his lion paws, lifted her up into the air, and carried her back in flight to her farmer’s field where she belonged.  His great wings in flight gave shade to the ground below.  His lion paws swiped swipes more deadly than those of Wisconsin Black Bears’ paws.  And his lion tail could wrap itself around a small tree, and in flight he could thereupon uproot this tree in all its branches and in all its roots.  And, when standing on all fours, Seven measured twenty-one hands at the eyes.  And it was Seven who personally trained the nine other griffins in the art of combat and battle.  And he even dictated a war manual called, “How To Slay Dragons.”  His mistress herself studied this much many times over in her room.

            As for the griffin “Street Of Gold,” he was named after the Scripture Revelation 21:21, which talked about Heaven.  Therein it is written, “…:  and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.”  He loved and read all of the Bible verses that talked about gold.  He memorized all the Scripture verses that referred to “gold of Ophir” and “gold of Uphaz” and “gold of Parvaim.”  Street of Gold even had a gold mine known only by his griffin keeper and her griffins. It was up in Point Barrow in Alaska underneath much snow and ice and frozen ground.  In summer times, he would go up there secretly to go into his mine and to admire his secret gold.  In winter times he thought about it all the time back here in Wisconsin.  And sometimes, when Street Of Gold slew a dragon for his mistress and for God, the Lord let him take away that dead dragon’s stash of gold from that dragon den.

Street Of Gold was like a little Croesus.  In his sleeping life, he dreamed of treasure chests and opening them and seeing them filled with gold coins.  And in his waking life, he dreamed of visiting Fort Knox on a tour and seeing real gold bricks.  And one time, when he was a little griffin,  he saw in his family’s griffin den a little bottle of bouillon cubes.  And he thought that it read, “bullion cubes.”

            As for the griffin “Bow,” he was named after his love for rainbows and rainbows’ many colors.  What people nowadays call “rainbows.” the Holy Bible calls “bows” or “bows in the clouds.”  And

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though Bow did not make gold a personal way of life, he did always chase after the ends of rainbows

on his walks and flights to go and look for that proverbial pot of gold.   He never found it, of course.

Bow loved colors.  He studied and learned all about the science of God’s colors of creation. He had a collection of kaleidoscopes in his den.  And he had a collection of prisms which he experimented with in the sunlight of day and in the flashlight of night.  He knew all about reflection and refraction in God’s physics.  “Is light a beam or a particle?” he always asked his fellow griffins.  One day his mistress asked him, “Bow, why do you suppose that God created rainbows?”  And Bow answered her, “To remind Himself not to destroy the whole world with another great flood, O Mistress.”  She asked him, “Would God really need to be reminded about something?”  And he said, “The Good Book says things in most novel ways, Mistress.”  The colors of every rainbow?  They were purple, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.

            As for the griffin “Covenant,” he was named after God’s two covenants with His nation Israel.

God’s first covenant with Israel was His promise to the wandering Jews that He would give them back their Promised Land, their land that flowed with milk and honey, a nation that they could again call their own.  And this He did when Israel came back home to their native country in 1948.  And God’s second covenant with His people Israel was that they would rule and reign with Him in Christ’s Millennial Reign when He would come back in His Second Coming and put down all evil and all wickedness on this Earth.  This was the Thousand-Year Reign of Christ on Earth.  This second covenant was yet to be fulfilled.  Just as God does not break His covenants, neither did the griffin Covenant break his covenants.  God was faithful; Covenant was faithful.  God did not break promises; Covenant did not break promises.  God could not lie; Covenant did not lie.  As loyal Covenant said to his mistress many times in their dangerous ministry together, “Keeper, I will lay down my life for you.”

No more faithful ally had any Christian warrior than Elysium had in Covenant.

            As for the pet griffin “Testament,” he was so named because of his love for the Bible—both

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the Old Testament and the New Testament.  The Old Testament was all about the history of Israel, whose lineage led up to the Messiah.  And the New Testament was all about this Messiah and how to live for Him.  Just as the canon of Scripture was bipartite in the Old Testament and the New Testament, so, too, was Testament bipartite as a traditional griffin—half eagle and half lion.  Testament’s Holy Bible was the King James Version.  He took his King James Bible in his griffin den and read from it out loud for thirty minutes every night just before going to bed.  In this manner he did read his Bible through cover-to-cover in a year’s time.  And recently he began to read his Bible through for a second time now.  And his second time was just as exciting for him as his first time.   He daydreamed about the joy in the Lord that he would find when he would be in his third reading of the Good Book in the time of the future.  He knew that the midpoint of the Bible was Psalm 75.  He knew the first verse of the Bible:  “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”  Psalm 1:1. His mistress often told him, “Testament, if you believe the first verse of the Bible, you will believe the rest of the Bible.”  He and she believed both this first verse and all the verses that came after.   And he knew the last verse of the Bible:  “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  Amen.”  Revelation 22:21.  He tricked his mistress one time with a feigned curiosity, asking her, “Mistress, what does Revelation 22:22 say?”

Not suspecting a trick, she searched the Scriptures for Revelation 22:22.  Quite did the canon of Scripture end at Revelation 22:21.  There was no such thing in the Bible as Revelation 22:22.  “You got me, Testament,” she said.   “You are a griffin who knows God’s Word.”  And both laughed.

            As for her griffin “Six Days.” he was named after the creation week of the beginning of time.

Six Days was a creationist champion who debated educated evolutionists and beat them every time.

He had six stone tablets in his griffin den, one for each of the six days of God’s work of creation.  One stone tablet commemorated the first day, when God created light, with the Bible verses Genesis 1:3-5.

Another stone tablet honored the second day, when God created the firmaments, with the Bible verses

Genesis 1:6-8.  Another stone table honored the third day, when God created the land and the seas and

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the grass and trees and plants, with the Bible verses Genesis 1:9-13.  Another stone tablet in his den praised God for His fourth day, when He made the sun and the moon and the stars, with the words of Genesis 1:14-19.  The fifth stone tablet spoke about the fifth day, when the Maker made the birds and the fish and the whales, with the Scripture of Genesis 1:20-23.  And the last stone memorial of his six spoke of the sixth day, the day when God spoke into being all of the land animals and mankind, with the Bible passage Genesis 1:24-31.  It is written in the last verse of this Genesis chapter one, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.  And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”  Indeed Six Days did memorize this whole Genesis chapter one many times over unto so perfect recitations wherever he went.  As for his state of Wisconsin, and its own testimony to the beauty of creation, Six Days loved its seagulls for what they looked like, its crickets for what they sounded like, and its waves that washed ashore from rivers and lakes and the bay.  He recited now his beloved poem that he had memorized about creation:

“All things bright and beautiful

All creatures great and small

All things wise and wonderful

The Lord God made them all.”

How he loved to read those James Herriot books about a countryside veterinarian in England., whose four books had these four lines as their titles.  The Lord Jesus was indeed a most wise Maker and Designer and Creator.

            As for the griffin Tawny, he was a type of Narcissus, but with an ability to laugh at himself despite that.  Tawny was a tawny griffin.  All griffins were tawny and noble, but this griffin was the most tawny and noble.  And he took pride in his excellent looks.  He was the handsome griffin of Elysium’s ten griffins, and he knew it, and he bragged about it, and he teased the others about it.  By definition, the color “tawny” was a “brownish-orange” or a “light brown.”  The word “sorrel” meant the same thing.  Tawny loved lakes and rivers and creeks and ponds and the ocean.  Standing thereby

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before them, he could look into his reflection and admire himself thus.  In his readings of Greek and Roman mythology, he admired the stories of Narcissus most of all.  “But he got what he deserved,” said Tawny.  “I myself have done nothing wrong.”  He was a popular sitter for painters and sketch artists known far and wide.  And his own fame spread beyond the fame of the other famous griffins of the griffin keeper woman.  He was as handsome as he said he was.  And everybody could tell.  One time his mistress said to him, “Tawny, don’t go and get too much like Absalom in the book of II Samuel.”  Tawny knew this Absalom in the Bible.  He was King David’s son who usurped the throne from David.  Everybody loved Absalom for his great unblemished handsomeness and for his much hair.  But in pursuing battle on his mule, his hair got caught up in a low branch of a tree and he got picked up off of his mule, and his mule kept running on by.  Lo, Absalom stuck in a tree and could not extricate his head from the branches above.  Compromised thus, Absalom was found and slain by Joab, David’s chief general.  And Tawny said, “I hope that that never happens to me, Mistress.”  And she said, “Stay humble before our good Lord.”  And he said, “I am willing to bleed for Jesus, my mistress.”  “And mar your beautiful tawny feathers, Tawny?” she asked.  “For Jesus and for you and for my fellow griffins, if need be,” said Tawny in the truth of his heart.  “God bless you, O Tawny,” said the griffin keeper.

            As for the griffin Aquilinae, he was, simply put, an aquiline griffin.  Though griffins are hybrids that are half-eagle and half-lion, Aquilinae preferred his eagle nature over his lion nature.  And he did so particularly in his battles against dragons.  Aquilinae never trained himself to use his lion paws or his lion tail or his lion chest.  Instead he trained hard with his eagle beak and his eagle talons and his eagle wings.  His eyes could see a firefly in the daylight.  And where a person could see ten miles away on a clear sunny day, Aquilinae could see twenty-five miles away on a clear sunny day.  His wings were longer even than Seven’s wings.  And so fast was his speed of flight that he often won races even against chimney swifts.  And his eagle talons were the sharpest of talons among this little army of griffins.  And his eagle legs could hold on to prey tighter than a woodworker’s vise could hold its

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project in place.   And his eagle beak could break padlocks and chains and bones.  Further, with a deft swing of his eagle head, he could take out a rattlesnake with his beak before the rattlesnake could get him.  Aquilinae loved America and its national symbol the Bald Eagle.  On his trips alone in Wisconsin, he often went about to look for and to see Bald Eagles living their life of nature and freedom in the countrysides in the air.  He called these excursions affectionately, “my field trips.”  He wished that he could speak their language.

            And as for the griffin “Felis Leo,” as one can tell from his name, he was glad in the Lord for his lion parts of his griffin hybrid form.  In his training sessions for battle, he practiced hard with using his lion paws and lion claws and lion legs to become the most effective dragon slayer that he could be.  With his leonine parts he helped to take out numerous dragons in his mission as Elysium’s griffin.  His lion’s chest had four more ribs in it than any other griffin had.  His lungs enabled him to take in and put out more breath than even a real lion’s could.  Because of this, he was a runner.  And Felis Leo could run a great span on the ground that was nearly as long as the span that a fellow griffin could fly in the air.  And he could do a forty-yard dash in just under four seconds.  His lion legs were like small tree trunks.  And his lion paws had three extra claws on them in addition to the normal number of claws on a griffin’s lion paw.  And his lion tail was like unto a boa constrictor in strength and in length.  And there was no lion roar like unto his—not even in lions’ habitats in Africa and Asia.

            These ten griffins were the famous pets of the famous griffin keeper.  No other woman and her family had slain so many dragons as this woman did with her family.  They all were valiant and brave and gallant.  And, as the lady archer, Elysium had slain the most dragons among her griffin comrades.

This lady archer was herself accredited not only as the most prolific lady archer in slaying dragons, but also that no man archer indeed could fire arrows as she fired arrows.  This pom and dance woman was even better at archery than she was at dancing.  And her trademark bow and arrows and quiver most truly enhanced her comeliness in their complements to her pom pom girl uniform.  Elysium was a

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most remarkable and distinguished woman of God.

            It was a Saturday, the day of the week for “Fetch,” between the griffin keeper and her griffins in their big countryside yard.  This game of Fetch was similar to that between a man and his dog.  In Elysium’s Fetch with her griffins, she shot an arrow from her bow, and the ten griffins scrambled to see who could go and retrieve it first and win the honor of bringing the arrow back up to their mistress.  And what sounded like a simple enough game always turned out for them to become a wild time with much fun and silly trash talk and boasting and nonsense talk.

            “Bring it on, Mistress!” said Gryphon, as the ten griffins massed themselves in a straight line to both of her sides—five to the right and five to the left.

            And she drew an arrow from her quiver, nocked it on her bowstring, drew back the bow, and fired a low trajectory arrow parallel to the ground and not higher than ten feet above it.  And at once the ten pet griffins raced across the line to go get this arrow.  On the way there in this short distance, the griffins all ran after it.  The ten players roughhoused and pushed and pulled and knocked aside and knocked down and fought hard to be the first to get where the arrow landed.  It was there just up ahead, stuck into the ground, and most of it inside the ground, and its feathers sticking out mostly parallel to the Earth.  Then from out of the pack ran Felis Leo, the sprinter.  And he broke free and pounced and landed upon it.  Grabbing the arrow in his back lion paw, he held it up behind himself and showed off his conquest.  He won this round.

            Aquilinae spoke and said, “The rules say that we are supposed to grab the arrow in our beaks.”

            Felis Leo said, “Beaks are not necessary for us ‘lions.’”

            “Forfeit!” called out Seven.

            “Seven, you win enough,” said Felis Leo.

            “Felis Leo, you are the luckiest griffin in the world,” said Six Days.  “I wanted that arrow for myself.”

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            “A griffin’s got to do what a griffin’s got to do,” said Felis Leo.

            “I lost again,” said Gryphon.

            “This fetch is the only thing that you lose in your life with our mistress,” said Six Days in brag for good Gryphon.  “In all else you win with our mistress.”

            “Too bad my looks don’t win me games of Fetch,” said Tawny.

            “I would lie to win a round this day,” said Covenant.  “Not.”

            “I would study the spurious Apocrypha if that made me win today,” said Testament.

            “Not!” said Bow.

            “You’re right,” said Testament.  “The Apocrypha is not Scripture.”

            “And on the seventh day, I say, ‘I win,’” teased Six Days.

            “It may indeed be the seventh day, Six Days.  But I will see to it that you do not win any round today at Fetch,” said Seven.

            “I could buy myself the whole game of Fetch if I really wanted to,” said Street Of Gold.

            Felis Leo said, “A griffin cannot buy our game.”

            “No, but he sure can fly off with a victory,” said Aquilinae.

            “Just as I ran off with the victory in this first round,” said Felis Leo.

            Then their mistress called out, “Griffins, may I have my arrow back?  We still have more fetch to play among ourselves.”

            And the ten game griffins marched back to rejoin their mistress, and Felis Leo proffered her his arrow with his lion paw, and she took it and said to all, “Winner of today’s first round—Felis Leo!”

            And the nine others in good sportsmanship cheered him happily.

            Then it was time for round two of today’s fetch at the park.  Once again five griffins stood to her right in single file, and five griffins stood to her left in single file.  And they awaited their mistress.

And this time she fired a medium trajectory arrow, her arrow pointed upward at a forty-five degree

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angle to the ground upon which she stood.  And they chased after it, upon the ground, bumping into each other and tripping and stumbling about.  And they chased after it, in the air, knocking against each other and bumping wings and hindering flight in the air.

            Behold, the lady archer had quite shot this arrow right out into a lake back here.  And the ten griffins, never having seen this happen in fetch before, all stopped at the bank of this lake and did not go out into the water.  They all turned back to their mistress.

            She held her bow up into the air and teased her griffins, saying to them, “Gotcha!”

            But her griffins did not stay long in indecision.  At once they all jumped into the water or flew out above the water to be the first to retrieve this arrow of this second round.  And the wrestling and the roughhousing and the fighting continued unabated now in the river.  Griffins were trying to swim for their first time, swimming not natural for creatures such as themselves.  Griffins were falling into the water.  Griffins were coming back up out of the water.  Griffins were experiencing a new thing in fetch now.  Then, from out of the pack, broke through Seven, the complete griffin.  He pushed away and down under and up above other griffins.  And he lifted himself back up into the air just above the surface of the flowing river.  And he dove down ten feet and seized the arrow where it floated upon the river with his beak.  And he proudly showed it to all of his opponents and to his mistress.

            “Boo!” said all nine other griffins in the spirit of competition.

            “Bravo, Seven!” called forth Elysium, watching this from far away well back away from this lake.

            Seven then lifted back up out of the waters into the sky and at once returned to his mistress and proffered her the arrow.  She took it, looked up at the nine other griffins who were now coming back in upon her, and she said, “Winner of round two—Seven!”

            “Amen!” said the nine others in the spirit of fellowship.

            And now all ten griffins were together again at both sides of their keeper.

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            “’What happened, Mistress?” asked Street Of Gold.

            “That was quite the arrow, Mistress,” said Six Days.

            “The arrow got away from you that time, Mistress,” said Aquilinae.

            “My mistress, your first mistake at fetch,” said Testament.

            “What was an arrow doing falling into the lake?” asked Covenant.

            “My feathers got all wet,” said Tawny.

            “Our lady archer is human, after all,” said Felis Leo.

            “Lakes are no place for fetch,” said Bow.

            “I for one am glad that it went into the lake,” said Seven.

            But Gryphon, knowing the griffin keeper best, went on to say, “Our mistress went and did that on purpose.  Didn’t you, Mistress?”

            In merriment, the lady archer put on a little monologue of mock excuse, saying to her ten pet griffins, “The sun was in my eyes.  A robin got in the way.  And a bee stung my arm.  All this just when I let fly my arrow.”

            And Gryphon went on to confirm what his nine other griffins were now thinking after hearing this outlandish explanation, “Our keeper went and got us good this time!”

            It had been done on purpose.

            And the pom pom girl laughed with her mouth open.  And her griffins did likewise.

            Now it was time for round three, the last round of their weekly game of fetch.  And Elysium raised her arrow up to straight up above her head.  This was going to be a high trajectory shot.  And it was to be at a ninety-degree angle to the ground from where she stood.  “This one’s going to be perpendicular, boys,” she said.  It would go straight up, stop, go straight down.  Being aggressive, the ten griffins at once decided in their own minds to be the one who won this round three.  And already some of the griffins already lifted up off of the ground to get the arrow before she even fired it.  And

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she scolded them mildly, saying to them, “Come back down.  I have not shot it yet.  Wait till I shoot it.”

And they came back down.   Some of the griffins then began to leap off the ground and land back upon the ground.  And the griffin keeper rebuked these griffins gently, too, telling them, “No jumping.  You cannot give yourself a head start like that.”  Some stretched their heads up in seeking an advantage.

And she said, “No doing that, either.  Keep your heads where they they are supposed to be.  And leave go with tricks with your necks.”  And now they were all ready, playing fair, and ready for round three.

Nine griffins in secret consensus each thought to be the one who could snatch this arrow out of the air at its apex just before it would begin its descent.  But Aquilinae thought one step beyond even that.  He thought to maybe snatch this arrow out of the air yet in its very ascent before it reached its apex.

And the lady archer let fly her arrow straight up into the blue sky.  Right away ten griffins lifted up into the skies in a pack.  And the fleet quick Aquilinae broke free from the pack and began to catch up to the ascending arrow.  Meanwhile the nine whom he had passed by began to peck and scratch and jab each other all throughout that cluster below him.  And that not only hindered their ascent, but it actually brought them back down to the ground.  And the roughhousing of this game of fetch reached its culmination of this fall in the third round.  Nine griffins were no longer in pursuit of the arrow they were so involved in the skirmish that caused their descent.  The griffin keeper looked up into the sky and saw a tiny speck of a griffin with huge wings descending now from way high up.  That had to be her Aquilinae.  Very quickly this fleet griffin of the air lighted back down upon the ground before her, her arrow in his beak and extended toward her hands.  “Well done, Aquilinae,” she said.  “You are the winner of round three.”  And she accepted his arrow in her hands.

            “I caught your arrow, Mistress, when it was still going up,” he bragged in truth.

            And Gryphon praised him, saying, “Aquilinae, you’re as fast as lightning.”

            “I am ‘Donner.’” bragged Aquilinae.

            “The reindeer?” asked Gryphon.

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            “No.  ‘Lightning’ in German,” Aquilinae said.

            “That’s ‘Blitzen,’” said Gryphon.

            “The reindeer?” asked Aquilinae.

            “No.  ‘Lightning’ in German,” said Gryphon.

            The griffin mistress broke in and said, “’Donner’ means ‘thunder,’ and ‘Blitzen’ means ‘lightning.’”

            “Then I am ‘Blitzen,’” said Aquilinae.   “I am as fast as lightning.”

            “The reindeer?” broke in the other nine griffins in jest.

            And there arose a confusion of chattering and clamor and commotion among this happy family in the Lord.  The griffin keeper put away her arrow in her quiver for the day, and she said, “Well, that wraps it up again for this Saturday, guys.”

            And she sat down upon a stump and beckoned her griffins to join her for fellowship with a slapping of her hand upon the ground and with a sweet affectionate invitation, saying, “Shall we fellowship after having had our game for the day?”  The griffins eagerly joined her, all ten sitting upon the ground all around her, and they shared fellowship in Christ. They talked about the Bible—the Beatitudes, the parables, the promises, prophecy—for a long while.  Then the nine flew off to go hunting for dinner.  But Gryphon stayed with his mistress.

            “Would you like a ride above the big yard, Mistress?” asked her best griffin friend and confidant.

            “I would love a ride with you, O Gryphon,” said the lady archer.

            “Hop onto my back,” said the good griffin.  He lowered his back, and Elysium mounted him, and he ascended up into the air.  And the pom pom girl now saw her backyard from way up.

            And Gryphon went on to say, “Mistress, you have come of age.”

            “Come of age, Gryphon?” asked Elysium.

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            “I feel that a change may come upon our contented family,” he said.

            “What kind of change, Gryphon?” asked his mistress.

            “Mistress, you have become a beautiful young woman,” he told her.

            “In my growing up years Mom and Dad both told me that I was a very pretty girl,” said Elysium.

            “The little girl has grown up to become a woman,” said Gryphon.

            “What are you worried about, good friend?” asked the pom pom woman.

            “A handsome young man may come along and steal your heart and take you away from us,” said this chief griffin of her ten griffins.

            “Oh, Gryphon.  Proffery and I are only friends,” she said.

            “Mistress, I am talking about a knight in shining armor who falls in love with you,” said Gryphon.

            “I don’t know of any guy for whom I could fall in love with, though,” said the lady archer.

            “He’s out there,” said Gryphon.  “He will be a most Godly believer like yourself.  He will be everything to you that Proffery is not.  He will sweep you off of your feet and carry you away.  You will find first love in your life.  And he will treat you as Christ treats you.”

            “Is there such a guy for me?” she asked.

            “You will be his gal for him,” said Gryphon.

            “Who might he be?” asked the Elysian Girl.

            “I do not know,” he said.  “But he will be good for you and good to you.  And he will come from God.  And he will be full of the Holy Spirit.”

            “But I don’t really need a boyfriend, Gryphon,” said his mistress.  “I’ve got you and the nine other griffins right now.”

            “You will see your loneliness with us ten griffins when you see this man,” said this griffin.

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            “Gryphon, how do you know these things?  I do not believe them,” said the griffin keeper.

            “I see it in your eyes when you look out into the sunset these days.  I hear it in your voice when you pray out loud to God.  I feel it in my heart when you watch men pass by,” he said to her.

            “I look at guys, but I cannot have a guy,” she said.

            “How come, Mistress.  How come you cannot have a guy?” asked Gryphon, challenging her her thoughts.

            “I never had a boyfriend before,” she said.

            “You need a boyfriend now, Mistress,” he said to her.

            “I don’t know of any men cute enough to go out with,” she said.

            “You don’t?” asked Gryphon.

            “And what does a woman do with a man on a real date?” she asked.

            “You don’t know,” said Gryphon.

            “What does a girlfriend do with a boyfriend?” she asked.

            “They flirt,” he said.

            “What does a Christian girlfriend do with a Christian boyfriend, Gryphon?” she asked.

            “They flirt and talk about God,” he told her.

            “Gryphon, I’ve got you to talk about God with,” she said.

            “But you cannot flirt with a griffin as you can with a cute guy,” he said.  He was right.

            “I never flirted with a boyfriend before,” she said.  “That sounds like fun.”

            “Mistress, I am not talking now about any first crush,” he said.  “I am talking with you about something much more that some infatuation.”

            Understanding him implicitly, the griffin mistress said, “Do you think that I could even fall in love?”

            “A love filled with magic of romance exceeds a love of friendship and spirit,” said her wise

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griffin.

            “A love with magic of romance…a love for a boyfriend.  A love of friendship and spirit…my love for you,” said Elysium, interpreting her griffin confidant’s words.

            “My mistress, would you forget your adoring griffin if the right man from God comes into your life?” called forth Gryphon.

            “My dear, dear Gryphon,” cried out Elysium, “how could I go and do something so cruel to the best friend any Christian girl has ever had?”

            “Promise me, Elysium, that you will love me no matter what for the rest of our lives together,” implored her beloved griffin Gryphon.

            “Gryphon, you’re crying,” called forth his mistress.  She could hear it in his voice as she rode.

            “I love you, Mistress,” he said.

            “And I love you, too, Gryphon,” she said.

            “Mistress, you’re crying,” said her best friend, hearing this as he flew.

            “I promise in the name of the Lord that no man shall ever come between us until death parts us one from another, O beloved Gryphon,” she vowed.

            And there in the skies the pom and dance girl leaned forward, put her arms around his neck, hugged him hard around his neck, and kissed him sweetly upon his eagle head several times.

            And his belly gave forth a great groan of contentment.  Then she sat back up.  And she said, “Shall we go home now and share a prayer meeting in the house again, Gryphon—you and I and God alone together once again—in my room?”

            “I would so like that very much, O Mistress,” said Gryphon.

            And they turned about and headed back home.

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CHAPTER III

            It was Sunday Morning Worship at Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church once again for the pom pom girl.  Once again this day as any day for her, church day was another day for her dressed in her pom and dance uniform.  And once again Elysium was the first one there right after Pastor and his wife Emmy got there.  Pastor and Emmy, having the hearts of servants of the Lord, were getting the auditorium ready for the worship service.  Pastor was opening up windows, and Emmy was setting up stools.  There were very many windows and one hundred stools.  The top panes of all of the windows consisted of nine panes—three panes by three panes.  The bottom panes of all of the windows consisted of sixteen panes—four panes by four panes.  There were seven such windows along the right wall, and there were seven such windows along the right wall, and there were three such windows in the back wall, and there were four such windows in the front wall.  And they were all old and broken down and needed extra care.  And they all had to be held up by sticks.  And they all had needed fold-out screens to let in the nice summer air.  And these many sticks were scraps from the woodworker in town.  Some were as short as one inch.  Some were as long as twelve inches.  Most were about six inches in length..  But all were solid and square at their ends and varnished.   And Pastor’s job was to open all of the

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windows of all of the walls one by one and to put the sticks under them to keep them open for good fresh air to come into the building during the service.  And, seeing that the church could not afford conventional screens made for the windows, the flock voted to buy several fold-out screens from the hardware store in town in a clearance sale.  And right now Pastor was spreading out these movable screens and putting them in the lower parts of each window way.  And after this morning worship service would end, Pastor would then go from window to window and take out the little screens, take out the sticks, and close the windows back up and set the sticks back upon the windowsills.

            As for Emmy, her work for God each Sunday morning was to arrange the stools for the flock who was coming for worship soon.  After each service, Emmy would move all of the stools out of the middle of the auditorium to along the walls to each side of the auditorium, to facilitate her sweeping of the wooden floor of this big room.    And before each service, she put these stools back in their places for the flock.  These stools were of different heights for different parishioners.  They were otherwise identical—four long legs, a hardwood seat, a soft cushion, a wooden back rest, a wire rack at the bottom along the left for the hymnbook, a wire rack at the bottom along the right for the King James Bible, and a wire rack at the bottom right underneath the seat for extra things.  And in the left side of this auditorium there was room for fifty stools arranged in ten rows of five stools each.  And in the right side of this auditorium there was room for another fifty stools, again ten rows of five stools each.   Between these two groups was an aisle covered with deep red carpet upon the wood floor.  And a red carpet covered the aisle that ran between the left group and the left wall.  And a red carpet also covered the aisle between the right group and the right wall.

            As Elysium saw Pastor and Emmy so dedicate themselves with this labor in Christ, she came to remember how often Pastor recited Luke 16:10 to his flock in his sermons:  “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much:  and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”  Pastor and his wife were faithful in those things that were least, and Pastor and his wife were faithful in those

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things that were much.  Indeed did Pastor not skip the little things that went into the ministry.  He would never skip the big things in his ministry, either.

            The pom and dance girl for Christ set to work now to do a little improvising on her part.  She took a dust rag from the back closet and began to dust the metal plates of letters and words of Scripture verses affixed to the walls.  These Bible verses were all about pastors.  One verse read:  “’And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.’  Jeremiah 3:15.”  Another one read:  “’So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.’  Nehemiah 8:8.”  Another one read, “’And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.’  I Peter 5:4.”  And another one read, “’This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good

work.’  I Timothy 3:1.”  And another read, “’For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.’  Ezra 7:10,”  There were many plates to dust, and it took the pom pom girl for Christ some time to dust each of them.  But the famous griffin keeper needed to pitch in here in church as well.  And she was glad that she could do this for God.

            Then the preparations for Sunday Morning Worship were done.  And others of the flock now began to come in.  It was still a half-hour before church would start.

            Picking her spot in the auditorium, the pom and dance girl again sat in the front row in the stool closest to the left wall.  If she did not choose this stool, then she chose the stool in the front row closest to the right wall.  These were Elysium’s favorite two places to sit in Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church.  Good and caring Emmy came up to her and asked, “Where’s Gryphon, Elysium?  I miss him.”

            “He can’t make it this time,” said the Elysian Girl.  “He’s with the governor today.”

            “Gryphon is a wise counselor,” said Pastor’s wife.  “He will give the governor good advice.”

            “Gryphon knows much Scripture to share with him,” said Elysium—The Girl.

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            Then Pastor stepped up to the dais and sat down in his chair off to the side and bowed his head in silent prayer.  It was time now to be silent and to give glory to God and to give respect to the church service which would begin pretty soon.  And all of the flock ceased their chatting and became silent in their stools.  Many prayed in silence for the message.  Emmy prayed in silence that Pastor’s message speak to the hearts of the flock.  And Elysium prayed in silence that God give Pastor strength.  Indeed Pastor’s most common prayer request for himself was that the Lord give him strength for his ministry.

With the Devil at war against Christ, he did tempt Pastor with fatigue and exhaustion whenever he preached as he did from the pulpit.  As the pom pom girl thought upon this in these moments just before church started, she reflected on all that Pastor and Emmy had told her about this Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church in its early days before her time:

            Pastor Statute was, by title, a Baptist church planting missionary.  His job was to establish Baptist churches and help them to become self-supporting, and then to move on and go and plant another church the same way, and so on.  And he began this by what pastors call “deputation.”  This deputation was a missionary’s preparatory work where he went from church to church to speak as a visiting pastor about his mission field where God was sending him.  In this initial planning, Pastor sought to convince other Baptist churches to help financially support his work in his coming Baptist church.  Baptist pastors were either home missionaries (missionaries whose church was or was to be in America) or foreign missionaries (missionaries whose church was not or was not to be in America).

If a church he visited came to share his burden for his people and his area, it went on and had a church business meeting and voted in favor of giving this pastor a regular monthly offering as a church.

Good Baptist church planters like Pastor Statute had to start out small.  Pastor had prayed much to God, and God sent him to De Pere to start a church here.  And once he found his mission field, Pastor and Emmy went knocking on doors together throughout De Pere to spread the Gospel and to win souls and to invite them to come to church.  And they had their first church service in their parsonage on Merrill

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Street in east De Pere.  More deputation passed.  Souls won for Christ on visitation in town joined the church in his living room.  And a faithful brother-in-the-Lord, the church usher, went out knocking on doors with Pastor one day each week. And his flock grew.  Other Baptist churches began to help financially provide for this good Baptist church in De Pere.  And then the day came where Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church outgrew their pastor’s parsonage.  They had to look for a more official place to meet in worship.  In this same east side of De Pere, down the road on 112 South Broadway Street, there was the De Pere Senior Citizen Center.  And they were willing to rent out their place to the Baptist church to meet on Sundays and on Wednesday evenings.  In a church business meeting, the flock voted to move into there for their church services.  And Pastor then began to take up church offerings.  Because this place belonged to the Senior Citizen center, who met on weekdays, the flock had to move the tables and chairs for their church services, and they had to move the tables and chairs back for the senior citizens after their church services.  But none minded.  They were just glad to have an official place to meet.   And they had an official church sign in magic marker on a white board that they put in the window just before each service and which they took away after each service.  Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church now had a hand in financially supporting Pastor and his wife.  Numerous other churches now also helped with finances, as well.  And visitation won souls, and these souls got baptized, and they joined the church.  Most who came to church here, whether members or not, did faithfully give of tithes and offerings.  And Pastor found himself able to make a living now as a Baptist pastor.  For the good of his flock, Pastor never pursued a secular job.  He knew that God willed him to be a full-time pastor so that he could give his all to De Pere.  And the church built up a CD in the bank of twenty thousand dollars.  The congregation now numbered between thirty and forty.

And much money was given to the church general fund and to the church building fund.  Then the flock began to pray for a building of their own.  If God willed Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church to have its own building in which to meet, would it be a building made by a building program,

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or would it be a building that was already there?  Pastor and his flock prayed about this much.  The Lord heard their prayers.  And He opened doors.  And He closed doors.  And, lo, a former Kingdom Hall building was for sale in west De Pere.  That church’s flock had moved to another place with a bigger building.  And their older, smaller building was now empty and available.  More prayer from the flock reached Heaven.  And God said, “Go for it.”  And the Baptist church had a business meeting.  And with a total of nine voting members, Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church voted unanimously to buy this building for ninety thousand dollars.  Imagine the testing of Pastor’s faith when he had to tell the banker that he wanted to buy this building with a flock of only nine voting members.  In a stand for God, Pastor told the loan officer, “We serve a faithful God.”  Of course the loan officer did not understand.  But the bank agreed to a loan.  And Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church moved into this new building.  It was on 645 Grant Street.  And right away, Pastor officially established Thursday Evening Visitation as a regular day for going out and knocking on doors.  And numerous soul-winners joined the faithful usher and Pastor and Emmy to spread the word two by two.  Then Pastor and the three chief men of his church got together to write up the official church constitution and church covenant and church articles of faith, backing up every doctrine with many Scripture references.  And with this the pastor and his faithful usher met with an official church recognition council with other Baptist churches, and Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church became officially recognized as an ordained church.  And this church was an independent fundamental Baptist church, King James only, Bible-teaching, Bible-believing, soul-winning, and God-centered house of God.  And every good Baptist visiting pastor who had come to this church had this to say about this church:  “God is in this church.”

            Now here it was, years later.  This same church now had one hundred in its flock.  This faithful usher, who had been Pastor’s best friend, had died before Elysium could meet him.  And God was still in this church.  And it was still a lighthouse in De Pere.  And it was still a light in a dark place.

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            Pastor now got up from his chair and came up to his pulpit.  And the Sunday Morning Worship began.  “Dear members of the flock, today I would like to talk to you about prayer.  Accursed are the dragons of the world,” he began his sermon.

            “Amen!” said his flock.

            Pastor continued his sermon, “Daniel in the Bible was a great hero of prayer.  He was called in the Bible ‘a man greatly beloved of God.’  He lived to pray, and nobody was going to keep him from his prayer—not even the emperor himself.  This happened in the days of the Medo-Persian Empire, and this emperor was King Darius, a friend of Daniel.  This Daniel was promoted to a foremost position in the empire.  And the other government leaders under Darius grew jealous over Daniel.  They hated him for his blameless testimony in God.  And they wanted to get him out of the way.  And they turned to subterfuge.  And they went ahead and tricked the emperor.  These jealous officials came up to Darius with a decree that proclaimed it unlawful for any person in the empire for thirty days to pray to anybody other than the king.  First they flattered Darius, telling him in Daniel 6:6, ‘…, King Darius, live for ever.’  Then came their decree for him to sign.  It is written thus in Daniel 6:7, ‘…, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.’  Everybody knew what a prayer warrior that Daniel was.  But Darius got caught up in his pride upon seeing this decree, and he forgot about Daniel, and he signed the decree into law.  Daniel did not pray to emperors; he prayed only to God.  Nor would Daniel sacrifice his prayers to the Lord just because of this new law.  And it is written about what Daniel did in Daniel 6:10, ‘Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house, and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.’  And his enemies saw him there doing this and breaking the Medo-Persian law that they had legislated.  Now they thought to have him.  And they went and told on him to King Darius.  And the king, knowing now that he had been used, was forced to throw his friend

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Daniel into the lions’ den.  And this he did most regretfully.  And, as you all know, Daniel’s faithful God shut the mouths of the hungry lions, and they did not eat up Daniel down there.  And God spared His prophet’s life in the den of lions.  And the next day, when he found that Daniel was okay, Darius commanded that Daniel be taken out of the den and the schemers to be thrown into this den of lions.  And God did not show mercy to them; the lions went and devoured them.  After seeing this miracle of God, the king issued a new decree that gave God glory and Daniel honor.  It is written thus in Daniel 6:26-27:  ‘…, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel:  for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even to the end.  He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.’  And, because Daniel had taken his stand for prayer and for God, God was faithful to him and did go and bless him for this.  And Daniel went on to prosper in the Medo-Persian Empire.”

            “Amen!” said his flock.

            “Prayer,” said Pastor Statute, “which the dragons seek to take away from this world here in these days.”

            The faithful Baptist flock, all prayer-warriors themselves, all well knew about what their pastor had just said.  Pastor went on to preach further, “Praying these days of the twenty-first century is now a dangerous worship to seek and do.  Satan’s many dragons fly about the world, looking for people who are praying, and these dragons slay them.  Dragons are so wicked that they sense prayer in their vicinity as a choking smoke in their spirits.  They smell this symbolic smoke in their nostrils, and they know that a believer is praying, and they follow the scent, and they find the believer in prayer, and they shoot fire out of their mouths at him, and they burn him up to death.  And a Christian dies a martyr for Christ.  Dragons are many upon this Earth.  And they seem to be on the winning side.  Prayer and prayer people are too afraid to get down on their knees and pray.  They are too afraid to sit down and pray.  They are

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too afraid to stand and pray.  They are too afraid to lie down and pray.  And many who do stay faithful to prayer are quickly found out by the Devil’s dragons and are slain for the cause of Christ.  The dragons of the world, most tragically, do good work for Satan.  They are tenacious.  They are resourceful.  They are knowledgeable.  They are everywhere.  They are evil.  And they are on the verge of taking away all prayer from the world.  Those believers who do not pray live.  Those believers who do pray die.”

            Pastor paused, then said, “Why do dragons hate prayer so much?”  And he answered his question, saying, “Prayer is an especial bond between God the Father and His children.  Whenever a born-again believer comes to the throne of God in prayer, God is magnified.  The Good Lord delights in hearing the prayers of His saints.  And the Good Lord delights to answer the prayers of His saints.

This, above almost all other means of worship, most gives glory to God.  God has put man on Earth to worship Him.  And only the true born-again Christians can worship Him righteously.  And such sons and daughters of God worship Him in truth by praying and by reading the Bible and by going to a good church.  And prayer most especially discomfits the Dragon of Dragons Satan.  The Dragon of Dragons the Devil wants people to pray to him and not to the Lord.  And, because people never go and pray to him, he wants people to stop praying to their Heavenly Father.  And his many dragons who serve him have the same evil spirit that hates prayer-warriors who turn to God as he does.”

            Pastor cleared his throat, then went on to say, “Praying churches like our own Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church are becoming rate these days.  The dragons smell their prayer meetings and go down and burn them and their churches with fire.  I praise you and your griffins, O Elysium, for your work in the Lord.  Because you are our church’s lady archer, we have been rescued with your bow and arrow and with your griffins numerous times so far.  And for that we thank you.”

            “Amen!  Amen!” said the grateful flock.

            “And we will never quit praying,” declared Pastor Statute.

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            “Alleluia!” said the flock to God.  “Hallelujah!”

            “I am your humble servant at your service,” said the lady dragon slayer.

            Pastor Statute went on to say in his sermon, “In this state of Wisconsin, I know of only one other church that still gets together in the midweek service on prayer meeting nights.  It is in Niagara. And it is called, ‘Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church.’  Its church name is much like our church name, but is of a different eschatological event.”  Much had the folk of Pastor’s church here in De Pere heard him preach on the prophecy of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.  And much had they heard him preach on the prophecy of the Marriage of the Lamb.  Both wondrous events awaited all believers in Heaven.  Pastor went on to say, “This church up north in Niagara, like our church, is gifted by God to have a dragon-slayer of their own to protect them and their prayer-warriors.  He is the great sword fighter Flanders Nickels.  And he has slain many dragons for the cause of Christ.  Among those who slay dragons with a saber, this Flanders is the foremost of them all.  It is said that dragons fear this man of God.  And they hesitate when the Devil tells them to go get Flanders’s church.  Some dragons even go and disobey their master Satan when he sends them to Niagara, and they go and burn down praying people elsewhere.  But the Dragon of Dragons is appeased.”

            Then Pastor Statute said, “The first dragon to appear upon the Earth was the very Dragon of Dragons himself, about one hundred years ago, early in the twentieth century.  He came down from the air.  He lighted upon the highest peak of Mount Everest.  He looked down upon all the kingdoms of the world.  And in his diabolical spirit he sensed the prayers of all the saints going on at this time.  And it made him sick, because he was the Devil who wanted to be God.  He became filled with pride and jealousy and rebellion.  And he declared to all the Christians out there from his highest point of the world, ‘I am Lucifer, and I hereby declare war on prayer.’”

            Pastor then said, “And then he left the earth for a season.  Then the dragons came to the world. First one.  Then another.  Then more.  Now they are as numerous as predatory animals.  Where did

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these dragons come from?  We know that they are sent by the Devil.  But where did Satan get them?  The world has it in legend that the Dragon of Dragons has both conceived and begotten each one of these dragons simply by himself.  But we in the church say that these were the one-third of the angels who fell along with Satan in his rebellion against God at the beginning of time.  I see these dragons to be the demons of the Devil, the fallen angels, those who fight the good angels.”

            At the end of today’s morning worship service, Pastor said to his flock, “Today’s message was all about prayer.  It is only fitting that we sing a closing hymn all about prayer.  Open up your hymnbooks to hymn number 356, and let us sing ‘Near to the Heart of God.’”

            And the good Baptist flock sang about the joys of praying here in God’s Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church:

“1.  There is a place of quiet rest,

Near to the heart of God,

A place where sin cannot molest,

Near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,

Sent from the heart of God,

Hold us who wait before Thee,

Near to the heart of God.

2.  There is a place of comfort sweet,

Near to the heart of God,

A place where we our Saviour meet,

Near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,

Sent from the heart of God,

Hold us who wait before Thee,

Near to the heart of God.

3.  There is a place of full release,

Near to the heart of God,

A place where all is joy and peace,

Near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,

Sent from the heart of God,

Hold us who wait before Thee,

Near to the heart of God.”

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            After this hymn, Pastor had a final word of prayer, and he dismissed his flock for the morning.     And after the service was done, everybody got together in fellowship and talked about what they learned from the sermon.

            And once again Elysium and Emmy, the two most spiritual women of this good Baptist flock, got together to chat and to fellowship in Christ.  “That was another great sermon from Pastor, Emmy,” said the pom and dance woman.

            “It spoke right to my heart, Elysium,” said Emmy.

            “I shall never stop praying,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “Nor shall I quit praying,” said Emmy.

            “Dragons or no dragons,” promised Elysium—The Girl.

            “Something about Pastor’s message today made me think about you, Elysium.” said Pastor’s wife in compassion and good will.

            “Is it something good?  If it is, tell me.  Is it something bad?  If it is, tell me,” said the griffin keeper, her heart open to what this woman of Godly integrity had to say to her.

            “Pastor talked about Flanders Nickels of Niagara,” said Emmy.

            “The famous dragon slayer,” said Elysium.

            “Yes.  The Unicorn Keeper,” said Emmy.

            “He wields a mean sword,” said Elysium in praise of this soldier of Christ.

            “He has ten noble unicorns,” said Emmy.

            “But he does not have a girlfriend,” said the pom and dance woman common knowledge.

            “No ordinary Christian woman would suffice for a man like him for girlfriend.” said Emmy.

            “Yes.  You’re right there, Emmy,” said Elysium.  “What woman could deserve a guy like Flanders as boyfriend?”

            “There is one woman out there in the world who would be good enough for him,” said Emmy.

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            “Who could such a girl be?” asked the pom and dance girl.

            “All of Wisconsin regards you as being his equal in all due faith in Christ,” said Emmy.

            “Are you saying that I am good enough for him?” asked Elysium in humility.

            “The world thinks that the unicorn keeper and the griffin keeper would make the perfect match,” said Emmy.

            “But what does God think?” asked the pom pom girl.

            “Pray to God, I entreat you, O Elysium, and wait and find out,” said Pastor’s wife.

            “Flanders’s ministry as protector of Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church makes him even more important to that last Baptist church up north than even his own Pastor Precept,” said Elysium—The Girl in spiritual truth.

            “And Pastor says that you as protector of Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church right here are even more important to us in the flock than even himself our very own pastor,” said Emmy.

            “Tell me that that is not so,” said the humble griffin keeper.

            Then said Emmy.  “Our Lord Jesus in these days highly regards the last few Baptist pastors out there who still pray and lead their flock in prayer.  But nowadays, our Lord more highly esteems His dragon slayers then He does even our good Baptist pastors.”

            “Does that mean me, too, Emmy?” asked Elysium.

            “The whole world knows their lady archer and their sword fighter.  But only people in Wisconsin know Pastor Precept and Pastor Statute,” said Emmy.

            “I did not know that,” said the griffin keeper.

            “And all the world wonders upon your griffins, Elysium,” said Emmy.

            “I do have to admit that I and the whole world do wonder upon Flanders Nickels’ unicorns,” confessed the Elysian girl.

            “Do you begin to consider now Flanders Nickels the man of God?” asked Pastor’s wife.

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            “He is a cute guy,” said Elysium.  “Or at least he could become a cute guy to me if I knew that he was interested in me.”

            “Elysium, look at yourself.  You are twenty years old.  You are a blonde pom pom girl.  You are a beautiful woman of God,” said Emmy.

            “Could this famous Flanders Nickels come to carry a torch for me of all people?” asked the daughter of God.

            “Do not think that that great man does not know about you, Elysium,” said Emmy.

            “Indeed he is even more famous than our president,” said Elysium.

            “And so are you, O Elysium,” said Pastor’s wife.

            “One great woman deserves one great man?” she dared asked in a moment of enlightenment.

            “One great man deserves one great woman,” said Emmy in an alternate way.

            “I will have to think about this, Emmy,” said the lady archer.

            “Do think upon that, O Elysium,” said Pastor’s wife in compassion.

            “I will have to pray about this,” said the dragon slayer.

            “Do pray about this,” said Emmy.

            “I can begin to see that I am lonely in life without a boyfriend-in-the-Lord,” said the griffin keeper.

            And Elysium and Emmy looked around.  Behold, everybody else was gone now except them and Pastor.  And Elysium asked her pastor, “I have a very important decision to make in my personal life, O Pastor.  Could we form a prayer circle right now and pray that God tell me His will for me in this question that Emmy has made me to wonder about?”

            “What is it about, Elysium?” asked Pastor.

            “About whether I should maybe start dating the famous Flanders Nickels or not,” told Elysium all that Emmy had made her to think about now with an open heart.

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            “Let us do so at once,” said Pastor Statute.  And the three set up stools upon the dais behind his pulpit, and they sat down in a group for an impromptu prayer meeting.  And one-by-one the three took their turn and prayed out loud to God in Heaven for Him to show most Godly Elysium—The Girl His will for her romance life.  And God heard them from His throne up in Heaven.

            But, so, too, did a two-legged dragon in the air who was passing by.  And he was offended.  And he was irritated.  And he was upset.  And he descended from the skies to go get them.

            He lighted upon the ground before the church door and commanded, “You praying Christians in there, stifle your prayers at once!”

            Pastor was praying at this time, and the two others already had their prayer.  But Pastor did not cease his verbal prayer to God.

            At once the lady archer jumped up from her stool and raced to the door, her patience tested by the dragon’s intrusion.  And she opened the door, took one look at the dragon, and said, “You are interrupting my pastor from his prayers!”

            This dragon was a little two-legged dragon, but his draconic face showed the rage of the Devil.

“Tell that pastor to shut up his prayers,” he demanded.

            “Pastor is God’s man for this church.  He is the pastor of a good Baptist church.  And God goes to bat for His good ministers,” said Elysium, incensed at this interruption of and disrespect for her pastor.  “Little dragon, you are asking to get it from God.”

            “I may get it from God.  But first you will get it from me, O griffin keeper,” he said to her.

            The lady archer raised her bow, took an arrow out of her quiver, and held this arrow out before this small dragon.  “You do anything to me, and I will do back unto you seven fold,” said the lady archer.

            This dragon hesitated.  Then he looked around.  And he said, “Where are your griffin allies, O Griffin Keeper?”

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            “None of your business,” said Elysium.   She nocked her arrow on her bowstring.

            “If you are not with your griffins, who else is with you and that minister doing all of that nasty prayer?” he asked.  “Is that the Pastor’s wife I do see in there?”

            “That’s not your business, either,” said Elysium, aiming her arrow at this dragon’s chest.

            “The three of you praying in there made a racket like it were a griffin mistress and her ten griffins praying in there,” he said.  “Ministers and minister’s wives are particularly disturbing to dragons when they pray together like that.  And you were the worst of the three to my nerves.”

            “Go back to the Devil,” said the lady archer, drawing back on her bowstring.

            “O griffin keeper, let fly that arrow, and I will get back up and burn you down.  Don’t let fly the arrow, and I will burn your church to the ground,” said the two-legged dragon.

            The lady archer cared less for her own safety than she did for her church’s safety.   So Elysium—The Girl let fly the arrow, and it impaled this dragon’s chest.  He fell.  But it did not pierce his heart.  It got stopped not far into his chest by a rib that blocked its entry.  And he got back up quickly and looked at her where she stood.    Smoke began to puff out of his nose and from between his clenched dragon teeth.  The lady dragon slayer knew what these signs meant.  They meant that the dragon was preparing to shoot fire out of his mouth.  Already the lady archer had another arrow nocked and ready for this dragon.

            The dragon saw himself now at the disadvantage.  And he now fought his battle with more words, saying to her, “Shoot me with your arrow,  and I will get back up and burn your church to the ground.  Don’t shoot me with that arrow, and I will burn you to the ground.”

            The Elysian Girl cared more for her church than she did for herself.  And she fell upon a moment of indecision.  The clever dragon tricked her.  But this dragon’s hesitation in order to speak his tricky words ended up putting out the fire that he was preparing to shoot out of his mouth.  Now he had to start over with building up his fire within.

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            And the lady dragon slayer could see this, and she acted quickly before the dragon could get his fire ready from within.  She fired her second arrow also into his chest.  He fell again.  But he got back up again.  Lo, once again, this arrow, too, was stopped not far into the dragon chest by a fortunate rib in just the right place.  And once again smoke began to billow out from his nose and from his closed mouth.  She had a third arrow nocked and aimed his chest.  But he was focused now upon the Baptist church and its two prayer-warriors in there praying for their lady archer out loud.  This house of God must be burned up, thought the dragon.

            But he was on the verge of getting another arrow into his chest, one that might go this time between his ribs and into his heart.  And he said, “Elysium, fire an arrow at me and I will get back up and burn both you and your church and your pastor and your pastor’s wife down.  Do not fire an arrow at me, and I will leave you and your church and your pastor and your pastor’s wife alone.”

            “Dragon, those are not the words of a true dragon,” said the dragon slayer.  “Demons do not make bargains with Christians, even if it means saving their own lives.”

            “I promise,” said this dragon.

            “Dragons break promises,” said Elysium.

            “I lie,” he said.

            “Yes.  All dragons lie,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “And I deceive,” he said.

            “Yes, dragons deceive,” said the lady archer.

            Behold, the dragon bought enough time with his dialogue with the dragon slayer that his fire was now ready to shoot out and burn up his foe.  And it looked too late for Elysium to finish off this evil dragon from his purposes with her bow and arrow.

            But in this moment of victory, this dragon could not decide whether to shoot his fires first at the

church or at the church’s protector.  And he gave into a hesitation.  And in that moment of dragon’s

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decision-making, the dragon slayer lady fired her arrow into his chest.  He fell down again.  But he did not get up again this time.  Behold, this third arrow hit its mark, going into the dragon chest, between two ribs and into his heart.  The little dragon was slain in battle.

            “Praise You, God, for this victory this day!” prayed Elysium—The Girl in great thanksgiving to the Lord.

            Just then Pastor and Emmy came out and stood on the church’s front stoop.  And they both looked down upon the dead dragon with three arrows sticking out of his chest.  Pastor said, “Our Heavenly Father has answered our prayers for your battle out here, Elysium.”

            And Emmy said, “Thank you once again for everything, O Elysium.”

            “I am honored to serve you and God and church in this way,” said the dragon-slayer lady.

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CHAPTER IV

            The pom and dance girl and her ten pet griffins were seated in a prayer group in her backyard.  The woman was facing them before a line of ten, and the line of ten was facing her before them.  “Mistress, our prayer may bring the dragons again,” said one of her griffins.

            “Nothing will keep us from our prayers,” said the griffin keeper.

            “Prayer is worth it,” said this same griffin.

            “Mistress,” said another griffin.

            “Yes?” asked Elysium.

            “Your loop,” this same griffin said, pointing to her left hand.

            “What about my loop?” she asked.  She looked down upon her hand at the end of her long black sleeve of her pom and dance girl dress.

            “Wrong place,” he told her.

            “Wrong finger,” she said.  Her loop was around her index finger and not around her middle finger where it was supposed to be.  At once she fixed this up.  “How does my other loop look?” she asked, looking upon her right hand.

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            All ten griffins said, “Looks good, Mistress.”

            “Looking good,” said the pom pom girl in Christ.

            “Goofy mistress,” said another of her griffins.

            And Elysium—The Girl confessed, “I think that I know a woman who got careless this morning when she got dressed up for the day, guys.” The eleven all laughed.  “Thank you for telling me that,” she said about the attire malfunction.  “Now your mistress before you is ready for our prayer meeting.”

            “Mistress, you’re positively meticulous,” said another of her griffins in tease.

            “A pom and dance blonde needs to look good, you know,” said their keeper.

            “Amen, O Mistress!” said another of her griffins.

            And prayer meeting in the backyard began for this family of God.  Elysium—The Girl started out first:  “Dear Father God:  I pray for myself first.  I pray that You help me to be the best dragon slayer that I can be.  My job is to shoot down dragons with my bow and arrow for the good of Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church and for the good of all praying Christians wherever they may be found.  I pray that You keep my quiver and my arrows and my bow safe from the fires and from the teeth and from the feet of the evil dragons.  I pray that my quiver and my arrows and my bow may prevail over the fires and the teeth and the feet of the evil dragons.  They are wily in battle and clever in war.  But You, Lord, my Saviour, are Sovereign God over all.  You know what they will be planning next in the battles before they themselves know.  You know when they come,  and You know when they leave.  You know when they kill, and You know when they die.  You know their end, and I know their end, and they know their end—and that is Hell.  And You know my end, and I know my end, and they know my end—and that is Heaven.  They ought to fear death.  I ought not to fear death. My griffins do not fear death.”  She paused from her verbal prayer, then continued, “I pray also for my good griffins, Father.  I pray for Gryphon first among my ten.  Do keep him safe in war, and do keep him safe in peace.  He is my friend of friends.  And You are my Best Friend of best friends.  I tell him all.  And I

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tell You that which I do not tell him.  He loves me with a phileo love, and You love me with an agape love.  I love him as I love myself.  I love you with all of my heart and with all of my soul and with all of my mind and with all of my strength.  I pray also for my griffin Seven, Father God.  Through You may he continue to conquer those dragons who wish to conquer him.  And I pray for Street of Gold, too.  I pray that through You he slay dragons not for their gold in their dens, but for You for the cause of Good.  And I do pray now for Bow, also.  I pray for him that through You he may earn in dragon battles ribbons of valor as colorful as the rainbow bands that he loves.  And I pray for Covenant.  I pray that through You he claim Your promises in the Bible of power and love and a sound mind in these evil days of dragons.  And I pray for Testament.  You have promised in the book of Mark that Your Word will continue even when Heaven and Earth are passed away.  I pray that through You my Testament can continue his daily and happy Bible studies for himself.  And I pray for Six Days.  And though You have not declared the Sabbath as the day of rest to the Christians as you had to the Israelites, I pray that through You Six Days can find rest from his work of dragon-slaying from time to time.  And I pray for Tawny.  I pray that Tawny, through Your work of sanctification, may overcome his love for his own form and what it looks like.  He is here to fight, not to look handsome.  And I pray for Aquilinae.  I pray that through You he may learn to appreciate his lion parts as much he does his eagle parts.  And I pray likewise for Felis Leo.  I pray that through You, he may be as thankful for his eagle parts as he is for his lion parts.  It is written, ‘Ask, and it shall be given you;…’  Matthew 7:7.  In Jesus’s name I pray.  Amen.”

            Next Gryphon went on to pray in this prayer group out back here:  He said, “Dear Heavenly Father:  Thank You for giving me a mistress to serve and to love.  I do not think that I myself could bond with a master as I do my mistress.  And I thank You that You made me a he-griffin and not a she-griffin.  You call he-griffins to battle; You do not call she-griffins to battle.  The renowned Griffin Keeper and I have seen many battles together against the Devil and his dragons.  And she and I have

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found a chemistry together unlike that of any other keeper and his or her griffin anywhere in this land.  I finish her sentences, and she finishes my sentences.  Keep her in Your protecting wings, O Father, lest I lose her in battle, and I say as Jacob said about losing his beloved son Joseph, ‘it shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.’  In the name of Your Son I pray this.  Amen.”

            Seven then prayed next, saying, “Dear Father in Heaven, all of my fellow griffins say to me that when You created me, that You took prowess away from other griffin soldiers to give all to me.  In my waking life I have indeed alone slain a real wyvern.  In my sleeping life, I have dreamed that I alone slew a dragon.  No real griffin alone can take on a real dragon alone.  I am but one soldier in my mistress’s army of ten soldiers.  I answer to You and to my mistress, and she answers to You.  And my mistress is wise in battle, strategically massing us griffins so as to best fight the dragons in the Lord.   I pray that You not let me fall upon pride in battle and go myself to try to get the job done in my own flesh.  I can slay dragons only in Your strength and in Your wisdom,  O Lord.  As it is written in Philippians 4:13, ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’”  A short silent moment came upon Seven as he prayed thus now.  Then he sang a lyric of a hymn to God about Christian warfare in high places:

“Onward, Christian soldiers,

Marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus,

Going on before!”

Then he closed his prayer thus:  “In Christ’s good name I pray.  Amen.”

            Next Street Of Gold prayed in this great prayer meeting,  He said, “Dear Father Who is Above:

We griffins and our good mistress bring our petitions and our intercessions up to Your Throne in Heaven from down here on the Earth in our backyard.  And what we are doing is unlawful in the eyes of the dragons who seek to rule the world.  They may well come from afar or come from near and descend from the air and light upon the ground and wage battle against us where we stand even now.

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The sanctity of prayer is not recognized among dragon kind.  The holiness of prayer is what the dragons cannot stomach.  Indeed for me, prayer is more desirable than even gold.  I cannot imagine my life without gold.  But it is a scary thing for me to think about any life without prayer.  Without gold, I would be broke.  Without prayer, I would faint.  Right now a dragon or two might be feeling the spirit of prayer that I am making in this supplication unto You.  And they may be driven to confront me and try to burn me and my prayer up in dragon fire.  I pray that if we get attacked today that it not happen until our prayers are done here in this prayer meeting.  All of us enjoy what we get out of prayer.  We like how it feels in our hearts.  You fill us up when we pray.  And our spiritual thirst is quenched, and our spiritual hunger is satisfied.  None of us want to be hindered from our prayers right now.  And an interrupted prayer is a painful thing.  And a prayer not started is worse than a prayer interrupted.  In Your Son’s name I pray.  Amen.”

            Next the griffin Bow prayed, saying, “Dear God of Heaven and Earth:  In Romans 8:22, it says, ‘For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travailleth in pain together until now.’  That’s why we have lions and tigers and bears who hunt and kill for their food.  That’s why we have death and dying.  That’s why we have dragons in this world full of rainbows.  It all comes from the sin of Adam and Eve committed in the Garden of Eden in Earth’s earliest days.  Sin took Your creation out of the garden.  And Paradise was lost.  This was the curse of sin.  And perhaps the worst curse of sin upon nature and mankind are all of these dragons flying around.  I anticipate a day in the world where there will be no more dragons.  In that day all the world will be praying.  And no demon will be allowed to make them stop praying.  This is Your coming Millennial Reign.  For a thousand years Your Son Jesus Christ will rule and reign over a good and blessed Earth.  And all will be peace and joy and love.  And there might even be pots of gold at the ends of rainbows in that day for me, Lord.  And I am sure that there will not be a day that will pass in my life then without a rainbow in the sky.  As the last prayer goes in the Bible:  ‘…Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’  Revelation 22:20.  In the holy name of Jesus I

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pray this.  Amen.”

            Next came Covenant’s time to pray.  And this was what he had to say to God:  “Dear Father Above:  In the book of Genesis you tell us of Your covenant with the patriarch Abraham.  You promised him thus that his descendants would be as numerous as ‘the dust of the earth,’ as many as ‘the stars of Heaven,’ as multiple as ‘the sand which is upon the seashore.’  I now make a covenant with You:  ‘As long as You give me breath to my body, and as long as You give me strength to my form, and as long as You give me life in this earth, I will forever fight at my mistress’s side to slay dragons in my love for You.’  Jacob made his famous promise to You in Genesis 28:20-22, wherein he vowed,  ‘…If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my Father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God:  And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house:  and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth to thee.’  May your humble griffin Covenant promise to You, Lord, ‘Only when You tell me to quit my life as a Christian warrior will I then cease my work as dragon-slayer of God.’  In Christ Jesus’s name do I pray thus.  Amen.”

            Next Testament prayed his prayer of this glorious prayer circle:  “Dear God in Heaven:  I thank You for my freedom to read and memorize and study my King James Bible here in this time of dragons in Earth’s history.  You and everybody else know how much I love my Bible.  And my mistress spends even more time in the Good Book than I do.  And, even though the dragons are at war against the prayers of the saints, they wage no war against the Bible-reading of the saints.  I do not know why this is.  Both are equally important in the life of any believer living for You.  But I get to read the Holy Bible with liberty.  And that is strong consolation for me in an Earth that is losing prayer.  As my mistress says, ‘We don’t have to read the Bible; we get to read the Bible.’  And as she also says, ‘We don’t have to pray;  we get to pray.’  I feel the same way she does.  And so I study the Bible unhindered, and I pray my prayers hindered.  To God be the praise.  And, if by chance, I be slain as a

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dragon-slayer in battle, I will die having been both a champion for Bible study and a champion for prayer.  Worshiping You in quiet time is worth dying for.  And I want others to be able to pray in a world with no dragons.  In Jesus Christ’s name I pray.  Amen.”

            Next came Six Days’s turn to pray.   And he said:  “Dear Creator God:  You made Heaven and Earth in six literal twenty-four hour days.  And on the seventh day You ceased from Your Work.  You were not weary from this great work, for in Isaiah 40:28 it is written, ‘…, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary…’  And it says about each of these six days of creation that the evening and the morning were one day.  And I learned from the genealogies of Genesis chapter five that this earth of creation is a young Earth of a literal six thousand years of age.  I have preached creationism throughout the world in my ministry.  But I know that my ministry as dragon-slayer is my main calling of God.  Though contending against evolutionists is a hard job in a lost world, contending against dragons is an even harder job in a world where Satan knows that he has but a short time and is stepping up his war against You in a final climax.  I would like to thank You for my favorite chapter of the Bible which we know to be Genesis chapter one, the creation chapter after which I got my name. But I would also like to thank You for my second favorite chapter in the Bible, Genesis chapter two, the other creation chapter in the Scriptures.  The dispensation of innocence, the first of history’s seven dispensations, is summarized there all about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the Devil got there.  In Your time You will come back and make the whole world a new Paradise, a new Earth after the last dragon is taken away.  In the name of the Son of God I pray.  Amen.”

            Then came Tawny and his turn for prayer.  And this was what he had to say to the Good Lord:

“Dear Heavenly Father:  Legend says that I, in my comeliness, when You created me, that You took handsomeness away from other griffins in order to give me all the more handsomeness.  Well, that’s what they say.  But where I may be ‘the ultimate griffin,’ in my tawny form, You, in Your Deity, are God in His sovereign and divine and regal glory.  You gave me my beauty, and You can take away my

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beauty.  And before You now in prayer, I can understand how ugly I look in my unrighteousness coming before You now in Your Perfect Righteousness.  I once told my mistress how I was this comely griffin fighting the ugly dragons.  But then one day in battle I heard a dragon say to his fellow, ‘We are handsome dragons fighting ugly griffins.’   I guess that beauty is really in the eyes of the beholder.  I am still embarrassed about that statement even to this day.  Yesterday in my Bible study I learned more about my narcissistic pride and how it looks in the eyes of Almighty God.  I found Proverbs 27:2, and it says this:  ‘Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.’

If it means that I can become a better soldier for You, Lord, I will stop looking into lakes and mirrors as I do so much.  I have dragons of the Devil to fight.  I just pray that You preserve my tawny colors.  In

the name of the Son, I pray.  Amen.”

            Then it was the turn for Aquilinae to pray.  And he talked to God thus now:  “Dear Heavenly Father Up Above:  I thank You that I get to live in these United States.  Even in these end times, America is still the greatest country in the world.  Americans are good to griffins.  And in Wisconsin a griffin can enjoy all four seasons of the year—a blessing to living in the Midwest.  Wisconsinites always welcome griffins into their chats out upon town.  And De Pere is a nice small city to live near to with its nice parks and its Fox River and its respect to griffins.  But what I love most about America is that the Bald Eagle is the symbol of our great nation.  I do fall into temptation, though, Lord, when I think upon what it would be like for myself to be a real Bald Eagle.  Your erring griffin wishes himself to have been made all-eagle, instead of half-eagle.  But You my Maker do not make mistakes.  And a Bald Eagle cannot fight dragons as a griffin can.  I have to remember that.  I am a dragon-slayer who is made for battles.  I love the other symbols of my great country, too, Lord.  The symbol of Uncle Sam as an avuncular hoary man dressed in red, white, and blue, saying to our nation’s enemies, ‘Don’t mess with the U.S.’  is a truly captivating testimony to our strength as the world’s only superpower.  And our U.S.’s flag in its stars and stripes and in its red and white and blue is truly the most attractive of flags of

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any country out there.  And Francis Scott Key’s song ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ our national anthem, inspires keepers and griffins and other citizens of our nation to stand up and put our hands on our hearts and thank God for the U.S.A.  In all of this I do thank You.  In Jesus’s name I pray.  Amen.”

            Then Felis Leo spoke his prayer in this powerful prayer meeting.  And he said, “Dear God in Heaven:  I, too, have some dissatisfaction to my griffin make.  I wish that I had a lion face with a lion mane.  If I were all-lion and not half-lion, I could be classified ‘the king of the beasts.’   But I do not envy the diminishing numbers of the lions on this Earth.  They could become an endangered species.  My kind—we griffins—are many and are not in danger of extinction.  I am grateful for that.  I pray that lions do not become extinct, O Lord.  I know that in Your Thousand-Year Reign that lions will be many and safe and will consent to a fellow petting them on the head.  When the curse of sin upon nature will be removed upon the Second Coming of the Lord, lions and all other animals will be tame.  As it says in Isaiah 11:7, ‘…:…the lion shall eat straw like the ox.’  And as it says in Isaiah 65:25, ‘…,…the lion shall eat straw like the bullock;…’  And, again, kind of what was prayed a moment ago, a complete griffin can take on dragons for You.  A complete lion is not called of God to fight dragons for You.  And a lion and a keeper cannot talk to each other like I and my keeper can.  And a lion cannot read the Bible as we griffins can.  And a lion cannot pray as we griffins can.  Thank You, Lord., that You made me a griffin.  In the name of the Son of God I pray.  Amen.”

            This prayer meeting out back thus finished.  The family of eleven looked up into the sky from where they were standing.  There were no dragons this time coming after them.  No dragons had sensed them.

            “God is gracious,” said Gryphon.

            “God is merciful,” said the pom and dance woman.

            And the griffins disbanded and began to spread out to do griffin activities and they began to walk away.  Elysium—The Girl called out in earnestness, “Gryphon.”

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            Gryphon stopped his stroll and said, “I am at your service, my mistress.  What can I do for you?”

            “I need to talk to you,” she said.

            “Let us talk,” he said at once.

            “There is something that I had not brought up in today’s prayer meeting,” said the pom pom girl.

            “You can tell me, Mistress,” said Gryphon.

            “Emmy has told me something,” said Elysium.

            “What was it?” he asked.

            “It was that matter that you and I discussed just the other day,” said the pom pom girl of Christ

            “About a boyfriend?” he asked.

            “Now she’s telling me about the same thing,” said Elysium–The Girl.

            “I heard that a boyfriend can make a girl happier even than a pet can,” said Gryphon.

            “I am beginning to think upon new things,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “Do you want a boyfriend in your life now, Mistress?” asked her griffin pet.

            “I don’t know,” she said.  “This idea is all brand new to me.”

            “I, for one, most heartily approve of your desires for a boyfriend.” said her pet griffin.

            “You do not mind?”” she asked him.

            “I would welcome a man into our little griffin family, O Mistress,” consented her best griffin friend.

            “Emmy said that Flanders Nickels and I would make a great Christian couple,” said the pom and dance girl.

            “Ah, the greatest catch of a guy out there for any young woman,” said Gryphon.

            “What does a lady archer and a gentleman sword fighter have in common?” she asked.

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            “You both are the foremost griffin slayers among Christendom for one, O Mistress,” he said.

            “I need something romantic to talk to Flanders about,” said the pom and dance woman.  “Battle and war is not romantic.”

            “Talk about your dress,” said Gryphon, “its blacks and its whites and its silvers.”

            “Now that’s romantic,” she said.

            “Talk about Jesus, most of all, Mistress.  That is the most fundamental thing for you and him to talk about, seeing that you two are the most recognized and spiritual of believers out there, O Mistress,” said Gryphon.

            “That’s the best idea of all,” said the griffin keeper.  “We can fellowship together on all of our dates—I and Flanders Nickels.  And we can talk about the Lord.”

            “I dare say, Mistress, you might find fellowshipping with a cute guy to be magical in a way beyond what it is like for you to fellowship with pet griffins,” said Gryphon.

            “Gryphon, I am starting to believe,” said the pom and dance girl.

            “And you could sneak in a hug with Flanders, too,” said her griffin best friend.

            “No woman has hugged Flanders,” she said.

            “You could be the first,” said Gryphon.

            “How does a girl go and do something like that with a cute guy?” she asked.

            “When you come around and feel like an embrace, you will know how it is done,” he told her.     “The ideas you’re giving me, O Gryphon,” she said.

            “And maybe you could sneak in a kiss with Flanders, Mistress,” said Gryphon.

            “No woman has kissed Flanders,” she said.

            “You could be the first,” said her sagacious pet griffin.

            “A real kiss,” she said.  “How does a girl do that with a man like Flanders?”

            “You know, Mistress,” Gryphon told her.

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            And she answered her question, “When the time comes, it will be done.  Our first kiss.”

            “Hugs and kisses—the sweet magic of romance, my mistress,” said Gryphon.

            “Where did a griffin like you come up with such ideas, Gryphon?” she asked him.

‘           “I watch TV and movies sometimes,” said Gryphon.

            “I am getting excited now about this Flanders Nickels.” said Elysium—The Girl.  “I shall pray about this.  And you must pray about this for me, too.   And make your griffins pray for me, too.”

            “My mistress, you are like unto good King Hezekiah, and Flanders is like unto good King Josiah,” said Gryphon, “whose lives were gloriously lived for God, and whose kingdoms of Judah were times of goodness and Godliness upon the land.”

            “It is written about Hezekiah, ‘He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.  For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses.’  II Kings 18:5-6,” recited the Christian woman.  “And it is written about Josiah, ‘And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.’  II Kings 23:25.’”

            “Do you have any doubts now, Mistress?” asked her griffin of griffins.  She shook her head in a “Nay.”  And the pom pom woman sat down in the grass, raised her knees, put her arms around her knees, bowed her head, closed her eyes, and prayed in silence in query of what the Lord willed for her about a first boyfriend in Flanders, the great man of Christianity.  She had to hear it from God.

            Just then she heard a sound of a flaming, and she felt heat pass by just over her head where she was praying.  She opened her eyes and looked up from her prayer.  Behold, a full-grown four-legged dragon in the sky with valiant Gryphon also in the air with him, his eagle beak clamping down upon the side of the dragon neck.  This dragon was jerking his head around and shooting fire out of his mouth most inaccurately, because of the griffin biting down upon the side of his neck.  And the griffin keeper

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understood that her griffin of griffins had just now saved her life.  This dragon had almost got her with his fire when her head was down in prayer, but Gryphon’s hold upon his neck made him miss her.  The pom and dance girl had not seen this dragon coming when she was in prayer, but her griffin had.  And he took prompt immediate action and attacked this dragon in the air.  This four-legged dragon was throwing his head about now like unto a bull in a rodeo, but Gryphon would not let go of his neck with his eagle beak.

            The lady archer got to her feet and declared battle in the Lord, and she prepared her artillery for a first shot in this skirmish.  She looked up into the sky not far away and saw the two combatants wrestling in the air in spiritual warfare in high places.  The force of evil was bigger and stronger and wiser in contention than was the force of good up there before her.  She thought maybe to rely upon her talents of archery and maybe to fire an arrow at the dragon and hope not to hit her griffin.  But she knew that even she were not a good enough archer to do this.  She must battle smart.  And she had to wait till the two forces separated up there before doing her part in the battle.  The dragon ran out of fire for now.  He then took his right front leg, and he kicked his right dragon claw into the one side of the clinging griffin like a punch.  Gryphon still held on tight.  But his grip was not so strong anymore.  Then the dragon did the same with his left front leg, catching Gryphon in his other side like another punch.  Gryphon’s hold upon the dragon neck was broken up,  And the griffin let go and partly flew and partly fell down toward the ground.  The dragon’s neck bleeding down the side, he then shot out fire toward the descending griffin.  Lo, the fire came up short.  It ended before it could catch up with gallant Gryphon.  The dragon’s fire supply was not full enough inside to reach the griffin who had been thrown down off of him.

            Then the lady archer fired her arrow.  Lo, the arrow struck the full-grown dragon in his left hip.

And the dragon let out a bellow that echoed into the horizon.  But neither griffin keeper nor griffin shuddered upon hearing this.  They had both heard it all before.  Quickly the lady archer got her

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artillery ready for a second shot.  And the dragon came down from above in a fearsome assault.

He was seeking to pulverize Elysium between the earth and his great bulk of form.  But he was wounded and not whole in battle.  And she was not wounded and was whole in battle.  And she, holding her bow and arrow, leaped back away from this dragon just in time.  The dragon landed upon his four feet upon the ground just in front of her where she stood, and he did quake the ground below her feet.  And the earthquake threw Elysium off of her feet and down upon her bottom.  Her artillery was still in her hands, ready to shoot where she sat.  She saw the vengeance of the Devil in this dragon’s red eyes.  She saw the courage of a soldier of the Lord in her griffin’s tawny eyes.  And she fired her arrow up at the dragon as he was about to stamp down his foot upon her.  Lo, the arrow went into his front left dragon paw in one end.  And the arrow came out of that same paw in the other end.  His stomp missed the lady archer.  And he gave forth a curse that could be heard unto the horizon.

            Then Gryphon rebuked the dragon and said, “How dare you take my God’s name in vain, O dragon!”   And he came down upon the dragon and grabbed a hold of the dragon’s other side of his neck, once again clamping down upon it and holding onto it with his griffin beak.  With great might, the dragon lifted up into the air, carrying the griffin with him. Not thinking, the dragon repeated his previous bad tactic and once again began to try to throw off this griffin by way of shaking his dragon head all about.  And the mighty dragon began to become weary and weak.  Then he remembered himself.  And he took his back right leg and punched the griffin into the back of his eagle head with a box.  And Gryphon passed out in the air.  He let go; he fell; he landed in a pond.

            Back on her feet, his mistress saw all of this in shock.  And she quickly fired her third arrow.  And this arrow struck the dragon in his left shoulder and went in deeply.  The dragon let out a grunt that sounded like a little thunder.  And he struggled to remain in the sky.  And he began to fall now also himself.  She nocked another arrow and fired again.  Behold, this arrow went in and through the dragon’s back left paw.  And he cried a bloody murder upon the formidable lady archer, and he landed

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upon the ground hard and unwillingly.  The fall made the ground quake again, but this time the lady archer kept her feet steady upon the earth and did not fall.  His whole left side of his great form was wounded badly in four places with four arrows.  And his neck, along the right and along the left, was bleeding and hurting and constricting.

            But where was Gryphon?  She, yet unhurt, ran up to the pond to look for him.  There he was, revived and alive, and swimming toward shore. “I am okay now, Mistress,” he did tell her.  “How are you, pray tell?”

            “I am all right, too.  It is so good that you live,” she said.

            “What did I miss?” he asked.

            “Our foe from Hell looks to be dying,” she said.  “I got him with four arrows—all along his left, and you got him, as you know, in two places of his neck.”

            “The dragon bleeds,” said Gryphon.

            “The dragon does not die,” spoke up the four-legged dragon in bravado.

            “That’s not true,” said the griffin keeper.  “Dragons do die.  I see many die in battle all the time.”

            “You lie like your father, O dragon,” said the griffin.

            “What is death for a dragon?” asked the demon.

            “Why, that is Hell,” said the griffin.

`           “What is death for a Christian woman?” asked the dragon.

            “Why, that would be Heaven,” said Gryphon.

            “What is death for a griffin?” asked the dragon.

            The griffin mistress said, “Take heed, Gryphon.  The dragon is buying time.  Look at the smoke coming out of his nostrils.  Look at the smoke coming out of his teeth.  He is building up a blast of fire within to burn us alive.”

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            “Let’s get out of here, Mistress!” said Gryphon.

            “Quick, take us away!” commanded his griffin keeper.

            And the lady archer mounted her griffin, and he lifted up into the air to flee the imminent blast of fire, and the wily dragon shot out his fire after them.  Fifty feet in the air were the two Christian soldiers when the fell dragon shot out his fire after them.  And the fire ascended fifty feet up from where the dragon stood.  Behold, the two in flight were now above fifty feet in the air.  And the fire came up short.  And it missed them.  But, to the dismay of the dragon, his own fire descended back to the ground, and it fell down upon his very self!  And the fire-breathing dragon became consumed by his own fire from without.  And he was slain in battle.

            Griffin and mistress paused to look down upon this phenomenon below.

            “This kind of thing never happened before in any of our battles, Mistress,” said Gryphon.  “God does work in mysterious ways.”

            “It is almost luck,” said the lady archer.  “But I believe that God gave us the victory in His most clever way this day, Gryphon.”

            “Truly this dragon is the most dead dragon of all of the dragons we slew in our lifetimes, Mistress,” said Gryphon.

            “He accidentally killed himself,” said the lady archer.

            “At least in the end, that is,” said Gryphon.

            “What a way for a demon to die for the Dragon of Dragons,” said Elysium—The Girl.  “And what a bad sight and what a bad smell he is making in my backyard.”

            “What should we do in the meanwhile?” asked her griffin of griffins.

            “We will let it burn itself up, then call upon God to do what He does with dead dragons,” said Elysium.

            “God knows what to do,” said Gryphon.

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            “God does good clean-up jobs when it comes to all of the dragon carcasses we dragon-slayers of the world bring upon the land,” said the pom pom girl.

            “Church flocks with shovels sometimes; we ten griffins sometimes; a good rainstorm sometimes; flocks of carrion birds sometimes;  the neighbors of our good neighborhood with construction equipment sometimes; the county and its paid workmen sometimes; the National Guard sometimes; and lost of times with mighty wind storms from God,” said Gryphon.

            “We and God kill the dragons; we and God and Godly people clean up the dragon carcasses,” said the lady archer.

            When the burning dead dragon was reduced to embers and bones and scales, Elysium and Gryphon then lighted upon the ground before the slain dragon, and they prayed that God clean up this backyard from the carcass of the dragon.  Behold, a lightning storm with no thunder and with no rain.  Lightning bolt after lightning bolt struck the fell demon body, and for fear of Almighty God and His thunderbolts, the two had to back away from this lightning for safety’s sake.  And before too long, there was nothing left of this demon that had fallen in battle.

            “That was something new, Mistress,” said her best griffin friend.

            “What a way for God to clean up this time,” said Elysium—The Girl. “God used lightning for us.”

            “And our backyard is now purged,” said Gryphon.

            “Praise the Lord,” said Elysium.

            “Praise the Lord,” said Gryphon.  “Both for the clean-up after and especially for the victory before.”

            “It is written, ‘But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.’  Philippians 4:19,” recited the good Christian pom and dance girl all due Scripture.

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CHAPTER V

            The pom and dance girl for Christ was riding Gryphon in the skies above De Pere.  Below they could see the Union Hotel and Century Bowling Lanes and the Lampshade Shoppe and the Colonial Apartments and the Claude-Allouez Bridge.

            “Hold on, tight, Mistress,” said her best griffin friend.  “I am going to make a roller coaster loop here at a thousand feet above ground.”

            “By roller coaster loop, do you mean like in three hundred sixty degrees way up here?” she asked.

            “Uh huh,” he said.  “We both will be upside down way above the city,” he told her.

            “Just for a moment, I hope,” she said, tightening her hold around his neck in both arms.

            “Nay, Mistress.  More like just for an instant,” Gryphon said to her.

            “Yikes,” she said.  “We never went and did that before in our frolics in the sky,”

            “Do you wish to defer?” he asked her.

            “No.  I wish to concur,” she said.

            “Okay, Mistress.  Here we go,” said the flying griffin.  “Hold on tight.”

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            “Let’s have at it,” said the pom and dance woman.  “Give it to me good, O Gryphon.”  And she closed her eyes.

            And Gryphon performed his trick.  “Whee!” said his mistress in delights.  And they were right back right-side-up again.

            “Did you like that, O Mistress?” asked her best friend.

            “I loved it,” she said.  “That was better even than a real roller coaster.”

            “Better than the Demon at Great America?” asked Gryphon.

            “Yes!” she said.  That one was all blue and all metal.

            “Better than the Eagle at Great America?” asked her griffin.

            “Oh yes!” she said.  That one was all wood and had the steepest descent.

            “I am better than any theme park,” he bragged.

            “And theme parks are expensive, and you are free,” she said.

            “Shall I go and do it again?” he asked.

            “Yes!  Yes!” she said.

            “If you fall, Mistress, I will catch you,” he said.

            “A falling woman is hard to catch if she gets a head start on the griffin who loses her,” said the pom pom girl.

            “But this griffin is fast—real fast,” said Gryphon.

            And this time she decided to keep her eyes open.  “Ready when you are, good friend,” she said.

            “Do hold on a little tighter,” he said.  She squeezed her arms tighter around his neck.  He began to cough with her tight hold around his neck.  “Do hold on a little looser,” he said.  She let up some on her hold.  He coughed no more.  And he said, “On the mark.  Get ready.  Get set.  Go.”  And he went.  He did his roller coaster loop in the air, and both griffin and mistress said together, “Whee!”  And this time her eyes saw all.  But she was right-side-up again right away.  She was giddy, and she was happy.

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            “I’m getting dizzy,” said the pom and dance girl.

            “Dizzy unto sickness, Mistress?” asked the griffin friend.

            “No. Dizzy unto high,” she said to him.

            “You like to get dizzy,” he said to her.

            “Oh yes.  I do, Gryphon,” she said.  “Remember how I told you how I used to make somersaults when I was a little girl just so that I could get dizzy.”

            “I remember your stories.  Up hill.  Down hill.  On level ground.  Even on your bed,” he said to her.

            “Yep!   And sometimes they were forward somersaults, and sometimes they were backward somersaults” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “I never see you do those kinds of things now that you are a woman,” he said.

            “Maybe somersaults are not for women.  Maybe somersaults are only for girls,” she said.

            “How come, Mistress?” asked Gryphon.

            “Maybe because I grew up,” she said.

            “Maybe you should let yourself go with your old-time somersaults and do them again, Mistress,” said her griffin.

            “I think that maybe I will again sometime,” she said.  “My frame can still do such things at age twenty.”

            “Shall we together go and do another somersault in the air?” asked her best friend.

            “Every woman needs her fun,” said Elysium.  “Let’s go and play another roller coaster in the skies, Gryphon.”  Then she said, “Whee!”

            “Mistress, we did not yet do it,” he said to her about her premature interjection.

            “I was anticipating,” she said in excuse.

            And then he did his roller coaster loop once again way above the city.  “Whee!!” she said,

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this time looking all around herself where she was and becoming pleasantly disorientated, and again holding on tight with both arms.  And they were right-side-up once again.

            “Your timing was better this time,” said her wily griffin.  “You said, ‘Whee!” during and not before.

            “Whee!” she said again in tease.

            And he said.  “Too late, Mistress.  It doesn’t count if it is after and not during,”

            “Oh, I love you so, Gryphon,” she said.

            “And I love you, too, precious Mistress,” he said to her.

            “Can we go sightseeing again?” she asked.

            “We can go sightseeing again,” he said to her.

            And they flew above the city of De Pere on her east side of town here and commented on De Pere’s landmarks.

            “That Union Hotel,” she said.  “V.I.P.s who come to town go there.  Their lunch and dinner are definitely lavish and fancy.  Even their simple salads have many different greens in them besides simple lettuce as I know it.  And residents live in one-room apartments on the second and third floors.

That hotel is one of the oldest buildings in De Pere that I know about.  In Christmas time they have a Christmas tree in their lobby that is better than any of mine.  And outside they have a wonderful little fountain that sometimes attracts both children and big dogs to step into and walk about in.   I like that, Gryphon.”

            Then she said, “And the Century Bowling Lanes.  I go bowling a lot there.  And though I do that lots, I have found for myself that practice does not make perfect for a gal like myself when it comes to bowling.  And when a bowler is supposed to step up four steps before rolling the ball down the lane, this girl instead stands there and rolls it down without taking any steps.  Maybe that might be why my best game there was with a score of only 135.  I have found that with a heavy ball with a wide grip

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that I can throw a hook to my bowling ball.  I guess that’s a good thing for bowling.  But I never know where the hook might end up.  After some bowling, my arm gets tired.  So then I go for a light bowling ball with a narrow grip.  And with this kind of bowling ball, I find that my ball goes dead straight down the lane with neither hook nor slice.  I can’t help that.  Maybe that kind of path is all wrong for good bowling.  Truly your pom and dance girl gets more gutter balls than she does strikes and spares.  And she is used to many open frames in a row.  You see me bowl, Gryphon.  How is your mistress when it comes to bowling?”

            He thought for a moment, then said, “Stick to somersaults, Mistress.”  Both laughed.

            Then she said, “And there is the Lamp Shade Shoppe, on the corner of Broadway and George Street.  Behold a store that sells only lamp shades, Gryphon.  I do not know if they sell lamps themselves.  Bur they did fix the switch in one of my lamps that I brought in for service.  This little shop is in the very hub of this east De Pere.  And the building is white with blue trim.”

            “I see that,” said Gryphon.  “White and blue brick.”

            “And there is the Colonial Apartments there by the river on that little back road,” she said.

            “That ancient apartment building with a basement and three stories,” said her griffin.

            “I believe that it is even older than the Union Hotel,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “I heard it said that the Colonial Apartments are over one hundred fifty years old,” said Gryphon.

            “Uh huh.  I heard the same thing.” said the pom pom woman.

            “And we both know that De Pere as a city celebrated its one-hundred-twenty-fifth birthday a few years ago,” said the knowledgeable griffin pet.

            “The Colonial Apartments are one hundred fifty years old; the city of De Pere is just over one hundred twenty-five years old,” said the griffin keeper.

            “That apartment building came here before De Pere came here, Mistress,” said Gryphon.

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            “And what on Earth is that little tower that rises above the roof of the Colonial Apartments, do you think, Gryphon?” asked his rider in the sky.

            “That I know for sure,” he said.  “People who live there tell me, Mistress.”

            “What is it, Gryphon?” she asked.

            “Why, it’s an elevator shaft,” he said to her.

            “How many people live there, do you think?” she asked.

            “There are fourteen apartments in there, Mistress,” he said to her.

            “And look down there, Gryphon.  Our city’s brand new bridge,” said Elysium.

            “Not brand new,” he said.  “Not anymore.”

            “A few years old,” said the Elysian girl.

            “The old bridge was too small for the traffic nowadays, and this new bridge is bigger and better,” said the griffin friend.

            “The old Claude-Allouez bridge had two lanes total, and the new Claude-Allouez Bridge has four lanes total,” said the griffin rider.

            “And the new bridge in this new place on this side of town has a multi-lane roundabout that always gets traffic jams,” said Gryphon.  “The old bridge in its old place on this side of town had a regular intersection with traffic lights.”

            “Lots of Americans do not like roundabouts, Gryphon,” said the pom and dance woman.

            “Riding pet griffins in the air is an easier way to get around.  Isn’t it, good mistress?” asked Gryphon.

            “Yes.  And more exciting than cars and stuff, too,” she said.

            “I heard people back then tell me that chunks were falling out of the old bridge down into the river,” said Gryphon.  “And that was when it was still being used.”

            “Infrastructure,” said Elysium.

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            “Well at least the way between east De Pere and west De Pere is better now,” said Gryphon.

            “Yeah.  But you and I don’t have to worry about bridges,” said the griffin keeper.

            “Unless you ride me on the ground and not in the air,” said Gryphon.

            “I like riding you on the ground, too,” said the prom and dance girl.

            “Shall we go and see our fine city’s west side, Mistress?” asked the griffin confidant.

            “Yes.  Let’s see the other side of our Fox River,” said the griffin mistress.

            And Gryphon began to go west and to come out above the wide waters of this big river.  And they came out to the west side of town.  Yet instead of looking at the sights of west De Pere below, the pom pom girl fell upon reverie of the dream she had in bed last night.  And the following was the dream as she still remembered it in great detail of memory:

            She stood before a big wooden brown sign of two posts that read, “Elysian Park.”  Looking upon herself, she found herself dressed this day in her traditional black and white and silver pom and dance girl dress and its accessories, this time her black tights covering her legs.  And she felt a black mask that covered her eyes that she never had before. She thought to take it off.  But a still small voice bade her to keep it on till the moment came for her to take it off.  So she obeyed God.  She then paused where she stood to take a look at this strange park that she never knew of that lay beyond this sign.  It was full of hills up and down.  And because of that, she could not see far out into this fascinating brave new park.  And the ground was covered with clovers.  She looked down upon the clovers, and, lo, right away she saw a four-leafed clover.  “Irish people say that four-leaf clovers bring good luck, Lord,” she prayed spontaneously.  She went on to look to see if she could find another.  Lo, the next clover she saw also had four leaves.  She looked for another, and she saw a third four-leaf clover.  “Why, Lord, every one is a four-leaved clover!” she prayed in fervor.  Maybe something real real good was going to happen for her today in this place where she was.  She began to pick these four-leaf clovers and to put them in her straight blonde hair.  Then she walked past this sign and came into this mysterious and

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mystical park.  And she heard a singing up beyond several big hills.  She could not see the singer with

all of these hills, but she could tell that it was a man singing.  It sounded like it were being sung basso profundo.  And it sounded like a delightful carol that she had heard in a dream in the night in an earlier time of her life.  She could not fathom what that dream had been about, but this new world was already so like a happy dream in the night with that same song.  What a wonder did Elysium feel inside her woman’s heart upon hearing a Christmas carol in summer in a strange new park.  And she was most desirous to see this singer guy and to see if he were a good-looker.  Surely he had to be as handsome as his voice.  But first she stopped at the foot of two hills to listen to this resonant and deep and idyllic carol where she stood:

“1.  Ding dong!  merrily on high

In heav’n the bells are ringing;

Ding dong!  verily the sky

Is riv’n with angel singing.

Gloria,

Hosanna in excelsis!

2.  E’en so here below, below,

Let steeple bells be swungen,

And ‘Io io io!’

By priest and people sungen,

Gloria,

Hosanna in excelsis!

3.  Pray ye. dutifully prime

Your matin chime, ye singers,

May ye beautifully rhyme,

Your eventime song, ye singers,

Gloria,

Hosanna in excelsis!”

            Then the entrancing singing stopped.  And all was quiet.  She had to come to him before he was gone.  And she ran up hills and down hills until she came to the highest hill in the park and she stood on top of it.  There, at the bottom of a long hill stood a gentleman in a black tuxedo suit and a black top hat and a black mask over his eyes.  Before him was a music stand with a book open before him on its

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rack.  Behind him was a wide and deep rushing river.  And where he stood was a dock running along the shore of this park and with lesser docks extending from this dock at ninety degree angles out deeper into the river.  He was in the center point of this main parallel dock.  Who this man was, she could not tell with that mask over his eyes.  But she felt that she knew him somehow, nonetheless.

            “Godly sir,” she called out.

            “Good miss,” he called back to her.

            “I liked your song,” she said.  She had a crush on this fascinating strange new fellow.

            “Thank you, miss,” he said back to her.

            “May I come down this hill?” she asked.

            “God wills it,” he said to her.

            And Elysium walked down the hill in all due respect to this man of distinction.

            And as the pom pom girl walked down the hill in natural steps and so reverential toward this honorable guy, he said to her, “Ah, I behold a beautiful pom and dance fairy dancing toward me from afar.”

            This praise of her inherent femininity charmed her to the utmost, especially having come from this Godly gentleman.

            She then stood before him, duly flattered.  And she curtseyed before him, and she said, “I dance for God and for all who wish me to dance.”

            And he said, “I sing for God and for all who wish me to sing.”  And he bowed before her in great honor and high regard.

            “You are a wonderful singer, sir,” she said.  “You sing like the angels.”

            “You are a beautiful pom and dance woman,” he said. “You look like an Elysian girl.”

            “What is this place?” she asked.

            “This is Elysian Park,” he said.

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            “I saw the sign,” she said.  “I never saw so Heavenly a park as this before.”

            “Dreams come true at Elysian Park,” he told her.

            “The Holy Spirit is in this place,” she said.

            “Prayers get answered here,” he told her.

            “A girl could fall in love here,” she said.

            “People fall in love at this park,” he said.

            “Are you an angel?” she asked.

            “No.  I am not an angel,” he said to her.  “I am a son of God.”

            “You are born again then,” she said.  “So am I.”

            “Then that makes you a daughter of God,” he said.

            “The Lord is our Heavenly Father,” she said.

            “And Jesus is our personal Saviour,” he said.

            “And God’s Holy Spirit indwells the both of us,” she said.

            “And we both will end up in Heaven in time to come,” he said.

            “Is this park Heaven?” she asked.

            “No.  This park is not Heaven,” he said.  “This park is a place of dream.”

            “’Dream’ as in in one’s sleep or ‘dream’ as in one’s heart?” she asked.

            “’Dream’ as in a type of prophecy,” he said to her.

            “As in a vision?” she asked.

            “As in a blessing given from the Holy Spirit of God,” he said.

            “Is all of this real?” she asked.

            “It is not now, but it shall be more so later,” he said to her.

            “Are you real?” she asked.

            “I am as real here in Elysian Park as you are,” he said to her.

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            She pinched her arm to see if she were dreaming, and it hurt.  This was no regular dream.  This had to be real.

            Then she asked, “Why do you sing a Christmas song in summertime?”

            “I sing a song about bells in the park,” he said to her.

            “Why do you sing a song about bells in the park?” she asked him.

            “Because I heard the bells in Heaven one day,” he said to her.

            “You heard bells in Heaven?” she asked.

            “I was in the Spirit one day when I was memorizing the Christmas story in the book of Luke.  Then I heard a bell.  And the Lord said, ‘Come up hither!’  And instantly I was caught up into the Third Heaven.  And I heard bells—big bells.  And I saw the bells.  And I felt the ringing of the bells upon my form.  And I heard the voice of cherubim singing, ‘Gloria!’  And I heard the voice of seraphim singing, ‘Hosanna in excelsis!’  And an archangel said, ‘Behold the Son of Man!’  And I saw God sitting upon His throne like a giant diamond through which light passed and spread out into a wondrous spectrum all about where He sat.  And the bells rang louder.  And He spoke in a voice as of many waters, ‘My good and faithful servant, I hereby call you into that which I call “the ministry of ministries.”  Go forth and prosper.  Minister to My Earth.  And great will be your reward in Heaven.’  I at once fell down before His feet in worship.  And He put his right hand upon my head and did bless me, saying, ‘My good and faithful son, you are Here with Me for this moment.  The day will come when you will be Here with Me for all moments after to come.’

            ‘My Lord and my God!’ I said to Him. ‘My Lord and my Master!’

            ‘Your Saviour and your Redeemer,’ He said to me.

            Then the bells stopped ringing.  And I was no longer There.  And I was back in the world, memorizing Christmas Scripture in my bedroom once again.”

            “You saw God and lived,” she said in awe.

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            “That is why I am here singing ‘Ding! Dong! Merrily On High!’ for you, fair lady,” he said.

            “You are here for me?” she asked.

            “And you are here for me,” he said.

            “And God?” she asked about the Lord.

            “We are both here for God,” he said.

            “Wherefore do I get to be here?” she asked.

            “God wills you here so that He can answer your prayer for Him,” said this guy.

            “What prayer do I have to ask of Him?” she asked.

            “You will find out in time,” he said to her.

            “What is this ‘ministry of ministry’ that he has called you into?” asked the woman.

            “You already know,” he said to her.

            She did not think that she knew.  “Who are you behind your mask?” she then asked.

            “I know you behind your mask, milady,” he said to her.

            So many questions and so few answers.  And yet Elysium was enchanted in a magic land with a magic man.  And she was happier than she had ever been in her life.

            “Would you like to sit with a lonesome young man?” he then asked her.

            “I would like that, sir,” she said.  And he reached out his hand, and she took it, and he helped her from the cement embankment of the shore across the narrow span above the river unto the big parallel dock where he stood. “Thank you, sir,” she said.  Still holding her hand affectionately in his hand he led her out onto the middle dock of the five that shot out from the big dock at ninety-degree angles.  And side by side they came up to the end of this little dock.  And they sat down side-by-side upon its edge, and their legs hung over the edge of this dock, but their feet could not reach the deep river below.

            And pom and dance girl and tuxedo gentleman had a first date together here upon the docks of

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this idyllic Elysian Park.  They looked out onto the big wide river and saw the waves coming in.  She said, “The wind is strong today.”

            “The wind will get stronger,” he said to her.

            “And the sky is clouding over now,” she said.

            “The clouds will get darker,” he said to her.

            “It does feel like its getting cool out here,” she said.

            “It will become cold out here,” he said to her.

            Then she remembered what she had recollected as a dream in the night about that carol that she heard here at this park.  It was not a dream wherein she heard this same carol, but rather a carol that she was listening to while remembering a dream in the night.  She was in bed those nights before turning in for the night, and she was listening to a cassette tape of Christmas carols with herself under the covers and with the cassette player upon her desk in the dark.  And it was that song, “Ding!  Dong!  Merrily On High” that she was listening to and daydreaming thus in most avid rejoicing upon what she could only describe as “a dream sequel to a dream.”  In explanation, one night she dreamed that she was in a dark bedroom in a second floor at the top of the steps, that an older woman was letting her live there for a while, and that this was this older woman’s house.  And then, later on in her real life, the young lady dreamed another dream wherein she and her little brother were walking down a block in a strange neighborhood, came upon a house, and went on into the front porch, and rummaged around.  Then a person opened the door from within that led out to this porch.  This woman was an older woman.  And Elysium called out in great familiarity, “Why, you are the woman who gave me shelter one time!”  In this dream in her sleeping life, Elysium had thus remembered another dream in her sleeping life from a few years before.  And in great wonder, she would remember this in its surrealism every time she listened to this especial carol in bed with the tape cassette player sometime in life later.  And now here she was, remembering the spellbinding marvel that she had felt upon such a mutual pair of dreams that

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inspired her with the magic of this Christmas carol.

            Then the wind and the coolness and the dark clouds got worse here at the surrealistic park.  She said, “The weather is getting worse.”

            And he said, “It will become the very worst that it can get in a short while from now.”

            “We don’t have hurricanes in Wisconsin,” she said.

            “Aye.  Hurricanes are something that we don’t have here in Wisconsin,” he agreed.

            “Look over there on the other side of the river,” she said.

            “The sky over there looks green,” he said.

            “Weather comes from the west,” she said.

            “Over there is the west,” he said.

            “It will come over here from there,” she said.

            “’…;  the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.’  Nahum 1:3,” recited this man Scripture.

            “Sir, I am afraid,” she said.

            “Be not afraid, O fair lass,” he said to her.  “It is written, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;  Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.  Selah.’  Psalm 46:1-3.  Fear not, milady.”

            “I am no longer scared,” said Elysium.

            Behold, a great and mighty whirlwind on the other side of the river descended down to the ground from the sky.  Lo, a tornado on the west side of town.  And it began to twist and destroy on its way east.  It was coming in toward the river.

            “I do believe that it is coming toward us,” said this man fearless in his faith.

            Herself a woman of faith, the pom and dance girl said, “Maybe now is a good time for me to go

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to Heaven and to be with Jesus.”

            “We born-again believers glorify Christ both in this life and in the life to come,” he said.

            Behold, the tornado now came out upon the river.  The two watched it coming toward them, and they did not budge from where they were sitting.

            And Elysium recited scripture for herself in this dangerous time, “’For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ Philippians 1:21.”

            “I never saw a waterspout before,” said the man.

            “It is even darker than the sky,” said the pom pom girl.

            And it was now halfway across the river.  And it was coming straight for them.  Tornado sirens were blowing on both sides of the city.  The wind was taking away their breath where they sat.  And water from the river splashed upon them in torrents.  And the great sound of a great train was in the air.

            “I refuse to leave you,” said Elysium—The Girl.  “I love you, and I don’t want to flee the tornado and not be with you like this.”

            “”I love you, too,” he said.  “I will not flee this tornado if it means not being at your side like this.”

            “I will never leave you and God, O sir!” she promised.

            “And I will be faithful forever to you and the Good Lord,” he promised.

            And the tornado was coming now close to shore.  And neither man nor woman left this place where they sat in love.  And they were tossed about upon this dock that swung left and right and up and down in this deadly near tornado.

            Then Elysium prayed a prayer of her heart, saying to God and looking for a sign from God as an answer from Him, “Almighty Father, if it is Your will that this man and I become boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-Christ, then do go and bring back up to the heavens this fell tornado and spare our lives.  But if it is not Your will that this man and I become boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord, then let your

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great and terrible tornado come upon us and take us away out of this Earth and bring us to You in Glory for ever and ever.”

            As an answer from God Almighty Who brings tornadoes and Who takes away tornadoes, the dread tornado was suddenly taken up into the skies, its funnel leaving the ground and going back up to the clouds, and its perilous winds suddenly ceased.

            All was suddenly and eerily quiet.  And pom pom girl and tuxedo guy were all right.  And the river was calm once again.

            “You were right.  Now I know the prayer that I had to ask of God,” said Elysium.

            “And now we both have the answer to that prayer,” said the man of God.

            “I am now your girlfriend,” said the woman Christian.

            “And I am now your boyfriend,” said the saved fellow.

            “You were talking about how God called you into what you called ‘the ministry of ministries,’” she said.

            “Indeed,” he said.  “God’s most noble calling.”

            “Is it even more important to God than being a Baptist preacher?” she asked.

            “It is,” he said.  “And I dare say that as it goes for me, so it goes for you.”

            “What do you mean?” she asked.

            “We both are in the same line of work in our missions for Jesus,” he said.

            “I am a dragon slayer,” she said.

            “And I am a dragon slayer,” he said.

            She looked upon his saber in his hands.  He looked upon her bow and arrows in her grasp.

            “You look to be a swordsman,” she said.

            “And you look to be an archer,” he said.

            “It is true that being a dragon slayer is the only ministry more important to God than being

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even a Baptist pastor over a Baptist flock,” she said.  “That is definitely a ministry of ministries upon this sin-cursed Earth.”

            “I excel at it more than any man,” he said.

            “And among womenkind, there is none like unto me,” she said.

            “I know who you are,” he said.

            “You look familiar to me,” she said.

            They then took off their black masks.

            “Why, you are that famous Flanders Nickels—the Christian unicorn keeper!” said the pom and dance girl.

            “And you, of course, are Elysium—the Christian griffin keeper,” he said to her.

            “Now that things are settled down here at Elysian Park, Flanders, shall we go and have our first date here?” she asked him.

            “I must go now, Elysium,” he said.  “We shall meet again in a rendezvous.  And after that we can be boyfriend-and-girlfriend.”

            “You’re leaving me, Flanders?” she asked.

            “Until the time comes for us to meet in the temporal world,” he said.  “But I promise to wait for you, if you promise to wait for me.”

            “I shall,” said the pom and dance girl.

            “This day has a Christian soldier fallen in love with a pom and dance woman,” said Flanders.

            “And I have fallen in love with the world’s greatest dragon slayer,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            Then the griffin keeper heard the kind voice of her griffin, stirring her from her reflections, “My mistress, you have not heard a word I said in the whole western part of our city.”

            “Oh, I’m sorry, Gryphon,” she said.  “I was remembering my dream I had last night.”

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            “Was it a happy dream?” asked her griffin pet.

            “I dreamed that that famous Flanders Nickels and I met and fell in love and promised to go

steady.  And all of that was good in the eyes of the Lord Jesus,” she said.

            “Well now we both know for sure,” said Gryphon.  “You and the famous sword fighter are meant for each other.”

            “Is it okay with you, O best friend?” asked the griffin keeper.

            “It is great with me, O Mistress,” said Gryphon.  “I am not losing a mistress, and I am gaining a good Christian friend and brother-in-the-faith.”

            “Then I will go after the famous Flanders Nickels,” she said.

            “And do not wait too long, Mistress,” said her wise griffin pet.

            “I do not want to keep him waiting,” said the pom pom woman.

            “Nor do you want to keep God waiting,” said her learned griffin.

            And they flew back home on the other side of the river.  And the daughter of God at once read from her Bible, prayed to her God, and prepared how to go after Flanders.

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CHAPTER VI

            Elysium—The Girl and her ten griffins were underneath the railroad bridge that they liked to go visit.  They had walked some miles north on the Fox River Trail to get here, and they were weary.  This time they had chosen not to fly to their destination.  They either walked together or flew together.  They never ran together.  And they looked up and saw the part of the bridge that passed over this trail. Then they looked right and saw the part of the bridge that passed over Monroe Street.  Then they looked left and saw the part of the bridge that passed over the Fox River.  The pom pom girl in particular looked to the left at the very steep slope that climbed up to get to the railroad tracks.  She said, “It is not safe for a woman to try to get up there on her feet.  What a hill.  A girl could fall back down trying to get up there.”

            And Gryphon said, “I could fly you up there, Mistress.”

            “I’d like that,” said Elysium.  “I want now to see what it looks like up there.”

            And the ten griffins flew up the steep hill, Gryphon carrying the keeper, and they lighted upon the railroad track not far from the river.  And the pom pom woman dismounted her griffin.  And they walked out onto the bridge way above the big river.

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            And the eleven began to roam around up here on the bridge close to the land.  The mistress spoke and said, “The bridge up ahead is open now.”  They looked.  Sure enough, up ahead, in the middle of the span of river, a passage of this railroad bridge was now one hundred eighty degrees to the river.

            And one of the griffins said, “I know what that means.  A ship is passing through, or a ship has just passed through.”

            “I see a big ship now just off to the north on its way to the bay,” said another griffin.

            “They had to open the bridge to let it through,” said another griffin.

            “Now the bridge is closing back up,” said another griffin.

            The eleven watched this engineering do its work.  Then after a while the bridge was all closed off again to ships.   And that passage of railroad bridge there up ahead was now once again ninety degrees to the river.

            “No more ships are coming now,” said another griffin.

            “And the railroad bridge is open to trains again,” said another griffin.

            “And to griffins and their mistress,” said another griffin.

            And, leading the way, the pom pom woman began to stroll across this bridge, many yards above the river.  She looked down off of the side of this high railroad bridge.

            “Do be careful, Mistress,” said one of her griffins.

            “Oh.  I am,” she said.  “I like heights.”

            “It is not heights that you need to worry about.   It is depths, Mistress,” said one of her griffins.

            And all laughed.  “Very well said,” praised their mistress.  “I shall be extra careful.”

            And she walked out unto the part of the railroad bridge that turned back and forth for passing big ships.  The griffins, meanwhile spread themselves out.  Some were on the part of the railroad bridge beyond the swinging span of bridge near the far shore.  Some were on the part of the railroad bridge

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before the swinging span of bridge near the close shore.  None happened to be on the swinging part of the bridge where their mistress was sightseeing except herself.

            And she sauntered around in contentment here in the middle of the railroad bridge that crossed the Fox River.  Just then she heard off in the other direction the toot of a large ship.  She looked.  Behold a ship coming from the north.  Lo, the railroad tracks beneath her feet began to turn.

            One of her griffins called out in fun, “Mistress, you’re being stranded.”

            “Marooned,” teased another griffin.

            “Jump,” said another griffin facetiously.

            “Uh oh.  I did it this time,” said the griffin keeper with a laugh.

            “Do not fall over, O Mistress,” said another griffin in the spirit of mirth.

            “It’s a barge tugging a pleasure ship,” said another griffin.

            “This one will take a while,” said another griffin.

            “This girl should never have walked out onto this,” said Elysium about herself.

            “You’re stuck,” said another griffin.

            “You’re in a rut,” said another griffin.

            “You’re in a quandary,” said another griffin.

            “Come and get your mistress out of this,” she asked them.

            “We have to yield to the ships,” said one of her griffins.

            “They have the right of way right now.  We do not,” said one of her griffins.

            “Even griffins have to obey the law,” said another of her pets.

            “I guess griffin keepers have to, too,” she conceded to them.

            And the pom and dance girl felt herself being moved by this great prodigious span.  Soon the machinery stopped.  And now she was way up here above the river upon her little bridge, which spread out sideways, one edge downriver and the other edge upriver, and herself in its midpoint.  And the

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two ships began to pass through the passageway opened up by the engine of the railroad bridge mechanism, one after the other.

            “You’ve got a good view way over there, Mistress,” said one of her griffins.

            “Indeed the best view of all of us,” said another of her griffins.

            “Lucky mistress,” said another of her griffins.

            Then the two ships passed on by and continued going south.

            “You guys can come and get me now,” said their mistress.

            And from both sides they all fought to go rescue their mistress to see who could get there first.

            And Gryphon came for the pom and dance girl first.  “Hop on my back, Mistress,” he said.

And she did so.  “Hold on tight.” he said.  And she did.  And he flew her back to shore not far from their walking trail.

            “Thank you, Gryphon,” the Elysian Girl said, petting him on his eagle’s neck.

            “I am glad to be at your service,” Gryphon said.

            And a chattering of griffin talk came forth from all the rest of the family.  And Elysium said, “So would they have been.  But I got to have you instead, O best friend.”  And the griffin keeper leaned over from where she sat upon his back and did kiss him sweetly upon his head.  And she dismounted.

Now all of the griffins were back on this original shore with their mistress.

            Then they saw the bridge begin to move back to its original complete railway.  And soon it was open for trains and closed for ships once again.  “Why, all I had to do was to wait for it for me to get back to land,” said the pom pom lady. “All of this would have been straightened out just fine once again, and I could have walked back to our place here.”

            The ten griffins all laughed together.  So, too, did Elysium.  “Blooming ships,” she said in tease of herself.

            “Of course,” said all of her ten griffin pets in the spirit of merriment.

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            “Let us have a little prayer about my merry little adventure,” she said.

            “What should we pray about that?” asked one of her griffins.

            “In order that we might have a little laugh with God at my expense,” she said with a grin.

            “God loves a good laugh with His children,” said one of her griffins.

            And the griffin mistress and her griffins and her Heavenly Father relived this railroad bridge misadventure in happy prayer meeting.  And then they were done.

            Then one of them said, “I want to go back out there to the bridge again.”

            “Yeah.  I, too,” said another.

            “I want to go to the bridge above the river,” said one of them.

            “I want to go to the bridge above the walking trail,” said another of them.

            “And I want to go to the bridge above Monroe Street,” said another of them.

            “Let us go and follow the ways of our hearts,” said the griffin keeper.  “Every one to his own way.”

            And the eleven went back to explore these railroad tracks, all staying away this time from the span of the railroad bridge that turned and went back in its middle.  And all was peace and quiet and happy diversion for Elysium and her pet griffins.

            Just then there came from the other side of the river way high up in the sky three fell demons.

The ten griffins saw them at once.  Then Elysium saw them, too.  They stopped their pastimes here, and the griffins looked at their mistress.  Dragons!  And the lady archer gasped and said, “I see three large six-legged dragons.”

            “Shall we do battle, O Mistress?” called forth her griffin army.

            “Let us prepare to fight for our God,” declared the dragon slayer lady archer.

            And the great fell dragons came in upon them.  The first of these dread dragons descended down hard upon the railroad bridge that extended from the shore and did crash down upon it with his

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tremendous bulk on purpose to rattle the griffins that were upon it.  And the mighty railroad bridge shook in its very bearings.  The second dread six-legged dragon went and crashed his great mass purposefully upon the railroad bridge that crossed above the walking trail, a little farther inland.  And it came crashing down upon the trail below, this short span of bridge knocked clean off of its supports.  And its griffin fell down with the bridge overpass onto the ground below.  Likewise the third dragon flew down upon the railroad bridge above Monroe Street, a little farther inland.  And he dropped his great weight down upon it on purpose.  And the railroad overpass was knocked clean down from its supports as well.   And bridge and griffin fell down onto Monroe Street, just missing the busy traffic of this important road in Green Bay.

            And the griffin keeper commanded her ten griffins, “Attack!”  And she shot an arrow, and did pierce the dragon tail at its end of one of the dragons.  This was the third dragon.

            And the three six-legged dragons turned their aggression now away from the bridges and against the Christian army that defended prayer.

            Dragon one said, “We are commanded to kill all who pray.”

            Dragon two said, “We felt your prayer, and we did not like it.”

            And dragon three said, “Death to all prayer-warriors, griffins and griffin keepers alike.”

            The lady archer contended against them with words, saying, “You are good at knocking down bridges.  How are you with ten griffins and a lady archer?”

            Dragon one said, “Equally good.”

            Dragon two said, “Yea, rather, better.”

            And dragon three said, “I resent the arrow you put into my tail.”  And he reached down with his dragon teeth, grabbed a hold of this arrow in his dragon mouth, and pulled it all the way out of his tail.

And he winced.  Then he tossed it aside with a flinging of his head, spitting it out upon the land.

            Right now this eastern shore of the river upon the railroad tracks between the river and the two

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broken down bridges became a battlefield,  Good and evil stood facing each other in a standoff.  Neither advanced.  Neither retreated.  Neither fought right now.

            Gryphon then came up to his mistress and whispered something in her ear.  She understood in her countenance, and she nodded her head.  So, too, did Gryphon.

            And she spoke and said, “Three formidable dragons.  You wish to do battle with us this day.  Shall we take our battle to the railroad bridge out over the river over there?”

            “Why there?” asked dragon two.

            “I can see that your kind likes to knock down bridges,” she said.

            “Bridges and born-again prayer-warriors,” declared dragon three.  “But prayer-warriors first.  Anything else second.”

            “I can see that you knocked down the two little bridges,” continued the dragon slayer archer.  “But you cannot knock down the big bridge.”

            “We can knock down any bridge we seek to,” said dragon one.

            “I don’t believe that,” said Elysium, guile-fully.

            “Woman archer, we are on to you,” said dragon one.

            “On to me?” asked the lady archer.

            “Do you think to distract us into going to knock down this railroad bridge when we have eleven of the world’s most effectual and fervent prayer-warriors at our mercy?” asked dragon two.

            “This destruction we performed before you was for your edification, not just for dragons’ whimsy,” said dragon three.

            “We know the wily ways of Christian dragon slayers in battle,” said dragon one.  “We three have seen it all.  This is a new one to us, but we can still see your little trick behind it all.”

            She was foiled.  She then went on to seek new strategy in this battle.  Never before had she and her dragon slayers seen so great a host of attacking dragons as all of this of this day.

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            Meanwhile the dragons began to rip out railroad ties from the tracks nearby upon the ground by the river.  The griffin keeper did not understand their tactics yet.

            And the griffin keeper gave battle commands, “Griffins all.  Do go down to where the railroad overpass has fallen down upon the walking trail and pick it up off of the ground.”  Her griffin comrades did not understand her strategy, but they obeyed her without question and in due subjection.  The ten Christian soldiers grabbed a hold of the gigantic fallen structure, heaved it up off of the ground, and stood there with it in their collective grasp.  They awaited their keeper’s next orders.

            Then the three dragons finished tearing up the railroad up there at the top of the hill.  And they held pieces of it in the air as weapons.  Dragon one had wooden ties held in his six legs.  Dragon two had bundles of loose railroad spikes held in his six legs.  Dragon three had pieces of iron rail held in his six legs.  And they hovered above ground, their great wings making them airborne right now.

            Then the griffin keeper said to her griffins, “Stay your ground.”

            And the dragons in the air charged in upon the phalanx of griffins.

            “Charge!” commanded the griffin keeper.

            And the griffin army on the ground advanced as a force on this earth, having this railroad bridge as a battering ram upon their shoulders.

            And dragon power collided against griffin power head on down upon the ground.  And the remnant of the bridge held by the mighty griffins made the difference.  The three dragons were knocked hard to the ground by the very railroad bridge that one of them had knocked down.  And the three formidable dragons were each trampled by every griffin there.  And the dragons were battered and bruised.  And in this meanwhile, the lady archer was firing arrows and hitting her mark upon the three demon dragons.  Then the griffins passed by the dragons they had tread upon.

            And their keeper said to them, “Turn around and do it again.”

            The dragons rallied and got back to their feet.  They still had their weapons in their grasp.  And

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they saw the overwhelming griffin army coming upon them again with that bridge hulk in their grasp.  Adept, the dragons quickly ascended up into the air and escaped what would have been a second clash against themselves.  And they were now above, and the griffins below.  Elysium knew that her ten griffins could not lift this broken up bridge up into the air in flight with its great weight.  But they could lift it up above their heads where they marched.  She saw the dragons diving down toward her griffins and brandishing their weapons.  And she quickly gave orders to her griffin troops, “Raise the bridge.”

            And they rallied and raised this railroad section above their heads.  The three dragons now within reach began to beat their weapons down upon the phalanx of griffins holding the overpass.  Wooden beams and iron spikes and iron rails came down upon where the griffins stood.  But the wooden beams and iron spikes and iron rails struck only the railroad bridge remnants.  And the griffins were all right underneath.  And the lady archer let fly more arrows into the dragons above, and her arrows struck the three dragons.

            Then the mistress commanded, “Heave ho!”

            And the griffins let fall this massive shield to the side of where they stood.

            She then commanded, “Follow me out unto the bridge.”

            And she ran out onto the bridge that crossed the river.  And her ten griffins met her there.

She saw the three wounded dragons remain standing down there on the low ground.  One dragon had an arrow in each of his two front legs.  One dragon had an arrow in each of his two middle legs.  One dragon had an arrow in each of his two back legs.

            “Those dragons are wounded,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            Then she said, “Their legs.”

            Then she said, “They can hardly walk.”

            Her strategy had worked for their army of good.  She then turned to her griffins.  They were all breathing heavily, some gasping now, and some leaning down.  Some began to fall to the ground.

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Great fatigue betrayed itself in their shaking.  Their eyes betrayed great exhaustion.  Many were forced to sit down.  All had to catch their breath.  Even Seven, the ultimate griffin soldier, the last one standing, was almost falling now where he stood.  Any further fight was now taken away from the griffins.  Maybe lifting up that overpass had been too much to ask of ten griffins.  Maybe this strategy gave the griffin keeper a Pyrrhic temporary victory for the army of God.  They were not wounded.  That was for sure.  But they were now too weary to stand back up and continue battle.  And they would not look her in her eye right now.  She looked upon her griffin troops and saw a look of defeat in their countenances for their first time as dragon slayers.  And she felt her face turning pale in uncertainty.  Their lives were in her hands as the renowned griffin keeper.  She had never lost a battle against a dragon before.  And never yet had any of these eleven suffered any major wounds in their ministry as dragon slayer.  She looked upon her troops and she said, “I have erred.”  They all shook their heads in denial.  They believed that she had done right.  Then the still small voice of the Holy Spirit bade her, “My daughter, look upon the three dragons right now.”

            Behold, the three dragons, with multiple arrow wounds deep in their legs, were over on Monroe Street beyond the ditch of shrubs and little trees.  They were together as a threesome looking to lift up the large railroad overpass that one of them had knocked down prior.  This was a bigger remnant of bridge than the one the griffins had lifted up.  And there were only three of them, whereas the lifters of the little bridge numbered ten.  But dragons are bigger than griffins.  And these were the largest dragons that Elysium and her griffins had ever faced in battle.  These dragons were copying her very own idea.

            “They cannot do it,” said Elysium, as she and the ten watched in gravity.  A while passed.

            “They’re doing it,” said Elysium now, as the demon dragons lifted it up off of the road where they stood.  The eleven prayed silently as they watched.  A while passed.

            “They did it,” said Elysium, feeling defeat.  The three dragons held this big overpass of metal

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and concrete firmly upon their powerful backs.   A while passed.

            Then they began to march toward the lady archer and her troops, ready to attack the eleven with this weapon like unto a doomsday machine.  Now even Seven had to sit down to rest from his great labor.

            Gryphon spoke and said, “We griffins cannot rise, Mistress.  But we can still fight.”

            “No,” said the griffin keeper.  “You must retreat.”

            “We wish to advance, Mistress,” said her head griffin Gryphon in his call of duty.

            “You cannot stand up on your feet.  How can you advance?” said the griffin keeper.  Then she asked, “Can you still fly with your wings?”

            The ten griffins experimented despite their exhaustion.  And Gryphon confessed, “We soldiers need a little rest, my Mistress.”  Their great wings were temporarily senseless from overdue exertion.  They could not fly for now—neither in attack nor in retreat.  In essence, the griffins were all used up physically.  And the ten acceded now to the will of the Good Lord in this dragon battle.  The griffin keeper no longer had her griffin troops able to help her in dragon battle for now.  But she knew that she still had God.  And the lady archer looked down upon the scene below that was taking place at the bottom of the steep hill.

            And the three powerful dragons continuing their march toward the army of God, themselves holding the massive railroad overpass, were now upon the walking trail.  Elysium had a word of prayer and did scamper to the bottom of the hill without falling.  And she confronted the dragon phalanx of three.  She was now between her griffins to the west and the dragons to the east.

            The griffins were getting their breath back.  And they were finding strength in their muscles again.  The dragons were breathing hard and gasping and struggling in their advance under this huge and heavy bridge.  All of this was readily perceived by this lady archer of many dragon battles.  And she stood in defiance of these three six-legged dragons before her now, and she said, “Cannot you

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demons come up with your own ideas?”  Thus she sought to taunt them.  But this time the three dragons said nothing.  Dragons were well-known for their pert and proud rebuttals.  Instead the three continued their steady march, bearing the great weight upon their backs in steady advance.  Elysium understood their muteness—they were too weary carrying this bridge to speak right now.   She retreated back a short distance to get away from them for now.  The three dragons continued their assault unabated, yet slowly.  She was now closer to her griffins than she was to these dragons.  She sneaked a peak behind her where she stood.  There was that extra steep hill that led up to the railroad tracks between the trail and the river.  Up there were her ten griffins.  Their faces looked well now.  Their breathing was even and strong.  Their stance was sure and ready.  And their eyes told her that they were ready now to get back into their good fight for the Lord.

            The three determined dragons were now right before her once again in their advance.  What would these dragons do with this railroad bridge once they got the griffins and their keeper where they wanted them?  They could drop it upon the griffins and kill half a dozen of them in one fell swoop.

They could drop it upon the griffin mistress and make her the most dead woman on Earth.  They could drop it upon the big bridge out over the river and knock down that bridge that could not be knocked down by that one dragon who had attempted it in their coming to battle a few moments ago.

            Pursuing a new strategy, the lady archer had a word of prayer for safety in her footing and went on to scramble halfway up the very steep hill and then stopped.  In this way, she distanced herself from the juggernaut a second time.  Then she turned back to see the dragons and where they were now.

            Behold, they stood at the bottom of the hill.  But, with no hesitation, they began to climb up this hill to get her and to get her griffin troops.  Elysium figured upon their advance to be necessarily slowed down by this precipitous angle upward.  But no.  Dragons are fighters.  And they are resilient.

And they are not quitters.  And their climb was as certain as their hike.  That is, they did not slow down with this great onus even now that they were going up a little mountain.  This startled the lady archer.

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But she took comfort upon seeing her new strategy working just as she needed it to.  And soon the three dragon troops and their bridge were right up to where she stood.

            Continuing her clever battle tactics, Elysium—The Girl prayed and scrambled all the rest of the way up this dangerous slope, and she stood upon the top of the hill.  And she looked upon her ten griffin troops.  They looked as if they had not seen battle this day, their countenances and their forms ready in the Lord for another victory in battle.  None was breathing heavily.  None were injured.  None were weak.  All stood before their mistress and awaited her next battle commands.  It was understood implicitly among the griffins that right now none was to speak, but instead let their keeper’s tactics play themselves out in silence.  The eleven Christian warriors looked down upon the tenacious and mighty dragons upon the great slope below.

            Never before had these dragon slayers seen so exhausted dragons as these here now.  Their gasping was so desperate that right now none of them could shoot out any dragon fire whatsoever.

Each dragon’s three pairs of legs were shaking in agitation from this so-great bridge upon their backs.  And each dragon with his two arrows in two legs, was bleeding down his thighs and shins.  And their draconic features looked like they were about to throw up in sickness. Their massive chests were heaving in choking.  And their heads were held down with their necks giving way.  And their wings were drooping down both of their sides.

            And then the three large dragons got to the top of this hill.  Only ten feet away from where the dragons now stood were the griffin keeper and her ten griffins, standing upon the railroad tracks right at the edge of the bridge that crossed the river.

            The dragons thought to see victory.  The griffins and their keeper knew that all was safely in God’s hands now.  And the dragons in one last breath charged the Christian soldiers and prepared to let fall the piece of railroad bridge that they had borne this whole way.  Agile on their feet and refreshed and with clear thinking, the army of God scampered away to both sides of the assault.  Clumsy now in

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their tread and exhausted in labor and with utmost lack of caution, the dragons inadvertently went beyond the edge of the shore, out onto the edge of the railroad bridge that crossed the river way below,

and most unluckily stepped off of the side of this railroad bridge.  The three great dragons and their overpass upon their backs did fall over a hundred feet down into the river.  The Griffin Keeper and her ten griffins saw the three dragons in their complete fall from top to bottom.  The dragons’ wings could not save them.  The dragons’ scales and armor could not save them.  The dragons’ great size could not save them.  And not only that, but the great piece of bridge that they had so strenuously borne did follow them all the way in their fall.  And when they all crashed into the river in one place, that remnant of bridge that they had claimed for themselves crashed in upon them in the river.  And they were crushed between their falling overpass from above them and by the great flowing water below them.  And the three dragons died instantly.  And they quite quickly disappeared down into the Fox River, never to be seen alive again.

            “They’re dead,” said Gryphon.

            “Quite slain in battle,” said Elysium.

            “You out-thought them, Mistress,” said another griffin.

            “Praise God for our wise keeper,” said another griffin.

            They all looked out over the bridge in awe and wonder at the so great deliverance wrought by the hands of their God.

            “God gave us victory in battle once again,” said another griffin.

             “It is written,” said the lady archer, “But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.”

            “Psalm 13:5,” said her ten griffins.

            “I’m thirsty,” said one of the griffins.  “This battle has parched my throat.”

            All the other griffins agreed with him before their mistress.  The mistress said that she, too,

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were thirsty.  She said, “The root beer restaurant is not far from here.”

            “Root beer!” said the ten griffins in great approval.

            “Shall we drink root beer in their trademark big glass mug?” she asked.

            “Root beer!” they said in great assent.

            “Shall we go there now?” she asked.

            “Root beer!” the griffins all said in eagerness.

            “Then root beer right now in their official big glass mug,” she said.  “On me.”

            And the pom pom girl and her pet griffins walked a short distance to their root beer place and drank root beer and praised and thanked the Lord that they could slay dragons for Him.

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CHAPTER VII

            A man with a saber in its scabbard along his left hip was addressing a group of ten noble and majestic white winged unicorns in a gathering.  He held a King James Version Bible in his left hand. And with his right hand he stroked each unicorn upon his forehead as he blessed each unicorn with a praise unique to each of the ten where he stood.  They lived in the outskirts of the town of Niagara.  And Niagara was ninety miles north of De Pere, and it was located on Highway 141, and it lay upon a northernmost point of Marinette County, and it was right up against the border between Wisconsin, south, and the Upper Peninsula, north.  This man was the famous dragon-slayer, and his ten pet unicorns were his mighty soldiers-in-Christ.  And this assembly were gathered in a circle around him, with him in the middle, in the midst of their large rural front yard.  One hundred acres of countryside lay here in front between this man’s home and the highway.  And these hundred acres were without trees, but did abound in much very tall field grass four to five feet tall and swaying in the wind.  And grasshoppers leaped about before one when he walked through this grass.  And crickets chirped here in this grass all summer long.  And Red-Winged Blackbirds and Robins and Cardinals lived and flew about out front here.  And White-Tailed Deer often passed through in these hundred acres—families of

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a buck and a doe and several fawns.  And this dragon-slayer and his family of he-unicorns also saw Black Bears wander through this hundred acres of field grass—often times a mother bear and her little cubs.  And they saw other animals of Wisconsin—rabbits and chipmunks and gray squirrels and badgers and raccoons and beavers.   And at the regular time of year, the unicorn master and his unicorns had to deal with wood ticks here in northeastern Wisconsin.  And up here the ant hills were big and the size of little mounds.   And biting mosquitoes were a nuisance—especially on hot humid summer nights in the meadows.  This man was a born-again Christian, and here was where he served God.  He was Flanders Nickels, the born-again believer, the famous sword fighter, the protector of Marriage Of The Lamb Baptist Church, and the reason why Christians could still pray in Niagara, Wisconsin.

            And he reached out his hand to give his first unicorn his blessings here in this assembly, saying to him, “Equus, my best friend:  You have slain a two-legged dragon all by yourself one day.  You were standing before a lake out back and did pause to pray and thank God for the water of the lake that would quench your thirst.  And before you could drink from the lake, a little dragon who had sensed your prayer attacked you. He at once got a unicorn horn in his belly, and he died.  You are foremost among not only dragon-slaying unicorns, but also among all unicorns of all the Earth.  My other pet unicorns, when they have questions about what God would wish for them in any given situation, often come to you, and you give them good counsel from the Scriptures.  You even advise kings and queens in the will of the Lord with the Word of God.”  Flanders held up his Holy Bible in indication.  The unicorn master continued, “So great is your prowess as unicorn warrior-for-Christ that dragons hesitate when they stand before you.  And among animal kind wrought by God’s creation, you are the thorn that pricks against the sides of the Dragon of Dragons himself.  The Devil knows you, Equus.  And he does not like you.  Jesus knows you, too, and He loves you.  And I value your love for me as a beloved best friend for a beloved best friend.  And I love you as one confidant loves another confidant.  You would

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lay down your life for me, and I would lay down my life for you.  I know that your loyalty to your master is as great as Ittai’s loyalty to King David in II Samuel 15:21, wherein he promised the king, ‘As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life,  even there also will thy servant be.’  I say unto you, good and grand Equus. ‘God bless you.’”  And Equus tooted an acknowledgment upon his unicorn horn and did nestle his equine head against his master’s head in affection.

            Next Flanders went on to give a second unicorn of his ten unicorns his blessing with a stroke upon his neck and with a declaration.  He said unto him, “First Advent, you are named after the holiday of Christmas.  On Earth’s first Christmas, the Lord Jesus left Heaven to be born of a virgin in the manger in Bethlehem as the God-man.  This was history’s First Advent of Christ, two thousand years ago.  And you love Christmas for what it stands for in truth and righteousness.  You see and know how mankind has taken away Christmas from Jesus and has given Christmas to Santa Claus.  You make signs all year round that say, ‘Keep Christ in Christmas.’  You extol the Christmas greeting ‘Merry Christmas’ and defy the Christmas greeting, ‘Happy holidays.’  You promote manger scenes in front of churches and houses and apartment buildings and parks and other public places.  You hate the words ‘Holiday tree,’ and ‘Peace tree’, and you love the word ‘Christmas tree.’  And your favorite hymns in the hymnbook are  ‘The First Noel’ and ‘Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing!’ and ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful.’   You love the Lord’s carols, because they all touch your heart with love for Jesus in His First Advent.”  This blessing thus spoken, First Advent tooted the music to a line of the carol ‘Joy To The World!’ upon his unicorn horn.  And he raised his hoof, and Flanders shook it in affection in both of his hands.

            Next Flanders went on to bless a third unicorn with a proclamation and a petting along his mane, and saying, “Second Advent, you are named after the Second Advent of Christ, which you love most of all of Bible prophecy.   In this Second Advent, the Lord Jesus will come back to Earth, we

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believers coming back with him from Heaven.  And we Christians will be riding white horses in the air

with Him.   And our Jesus will put down all evil and all wickedness and put the Devil into a prison underneath the Earth and bring in the Thousand-Year Reign upon Earth.  And our Jesus will sit on His throne in Jerusalem for a Millennium as Lord of Heaven and Earth.  And this world will be transformed into a Utopia.  And after all of that it gets even better for us born-again Christians.  I joy and rejoice over the Second Advent as you do.  It is written about this great future event, ‘And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.  His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.  And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood:  and his name is called The Word of God.  And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.  And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations:  and he shall rule them with a rod of iron:  and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.  And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.’  Revelation 19:11-16.”

After having received this blessing, Second Advent tooted upon his unicorn horn the melody of a line from the hymn “Christ Returneth!”

            Next the unicorn keeper approached his unicorn White Mane.  And he put his hand to his equine head above the horn.  And he blessed him thus, saying, “Most handsome White Mane:  God endowed you with the fullest mane of my famous ten unicorns. It reaches down to your fetlocks and it extends all the way along your back.  Your white mane shines in the sunlight, and it glows in the moonlight. I have the privilege of combing it every morning when you start your day and every night when you finish your day.  In Isaiah 1:18, it is written about the redemption offered by our Blessed Redeemer for mankind, ‘Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:  though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’  Your white mane

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is as white as snow, and it is as wool.  Your fans know you as ‘Mr. Unicorn,’ the champion of the international unicorn beauty contests.  But for the cause of Christ, you have quit your modeling so that you can focus on your ministry as dragon-slayer.   And from time-to-time, when God says to me, ‘It’s time,’ you let me cut your mane off at its ends so that it does not get in the way of your hooves or cover up your tail.”  Though not proud, White Mane beamed in confidence and felt truly honored, and he said not a word.  And Flanders went and began stroking this unicorn’s great and long white mane.

            Next the sword fighter looked out upon the next unicorn whose turn came for his blessing.  And he gave him a comfortable scratching behind the ear, and he said to him, “O Grey Horn, great is your unicorn horn in battle and in leisure.  Your wise designer has endowed you with the longest horn among my ten unicorns.  It is like unto Goliath’s spear in the Bible.  It can truly be called, ‘the unicorn horn of unicorn horns.’  It is rugged.  It is solid.  It is hard.  It is sharp.  And it is grey.  And though you tell us that you are not filled with pride over your horn, and yet you insist upon one particular spelling of your name:  the one, ‘Grey Horn,’ with an ‘e,’ the name you acknowledge; and the other, ‘Gray Horn.’ with an ‘a,’  the name you reject.  You are the unicorn of whom professional photographers come to Niagara and take your picture for the magazines in stores’ magazine racks.  And your fans come and take time to measure your unicorn horn with cloth measuring rolls and yardsticks and metal tape measures and rulers.   Seven feet and one inch.  And growing.  It had not stopped growing when you reached adulthood as any other unicorn’s horn would.  Soon it shall be longer than the rest of you.  It makes a most efficacious weapon against the dragons against whom you do battle.’  Complimented thus, Grey Horn lowered his horn toward the ground in deference to his great master.  And the master gazed upon it in wonder.

            Next Flanders Nickels came up to another unicorn of his.  And he ran his hand down his equine head below the horn and between the eyes and down to the nose.  And he blessed him thus:  “Good Psalter, you are the middle unicorn of my unicorn family as I am the middle kid of my family.  And the

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book of Psalms is right in the middle of the Holy Bible.  And Psalm 75 is in the middle of the book of Psalms.  And the book of Psalms is the largest book of the Scriptures.  And the book of Psalms is also called ‘the Psalter.’  Thus your name.  Your earlier name was ‘Seventy-Five,’ when we first met, yourself as the middle unicorn named after Psalm 75.  You went on to memorize all of Psalm 75.  But when you went on to memorize other psalms you then got your later name—’Psalter.’  And no unicorn on this Earth knows as many psalms in your head as you do.  Your favorite Bible hero other than Jesus is David, called ‘the sweet psalmist of Israel’ in II Samuel 23:1.  Pastor told us in church that David wrote more than half of the Psalms.  And I read that the book of Psalms is the most read book of the sixty-six books of the Bible.  Indeed most notable and worthy is your name as my middle unicorn, O Psalter.”  Having received so honorable a blessing, Psalter said in glory to God, ‘For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.’  Psalm 75:6.”  Thus the very middle verse of the Psalter.

            Next the unicorn master came up to his next unicorn in their circle, and he blessed him with a rubbing under his chin, saying to him, “Ah, my learned Decalogue.  Your name means ‘the ten commandments.’  The ten commandments are in the Bible in both Exodus chapter twenty as a contemporary narrative and in Deuteronomy chapter five as a history narrative.  You had an embarrassing wound given you by a dragon in battle one day.  In seeking to impale this dragon in its back with your unicorn horn into his armor plates, your very horn broke off in its middle and the end piece fell off onto the ground.  You stared at that half of unicorn horn lying upon the ground and fell upon mortification.  You then looked upward upon your forehead above your eyes, and you saw half of a unicorn horn upon your head, and you fell into shock.  And you became utterly bewildered.  And I commanded you at once to retreat from battle, which you very readily did.  And you hid yourself from the world.  And I prayed for you.  I pondered how you loved the Bible story about the two stone tablets of Moses that contained God’s writing of the ten commandments.  And one day in your seclusion, I

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turned in the Bible to Exodus chapter 32 to read again about the stone tablets bearing the Decalogue.

And I read the story of the Israelites worshiping the golden calf, and Moses finding out, and Moses throwing the two stone tables onto the ground and breaking them before the wayward people.  And I read once again how God wrote the same ten commandments on two new stone tables.  And I thought to pray for your horn according to God’s will.  And I asked God, ‘Lord, as You replaced the Decalogue’s broken tablets with new tablets, I pray that You replace my unicorn Decalogue’ s broken horn with a new horn.’  And the next day you came out of hiding, and you told me that God did a miracle and that your horn was growing back.  And over the next several days your unicorn horn, which no mature unicorn horn ever did before, grew all back to its original length.  And you were no longer ashamed.  And you came back to the family as one of us dragon slayers, full and intact and whole then once again. It was good to have you back with us.  We missed you for a while there.”

            “Thank you once again for all of your prayers,” said Decalogue in remembrance.  “Praise Jesus!”

            Then the unicorn keeper came up to the next unicorn standing there and awaiting his blessing from his master.  And Flanders began to pet him on his head, and he said to him, “Good and noble and majestic Wingspan:  Our Maker has endowed you with the broadest and strongest wings of my family of unicorns.  Even many dragons have not the wingspan that you have.  Your very wingspan exceeds that of any griffin.  I have referred to your wings in interviews to be ‘utmost completely plenary..’

They are plenary in a little way that the Scriptures are plenary in a big way.  You fly faster than any dragon and faster than any griffin and faster than any other unicorn.  No flying creature is as fast in the skies above as yourself.  And God has seen to it that you lose not one feather of your great wings in any of our battles to date against dragons.  And your fans do follow you to see if you might drop one of your feathers accidentally so that they can pick it up and keep it for the rest of their life.  I see local news shows often tell of a lucky fellow or lucky gal who found what he or she thinks what might be

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a feather from Wingspan lying on the ground where Wingspan was said to have flown over.  None of them wanted to sell such a feather—even for a great sum of money, O Wingspan.  Your fans’ adoration for you makes them not to give up such a feather.  God has made in you the ultimate master of flight.”  Then the unicorn master said, “Show your keeper your wings again, O Wingspan.  And the unicorn unfurled his great wings, and they spread out far beyond to Flanders’s right and to Flanders’s left where he stood before him facing him.  And Flanders reached out and stroked first one wing, then the other.  And his arms were too short to reach far out into these wings.  And Flanders said, “Awesome.  Awesome.”  And Wingspan furled his wings back again, and a strong wind from the wings blew upon Flanders where he stood.

            Next the sword fighter leader came up to his unicorn Prophecy.  And he stroked his unicorn’s back and blessed him, telling him, “Prophecy, you are a student of Bible prophecy.  You read books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.  And you watch the TV show, ‘Jack Van Impe Presents.’.  And you watch sermons on You Tube by Hal Lindsay and John MacArthur,  Your favorite book of the Bible is Revelation in all of its prophecy of eschatology.  You know about everything that happens on Earth after the rapture of the church.  And you are more learned in Bible prophecy than even my own good Pastor Precept of Marriage Of The Lamb Baptist Church.  Your favorite part of Revelation is chapter 21 and chapter 22, which tells us much of what God says in the Holy Bible about what Heaven will be like for the saint.  It was you who taught me that prophecy of end time events was not a pursuit in earlier days of the church.  You said to me that interest in prophecy would not come around until such things prophesied began to draw near.  And now is the time.  And you and others are looking into these prophesied things in the Bible.  As it says about this, ‘And he said, Go thy way, Daniel:  for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.’  Daniel 12:9.   And I love to fellowship with you most of all about the things that are to come on this Earth.  All of these prophecies are good news for us born-again believers.  But all of these prophecies are bad news for all of those unbelievers.”

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            “Master, in time to come the Shepherd shall separate the sheep from the goats,” said Prophecy spoken by Jesus.

            “Matthew 25:31-46,” said Flanders the reference.

            Last he looked upon Parable among his ten in this circle of pet unicorns.  And he hugged him around his neck and blessed him thus:  “Learned Parable:  Your first thing that you look into every time you open the Bible are the parables of Jesus.  You love to study all parables—both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.  You know especially the parables of Jesus in the four Gospels.  You know His parables of lilies of the field, of trees and their fruit, of the sower, of the unfruitful fig tree, of tares, of mustard seed, of lost sheep, of vineyard laborers, of wicked husbandmen, of a fig tree, of sheep and goats, of the harvest, of the good Shepherd, of a grain of wheat, and of the true vine.  These are Jesus’s parables of nature and farming.  And you know Christ’s parables of water, of salt of the earth, of the light of the world, of the bread of life, of the new wine, of the leaven [yeast], of pearls, of a drag-net, of the lost coin.  These are His parables of every day objects of Bible times.  And you know the Lord’s parables of children playing, of forgiving, of two sons, of the wedding banquet, of the ten virgins, of the talents, of the house builders, of patching clothes, of the two debtors, of the good Samaritan, of the friend in need, of the rich fool, of the watchful servants, of counting the cost, of the prodigal son, of the unjust steward, of the rich man and Lazarus, of a servant’s duty, of the persistent widow, and of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  All of these are Christ’s parables of daily life.  Your favorite book is the Holy Bible.  And your second favorite book is “All of the Parables of the Bible” by the Bible scholar Herbert Lockyer.  Keep up the good work on your parable studies, O Parable.  Someday you may write parables yourself,”

            And Parable said, “I would like that, O Master.”

            This giving of blessings done, the unicorn keeper bade them all, “God bless every one of you.”

            And his ten unicorns bade him likewise a hearty “God bless you, Master.”

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            Then Equus spoke up and said, “Master, do we still get to have a marshmallow roast today?”

            “You promised,” said another unicorn.

            “Mm mm,” said a third unicorn.

            “Yes.  We shall have our marshmallow roast,” said Flanders Nickels.  “Are you unicorns hungry like I am?”

            “Mm mm,” said one unicorn.

            “Hungry,” said another unicorn.

            “Let’s eat,” said Flanders.

            “Mm mm, O Master,” said another unicorn.

            And the unicorn keeper prepared his charcoal grill for roasting marshmallows.  And after a while the coals were ready and the bag of marshmallows was opened.  Having no hands to grab, the unicorns had their master to put the marshmallow on the ends of their sticks, and they held these sticks in their equine teeth and brought them near to the burning coals in the grill.  Some more enterprising unicorns went ahead and roasted marshmallows having them on the ends of their unicorn horns.

            Equus spoke and said, “I don’t want my marshmallow to get burned.”

            “Don’t hold your stick to the coals too close or too long, then,” said Flanders.

            And Equus then said, “But I don’t want my marshmallow to not get hot, either.”

            And the unicorn master said, “Make sure to get it close enough and in there long enough.”

            Another unicorn spoke in gaiety and said, “Equus, you want your ‘steak’ medium rare, I can see.”

            “That’s how I like my marshmallows roasted,” said Equus.  “Medium rare.”

            Just then it flared up.  “Equus,” said one of the unicorns, “now it’s on fire.”

            “Uh oh.  Now you did it,” said another unicorn.

            In great presence of mind and in some savoir-faire, Equus shook the stick that was in his teeth

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side to side.  And the fire went out.  Then he held it out toward his master.  And Flanders took the stick and held it before him.  And the unicorn said, “Thank you, Master” and “Thank You, God.”  And he took the burned marshmallow in his mouth and pulled it off the stick and ate it up.

            “How is it?” asked one of the unicorns.

            “Just right!” said Equus

            “That’s the first one of our roast,” said another unicorn.

            Then the master took another marshmallow from the bag, put it upon Equus’s long stick, and gave it back to him; and he held it in his teeth once again and began to roast this one, too.

            Then one of the unicorns spoke and said, “Master, my stick is too short for this.  I have to get so close to the coals that my face ends up getting hot.”

            “I’ll fix that for you,” said the unicorn keeper.  And he took the stick in his hand, held it out into the grill, and cooked the marshmallow just right for him.  And then he held it out before him, and he bit it off the short little branch and ate it up and swallowed it.

            And that unicorn said, “Ah, Ambrosia, Master.”

            And Flanders thereupon went and found a longer stick for his unicorn in this family marshmallow roast.  And he put another marshmallow upon it, and gave it back to the equine teeth.

And this unicorn held it out above the coals, and he said, “That’s better, O Master.  Now my face is not in the heat anymore.”

            Then suddenly, one of the unicorns yelled out, “Fire!  Fire!”

            Flanders looked, expecting to see another marshmallow in flames.

            “Why, my stick is on fire,” said one of the unicorns.

            “Put it out,” said one unicorn.

            “Quick, before it reaches the marshmallow,” said another unicorn.

            But this unicorn was dumbfounded, and he hesitated.  Then Flanders took the stick from that

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confused unicorn, waved it up and down in the air, and put out the fire on that stick.  Once the fire was put out, this unicorn came around, and he looked and said, “Alas, the fire on my stick came upon my marshmallow.”

            “Why, it’s burned black,” said another unicorn.

            “Master, you came too late,” said another unicorn.

            “That’s all right,” said this unicorn with the burned marshmallow.  “I like my marshmallows well done,”

            “That one is very well done,” said another unicorn.

            “It may even crunch,” said another unicorn.

            And this unicorn with the burned marshmallow proceeded to grab the special treat from the stick that Flanders was holding out for him, and he ate it up.

            “How was it?” asked Flanders.

            “Kind of all melted inside,” this unicorn said.

            “Wasn’t it too hot?” asked one of the unicorns.

            “No,” said this unicorn.  “I like my hot cooked food hot.”

            “Here you go,” said Flanders, holding out his stick with another marshmallow upon it.  “And try to be more careful this time.”

            Flanders laughed.  This unicorn laughed.  All the unicorns laughed.

            Then one of the unicorns spoke and said, “Master, I’ve got a problem.  I really think that my stick is too long.”

            “Why is that?” asked the unicorn keeper.

            “I don’t like being way back here with my long branch,” said this unicorn.  “I cannot see how my marshmallow is cooking with all of the other unicorns in front of me with their medium-length branches.”

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            “I know what we can do about that,” said Flanders Nickels.

            “What should we do, Master?” asked this unicorn.

            And the keeper took the stick out of his unicorn’s mouth, broke off a piece from the bottom, and gave the rest of the stick back to him.  “How’s that now?” asked Flanders.

            “Ah, that’s much better, O Master,” said this unicorn, the stick back in his mouth.  “Thank you.” And he stepped up into the line right up at the grill, and he continued roasting his marshmallow, now without any unicorns between him and the grill.

            Then one unicorn with a marshmallow on his horn spoke and said, “All of this smoke is getting into my insides.  A unicorn can’t breathe, roasting marshmallows like this.  I have to cough.”

            And a second unicorn, a marshmallow on his horn, went on to say, “The same goes for me.  The smoke makes me to cough, and my eyes burn.”

            And a third, roasting his marshmallow on his horn, agreed with the other two, himself saying, “I’m liable to get carbon monoxide poisoning.”

            And the unicorn master said, “The wind must be blowing this smoke right back into your faces.”

            And a unicorn with a stick in his mouth and its marshmallow did say, “Maybe it you used a stick like I am, that wouldn’t happen.”

            Yet another unicorn suggested, “We can turn the grill around one hundred eighty degrees, and then the wind will not blow it into our faces.”

            Another unicorn said, “Then how will we roast our marshmallows if the back of the grill is facing us then and not the front of the grill?”

            “Silly unicorn,” said the unicorn who came up with this idea.  “We would have to turn around as well, and then roast our marshmallows on that other side of the grill, facing this way.”

            “Would that work, Master?” called forth one of the unicorns.

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            “No.  It would not work,” said Flanders.  “Right now the wind is constantly changing.”

            And another unicorn said, “We unicorns with sticks get that same smoke blowing in our faces.”

            “Then what can we do in order not to choke on the smoke?” asked another unicorn.

            “Just wait until the wind shifts again from another direction, and you will get a little break from the wind driving the smoke into your faces,” said the unicorn keeper.

            And the ten unicorns agreed with their master.  And soon more marshmallows were done.  Those with sticks pulled the marshmallows off of the sticks held by their master.  Those using their horns had their master pull the marshmallows off of their horns and ate them off of their master’s hand.

            Just then one of the unicorns in roasting his marshmallow cried out, “Woe is me!”

            All the nine other unicorns and the keeper saw what happened.

            The same unicorn cried out in alarm, “It fell off of my stick!”

            “It fell into the grill,” said another unicorn.

            “It’s all on fire,” said another unicorn.

            “Somebody go get it,” said this unicorn who had this accident.

            Acting quickly Flanders picked up a loose stick from the ground, dipped it into the flaming marshmallow amid the burnt ashes of charcoal, and pulled it out, melted onto the stick.  He shook this stick in the air, and the fire died down to embers upon the marshmallow.

            “Amen, Master!” said this unicorn in distress.

            “Look at that,” said another unicorn.  “Why, it is full of ashes now.”

            “And it’s glowing,” said another unicorn.

            “It might catch back onto fire,” said another unicorn.

            And the unicorn who had the accident said, “It is starting back on fire.”

            “Everyone back up,” said one of the unicorns.

            Flanders acted quickly and threw the whole stick and its marshmallow into the grill.  And the

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matter was settled, and the problem was resolved.

            And the unicorn to whom this roasted marshmallow belonged said, “Oh, now I cannot eat it.”

            “You couldn’t eat that one anyway,” said one of the unicorns.  “There was nothing left to it that a unicorn could eat.”

            “I suppose,” said that unicorn that lost his marshmallow.

            And the master said, “Better luck this time.”  And he prepared him another marshmallow.

            “Thank you, good master,” said this unicorn.

            And in this way, the Christian unicorn keeper and his unicorns-in-Christ went on to celebrate a unique picnic thus in fellowship and unity and merriment.  He roasted marshmallows for himself, too.  And he ate the most of his family this time.

            After this marshmallow roast was done, he asked his pet unicorns before him in the tall grass if they would like to hear him give another of his sermons to them as he did from time to time.  At once they all said, “Amen!”  And they sat down before him in this field grass upon their haunches in two rows of five each.  And he preached a message to his family:  “I think that, seeing we dragon slayers are called of God to preserve prayer in this world, that today I should preach on prayer to God’s ten most powerful unicorn soldiers—you who defend the believers’ liberty to keep on praying. What is prayer?  It is asking.  It is petitioning.  It is interceding.   It is praising.  It is thanking.  But for the most spiritual among prayer warriors like ourselves, it is most like ‘chatting with our Good Lord.’  I, myself, when I pray, talk to God as I would talk to you good friends.  We are commanded in the Bible to begin our prayer in addressing our Heavenly Father and to close our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ and to pray everything between in the words of the Holy Spirit.  A good long prayer for the good Christians out there gives a satisfaction that excels any other activity one can do.  Praying is fun for contentment’s sake.  But the fun of the world is only fun for fun’s sake, and it is without spiritual fulfillment.  Even Jesus when He walked this Earth took time to pray to His Heavenly Father.  If the Son of God did

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pray to His Father, how much more do we children of God need to pray to our Father?  God created mankind to glorify Him by fellowshipping with Him with a willing heart.  And only the born-again Christians can do this among mankind. Lost people cannot do this.  And prayer is a most personal fellowship to the glory of God among believers.  Why is this? Because the child of God can come to God in prayer and ask Him for His will to be done in a certain situation in that child of God’s life.  Then God can answer that prayer by telling him what He wants him to do.  And that person believes God in faith.  And he does what God tells him to do.  And God gets the glory for answered prayers.  Or, in an even greater faith, that Christian might have a situation where he is at his wit’s end.  And only God can help him in this circumstance.  And he prays to God, saying, ‘Help!’  And God hears his prayer.  And God performs a miracle that only God can do.  Thus answered God that man’s prayer with a direct divine intervention.  Here also, God gets due glory for answering prayers.  God answers the prayers of the saints with three answers according to our own good.  These answers are ‘Yes,’ or “No,’ or ‘Wait.’  We like to hear ‘Yes.’  We don’t like to hear, ‘No.’  And it is hardest to hear, ‘Wait.’  And He knows more about us than we do about ourselves.  So, Whom better to seek counsel from than the all-wise God?  And God promises to hear every prayer of every saint.  Except if there is unconfessed sin in that person’s life.  If we regard iniquity in our hearts, then God will not hear our prayers.  We all need to regularly ask God to search our hearts for sins that we have done, and then we must confess and forsake those sins.  It is always best for the believers to keep short tabs with God when it comes to apologizing to Him for our sins.   And the Lord will forgive us every time.  ‘Not seven times, but seventy times seven times,’ as Jesus commands forgiveness.”

            Then the unicorn master spoke and said, ‘I discovered a passage in the Bible that told me an allegory of how Almighty God answers prayers from his throne in Heaven.  It is told in Psalm 18.  I remembered it also long ago in II Samuel 22.  Both chapters are parallels.   And II Samuel 22 can be said thus to be a psalm.”

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            He went on to preach, “Let me now share with you this eighteenth psalm.  The subtitle to this great psalm in the Psalter provides the background for this, and it says this, ‘To the chief musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from Saul:  And he said,’”  The unicorn keeper paused.  Then he said, “And this is how the Lord of Heaven and Earth answers the prayers of His Christians, just as He answered the prayer of David:”  And he opened his King James Version Bible and read verses six through nineteen of this psalm out loud to his unicorn flock here in his spacious rural front yard:  “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God:  he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.  Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.  There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.  He bowed the heavens also, and came down:  and darkness was under his feet.  And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly:  yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.  He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.  At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.  The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.  Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.  Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.  He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.  He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me:  for they were too strong for me.   They prevented me in the day of my calamity:  but the Lord was my stay.  He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.”

            “Amen, Master!” called forth Equus.

            “Yea!  Amen!” said the other nine unicorns.

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            A moment passed.  And Flanders Nickels said, “That is all that I can think of to say about prayer for now.  We dragon slayers live in an unusual time on this Earth.  With so few praying Christians out there and with so few prayers going forth to the throne of God, the world is backsliding.  The Dragon of Dragons, unfortunately, does good work.  His dragons are killing away all of the praying believers out there.  And those believers who are not killed are the backsliding believers who quit prayer to save their lives.  These are times of tribulation upon the world.  And what we do as dragon slayers is the most important thing in the world in this time for the cause of Christ.  And our Jesus is stronger and wiser than all of the dragons out there and their Devil.  Let us fight the good fight for our God.”

            “Amen!” declared the ten mighty unicorns of the famous unicorn keeper.

            And Flanders and his unicorns had a word of prayer.

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CHAPTER VIII

            The unicorn keeper and his ten unicorns met in their backyard in the countrysides.  He said to

them, “August and gallant unicorns, your master has an announcement to make to you.  And you need to be the first to know.  Something very good from God has come upon me.  And I am not sure that I dare tell anyone other than God.”  The unicorns awaited their keeper’s disclosure.

            And Flanders Arckery Nickels said, “I have fallen head-over-heels in love.”

            Sudden silence came upon the unicorns.   By their quietness they did show their approval.  And they all wondered which woman in this world stole their keeper’s heart.

            And he told them, “It is Elysium—The Girl.”

            Why, this was the famous lady archer Christian.

            Flanders continued, “I am smitten by a beautiful dragon slayer like myself.  She has eyes like unto passageways to paradise.  And she has hair like unto golden strands of wheat in a tranquil meadow.  And she wears a pom and dance outfit that is like unto the magic of her face.  And she has a form like unto that of a siren.  She must have come from Heaven, and she will go back to Heaven.  Elysium—The Girl is truly an Elysian woman.  She is my beloved she-angel.   And I will make her

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mine.”

            Then Flanders asked, “Well, now that you know, what do all of you think about this?”

            Equus was first to speak, and he said, “Cherchez la femme, O Master!”

            A second unicorn said, “She will make you happy, Master.”

            A third unicorn said, “Everybody calls her ‘the most beautiful woman in the world.’”

            A fourth unicorn said, “She’s the best, and you deserve the best.”

            A fifth unicorn said, “She is the most faithful to God among all of Christian womenkind.”

            A sixth unicorn said, “She is as good with her bow and arrow as you are with your saber, my master.”

            A seventh unicorn said, “She is sent from God.”

            An eighth unicorn said, “She wears a dress that even we unicorns like to see on a woman.”

            A ninth unicorn said, “She makes the Lord Jesus the Lord of her life, just as you do, Master.”

            And a tenth unicorn said, “She’s a catch.  Go after her, and don’t let her get away.”

            And Equus spoke again and promised. “Call upon me anytime, Master, and I will take you up into the skies to De Pere, and we will find her.”

            “Hearing all of this does tell me that it is God’s will that I seek the great and famous griffin keeper,” said the unicorn keeper.  “And I will make her my girlfriend.”

            “Amen, O Master!” said all of the unicorns.

            “Maybe even your wife,” said Equus.

            “That is something that I may think upon in time to come,” said Flanders.

            “Does the woman know of your love for her?” asked one of his unicorns.

            “I am yet but her secret admirer,” said the unicorn keeper.

            “When will you tell her?” asked another of his unicorns.

            “The girl needs to know about this,” said another unicorn.

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            “Just as soon as God tells me to go after the girl,” he said.

            “When might that be?” asked another of his unicorns.

            “I do not know,” said Flanders.  “But when God sends me, I shall be ready.”

            “Does the Elysian girl love you, Mistress?” asked one of his unicorns.

            “I do not know,” Flanders said.  “But if she does not love me now, I will do my best to make her to love me in time to come.”

            “Master, if you carry a torch for this woman, surely God would see to it that she carries a torch for you,” said another unicorn.

            “This love for the lady archer will never be unrequited love,” said another unicorn.

            “In you, Master, even this famous Elysium—The Girl will find a most worthy catch,” said another unicorn.

            “No other woman than the famous griffin keeper is good enough for the unicorn keeper,” said another unicorn.

            Another unicorn went on to say, “Truly this Elysian Girl is all-woman!”

            “She’s hot,” summed up Flanders Nickels plainly.  “And I want her.”

            “God will make sure that you get her, Master,” said Equus most surely.

            “And she will be mine,” the unicorn keeper said most wistfully.

            “Vaya con Dios,” said Equus.

            “I shall, good Equus,” promised Flanders Nickels.  “I shall.”

            “Master, what made you to be smitten so by the griffin keeper after all of these years?” asked his unicorns.

            And he said, “My niece gave me a sketch that she made of her.  And my cashier friend also gave me a sketch that she made of her.   And I looked at these two drawings and thought to see a woman that was too beautiful to be a mortal.  This was when I found out that she was the woman for me.”

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            Flanders and his ten unicorns discussed this in a most unique fellowship for the rest of the morning.  Then they had a little prayer meeting.  And they went back to their homes—Flanders to his home out front; and his unicorns to their home out back.

            What did the unicorns’ home look like?  It was twelve stories tall and did reach above the tops of the trees of this backyard as a true tower.  The basement was a guesthouse for visitors of the unicorns who wanted to spend the night or several days here with the unicorns.  Most often the visitors were a keeper and his or her pet.  It was a remodeled basement with all of the comforts of a first floor.  And the way down to this basement on the north wall was a staircase in a shaft without a ceiling.  And the way down to this basement on the south wall was a ramp in a shaft without a ceiling also.  There was no interior access from the basement up to the rest of this tower.  It was its own guesthouse at the invitation of the unicorns.  The first floor of the home was the foyer, where the unicorns liked to gather together in fellowship.  Here they had prayer meetings, played the good pastime “Pass the Praise,” watched Christian videos on TV, read from their Bibles, and talked good fun unicorn talk in a room only for the unicorns.  Only the ten unicorns could come into this foyer.  None other was allowed.  The foyer had doors that opened and closed sideways with pulleys and a bar above like unto a barn or a storage shed.  There were eight doors that opened unto this foyer—two for each of the four walls, a door at the far left and a door at the far right.  And there were no windows in these walls.  But there was much lamplight inside the foyer—fluorescent lamps and incandescent lamps and LED lamps and neon lamps–all upon lamp tables filling the whole length of all four walls between the doors of each of the four walls.  And the floor to this foyer was a hardwood floor with loose straw covering it a good foot-and-a-half deep.  All unicorns like to lie upon good old-fashioned hay.  And the unicorn keeper’s pet unicorns all felt the same way when they gathered for their meetings in the foyer.  And this first floor had no access to any of the other upper floors.  This foyer, like the basement, was a place with itself in a whole floor to itself.  As for the next ten stories as one ascended the tower, each floor was the living

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quarters for one of each of the ten unicorns.  And these ten stories were accessible from outside only by way of flight. There were no stairs climbing this tower outside here from floor to floor so that one could come in from the outdoors who could not fly or who was not a rider of a flying animal.  Each story for each unicorn had a porch on each of his four walls wherein that unicorn could perch upon arriving and thereby go into his home.  These porches had no railings.  Unicorns were not liable to fall off of the edge of the porches, themselves endowed by their Maker with a good sense of balance and with with a sturdy frame and sure stance.   And access from these many porches in the air to the griffin apartments up here was by double doors of oak.  For the unicorns, there was a tall and wide shaft in the center of this tower that climbed up through all ten stories of all ten unicorns that thus made an easy way for them to go up and down this tower without having to go outside.  In this shaft a unicorn could visit his fellow unicorns by way of flight inside the tower.  This shaft was cool in winter and warm in summer and most spartan.   But the apartments were warm in winter and cool in summer and most comfortable for the unicorns living in the tower throughout all four seasons that Wisconsin was well known for.  There were no doors within this shaft—neither for exit nor entrance into each floor’s apartment.  Instead there were doorways without doors in this shaft through which a unicorn could exit or enter his apartment from within in his own floor.  The eleventh floor, the top floor of the ten floors of the ten unicorns, belonged to the most eminent unicorn—Equus.  And on the twelfth floor, the top floor of this great tower, was an attic.  Each apartment of the unicorns consisted of the same kinds of rooms, but were made according to each unicorn’s designs.  Such rooms that each unicorn had were the following:  A sleeping room and a water trough room and a food trough room and a worship room and a meeting room and a leisure room and a storage room and a furnace room and a fan room and lots of closets, one in each room.  The sleeping room had a bed of loose straw surrounded by bales of hay.  The water trough room had a wooden trough with cold fresh water that their master filled for them for the day.  The food trough room had a wooden trough of meat and vegetables and cereals and dairy

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products and desserts and snacks and cereals and fruit that their keeper filled up for them for the night.  The worship room had a bed of loose straw upon which a unicorn could pray to God in quiet time alone with his Heavenly Father.  And it also had a high table before which a unicorn could stand and read his Holy Bible in quiet time alone with the Lord.  The meeting room had wide long benches of wood of Red Maple upon which unicorns could lie down upon their bellies and fellowship with other unicorns or with their master or all together.  The leisure room had books and a magazine rack and a TV and a VCR player and VHS tapes and other things upon a bare hardwood floor of Cedar.  The storage room was that unicorn’s own attic, wherein he stored things that he did not want, but that he did not want to get rid of.  The furnace room had a wood-burning furnace that gave heat to that unicorn’s apartment in the winters of Wisconsin.  And the fan room had a fleet of fans with which to scatter throughout the other rooms of that unicorn’s apartment for cooling in the summers of Wisconsin.  And every closet in every room was for everything but clothes, their tenants being unicorns.  In here the unicorns stored things that they wanted to keep and to bring back out into the other rooms from time to time.  These things were personal keepsakes from things in their past and from things in their present.  They were too important to stash away in any storage room.  And they were special, and there was no other place to store them in their apartment rooms themselves.  Take, for example, the closets of Equus near the top of this tower.  He had in one closet wooden Chess games and wooden Checkers games and wooden Backgammon games.  And he had in another closet boxes of Dominoes and bags of wooden blocks to build up structures.  And he had in another closet canisters of wooden logs to put together into cabins and canisters of wooden sticks and wooden spools to build inventive creations.  And he had in another closet classic board games of old days before video games came along, including two dice-shaking games.  In another closet he had tokens of knickknacks like hourglasses and egg-timers and toy cash and toy coins and Galileo thermometers and regular thermometers and barometers and hygrometers.  In another closet he had prisms and magnifying glasses and field glasses and binoculars and glass concave

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lenses and glass convex lenses.  Such things as Equus had in his closet, likewise the other unicorns stored their own little treasures in all of their many closets.  It was in this tower where the famous unicorns of the sword fighter did most of their worship alone with God.  If the time of year were too cold for the unicorns to worship God in daily quiet time alone with Him outside, then they had their quiet time with God always in their floor in their building.  In Wisconsin, that meant late fall and all winter and early spring.  In that half of the year in the Midwest, the unicorns spent most of their time inside with their worship.  The many windows of each floor let in much daylight in which they could worship during the day times.   And the many wall sconces along the walls and in all of the rooms of that unicorn’s floor of the tower gave them much light in which they could worship during the night times.  In the summers of the year, the unicorns liked to worship God outside.  That was late spring, all summer, and early fall.

            Thus was the magnificent home of the unicorn keeper’s ten renowned unicorns. This man of God was venerated by his world-famous unicorns.  And the dragons of the world trembled when his name was spoken.  And even the Dragon of Dragons was constantly frustrated with Flanders’ utmost victories over all the dragons that he had sent to go get this unicorn master and his unicorns.  Every time the Devil sent one or more of his dragons to make this dragon slayer to stop praying so much, this dragon slayer always slew the dragon or dragons.  And right after each victory, this Flanders always went ahead and prayed all the more and all the harder and all the more efficaciously.  All of the world saw how much of this man of God was so filled up with the Holy Spirit.  And the dragons were jealous.  They all knew that the Holy Spirit of God—the third Person of the Trinity—was stronger than the Devil and all of his dragons.  And Flanders allowed more of the Holy Spirit to command his every thought and word and action than any other man of God did anywhere on this Earth.  He seemed invincible to the dragons.  And that was because he was Christ’s man in this dark world now so full of dragons flying around.  And nobody in the world could pray like him.  As he fought dragons for the

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freedom for prayer, so did he pray even harder every time he got on his knees before God Almighty.  And his pastor’s Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church was the only church left in the countryside of northern Wisconsin which the dragons could not shut down from prayer.  And that was because the sword of Flanders Nickels and the unicorns of Flanders Nickels protected it with the Spirit of God.  As much as the Dragon of Dragons wanted to get Flanders’s Pastor Precept, the godly Baptist minister who never quit praying himself, he wanted more to get that whole praying flock of that Baptist church.  But Flanders he wanted burned up most of all.

            Now the reader knows what the unicorns’ house looked like.  But what did Flanders’s house look like?  It looked much like the famous White House of the President of the United States in form, but much smaller.  Unknown to many American citizens, the actual White House in Washington, D.C. has much more to it than it looks like on the back of the $20 bill.  There one finds a four-story mansion.  But the real White House has also a long and vast east wing and a long and vast west wing to it, both two stories tall, extending far off from the four-story mansion to both sides.   And it has a great basement of two floors. Thus in like was the unicorn keeper’s house.   He had a main mansion of two floors, and a long north wing and a long south wing shooting out from it to both sides of one story.  And he had a remodeled cozy basement.  In his main mansion, on his first floor was his prayer room and his Bible room and his fellowship room.  And in his main mansion on his second floor was his living room and his dining room and his kitchen and his bedroom and his bathroom and his den.  All around his first floor was a sheltered screen porch that ran the whole perimeter of his house.  Each of the four porches of the house had three screen doors leading into the porch from outside and three wooden doors leading into the house from the porch.  And around his second floor was a completely encircling upper porch, not sheltered, with a wrought-iron railing.  And each of these four walls up here had three outdoor staircases going up to this upper porch, and three wooden doors that opened into this upper floor of this mansion.  In his basement was his subterranean recreation room and a tunnel that led

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led the way north to the north wing and a tunnel that led the way south to the south wing.  These two tunnels went underneath the screen porches and led back up to the two wings.  The two wings were not attached to the main house.  In his north wing Flanders had his training rooms where he practiced hard every day at sword fighting.  In his south wing Flanders had his communication rooms where he kept in touch with other dragon slayers from throughout the world.  This famous palatial mansion was just outside of Niagara, Wisconsin, in the middle of the countryside.

            The prayer room of Flanders Nickels on his ground floor had red shag carpet, paneling on the walls, many floor lamps, loose sofa cushions on the floor with no sofas, and little tables with prayer requests from hundreds of fellow believers.  These prayer requests came from letters from missionaries, home and foreign, and from Pastor Precept himself personally to Flanders, and from prayer requests from the flock of Flanders’s church spoken by the people on Wednesday Prayer Meeting nights and from fellow dragon slayers out fighting battles for the Lord like himself and from friends and acquaintances and fans and neighbors and colleagues and all of his familial family—but especially from his unicorn family.

            The Bible-reading room on the first floor of his house had hardwood floors of narrow boards made of Oak.  Here he had all of his King James Bibles.  He had what he called his “traditional Bible” and his “auxiliary Bible.” Both his “traditional Bible” and his “auxiliary Bible” were the perfect Authorized King James Version Bibles.  But he studied his King James Bibles in different ways.

And with his traditional Bible, he went through it cover to cover with a pencil, underlining verses in it and writing comments at the tops and bottoms of the pages about these underscored verses, and reading each chapter several times in a row.  And with his auxiliary Bible, he did read out loud from it to himself, and he looked up verses in it in his commentary devotional magazine that he studied, and he preached to his unicorns with it, and he witnessed door-to-door with it.  And in this Bible study room Flanders had a reading desk in the center upon a little dais underneath a rheostat chandelier of fifty

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little incandescent light bulbs of five watts each.

            And his fellowship room on this first story of his mansion had one room of fifty desks and one room of eleven bales of hay and one room of a table and four chairs.  The fifty desks were for fellowship with fellow members of his church, that he protected.  All of the flock loved fellowship with Flanders at his mansion, and he loved fellowship with his brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ from the church at his own home.  The church had one hundred saints.  And often a good fifty of them would come and fellowship with him.  And they were always welcome.  The eleven bales of hay were for him and his ten pet unicorns to sit down upon for sweet fellowship in his own house.  His sweetest fellowship was always with his unicorn pets.  And they met in here on days when the weather outside was not good for fellowship.  And the table with its four chairs was for private fellowship with just a few people.  Sometimes the pastor and Flanders would meet here, and Pastor would ask counsel from Flanders about certain matters that occurred among the flock.  Sometimes Pastor and his wife Bethy and Flanders would have bologna sandwiches and snack foods and coffee here and praise and thank God for His blessings.  Sometimes Flanders got alone with a few people here who were looking for Jesus, and he would have the joy of leading them to salvation at this table.

            As for his second floor of his Gray House, that was like his own big apartment.  This was his basic living quarters.  He prepared his meals here.  He ate his meals here.  He watched TV here.  He played around with his computer here.  He went to bed here.  He got up from bed here.  He did his bathroom stuff here.  He looked through his many shelves of books here.  And he did his leisure here.  And he unwound here.

            As for his basement, he had his leisure life here with his unicorns when they were not discussing fellowship.  They had unofficial spelling bees here, their master officiating in this group.  They played Battleship on opposite sides of a chalkboard on a stand.  They told good wholesome jokes and riddles of their own making.  He brushed their coats with a special unicorn comb.  They told him

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how their day went.  He told them how his day went.  They told him the good things and the bad things that were going on in their unicorn lives.  And he told them the good things and the bad things that were going on in his human life.  And they asked their master for a hug around their necks, and he gave them a hug around their necks.  And they asked for a kiss on their heads, and he gave them a kiss on their heads.  Unicorn and unicorn master bonded in great unity in their diversions here in the basement of his mansion.

            As for his two tunnels that led to his north wing and his south wing, these came out from the basement.  The tunnel that led to the north wing was a little silver mine.  And the tunnel that led to the south wing was a little gold mine.  As for the north wing, as already said, this consisted of rooms for training for dragon-slaying.  In one room was his museum wherein he displayed all types of swords in these days of dragons.  Each sword was in its own shelf, held up between the upper board and the lower board by little chains suspended from above and attached to the hilt and by the tip.  And just below that, resting upon the shelf was that sword’s scabbard.  One of his training rooms in this north wing was his rope room.  Another training room was his simulation room.  Another training room was his snake room.  Another training room was his fire room.  Another training room was his pile driver room.  And what about the south wing, and its rooms for communications with the other dragon slayers of America and the rest of the world?   One room was his computer room.  Here he had his desk top computer and all of its hardware.  Here he communicated with other dragon slayers by way of E-Mails.  Another room in this south wing was his telephone room.  With his cell phone he sent and received calls and text messages from fellow dragon-slayers, sharing news of defeats and victories in their battles against the Devil and his demons.  Another room in this south wing was his telephone book room.  Here he had yellow phone books with the numbers of all the people of Wisconsin, whose state was his mission field as dragon slayer.  Another room was his radio recording studio.  Here radio hosts came to interview him for their radio show as he told of his work for God as dragon slayer.  Another room was his TV

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recording studio.  Here TV newscasters, local and national and international, interviewed him in his ministry as sword fighter for God.

            He wandered now around his big house.  In the phone room he remembered his conversations about dragons with Elysium before he fell for her.  He had not then heard the song in her voice that she spoke all those years.  Now he could not wait to hear it again and to learn to recognize the melody to her voice now.  Love did this.  In the computer room he remembered the words of E-Mail about dragons that he had read from her in days before he fell for her.  Would that she E-Mail him again soon.  He desired greatly to read what this girl was thinking.   Love did this.  In the phone book room, he looked upon the De Pere phone book and thought upon her phone number.  He had never sought her phone number in this phone book when he had not yet fallen for her.  Now it had to be the most magic of numbers anywhere for him.  He picked up this yellow phone book, looked up her phone number and saw it to be 920-555-5555.  How sweet it would be to dare call up a real dream girl like Elysium.  Love did this.  He daydreamed.  He thought.  He prayed.  Not yet.  He looked her up on Google.  She lived on County Trunk PP.  He himself lived here on County Trunk N.  He pondered paper and pencil.  He could write her a real letter in his own writing.  Should he print, or should he use cursive?  Or should he keyboard it?  Love did this.  He prayed.  God answered.  Not yet.  In his armory he wondered upon a dream date where he could show off his sword collection to the great lady archer.  She could pick up a sword, hold it in her real hand, and swing it.  He would surely regard such a sword as touched by an angel.  Love did this.  In his tunnels, he and she could mine silver and gold.  What she would find she could keep.  What he would find he could give to her.  Love did this.  In his prayer room, he thought upon having a fervent and effectual prayer meeting with the girl for over an hour here amid the sofa cushions and the carpet.  What a date that would be for a lonely fellow like himself.  Love did this.  In his Bible-reading room, he and the girl could read the Bible out loud together under the light of the quaint chandelier.  The night would be dark outside the windows.  And it would be somewhat dim at

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the table.  And they could read from the romance book the Song of Solomon in responsive reading.  Love did this.  In his fellowship room, he and Elysium could sit next to each other at the little table with the four chairs.  She could tell him all about her Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church.  He could tell her all about his Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church.  And the western sun could shine through the window upon her angel’s blonde strands.  And they could cuddle next to each other as they did so.  Love did this.   In the second floor of his house, he could show her the things that he did when he was not worshiping Jesus.  In the kitchen he could bake her a birthday cake even if it were not her birthday. Love did this.  In his dining room they could eat it together.  And they could drink chocolate whole milk to go with it. Love did this.  In his den, he could show her his many shelves of books.  She could browse through his den just as if she were at a regular library.  She could pick out the books she liked best, and he would learn what kinds of things that she liked to read.  Love did this.  In the living room they could watch Billy Graham Crusades together on TV.  That man had consummate Holy Ghost indwelling. He had charisma and wisdom and love and a burden for lost souls.  And Flanders and she could watch these sermons as they sat together on his sofa.  Love did this.  And, most exciting of all, he could introduce his ten unicorns to her; and he could introduce her to his ten unicorns.  He fell upon most pensive reverie in daydreaming about his Equus and his Elysium first meeting each other.  What would she say to him?  It would surely be most complimentary.  What would he say to her?  It would truly be most honorable.  Love did this.  He mused upon a life with a woman in the house.  She could come over and visit him here at his mansion.  She would spend time with God with him here.  She would spend time without God in him here.  She would get to know his house and how it reflected upon his personality in all of this house’s character.  And female presence would become a regular part of his life for now on here in his mansion.  He was happy in the Lord right now, but then he would be even happier in the Lord.  Love did this.  Love did all of this.

            Would Elysium—The Girl say, “Yes?’

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            The next day, Flanders and Equus took a flight to De Pere.  The unicorn keeper said to his unicorn, “The girl lives right near here.”

            And Equus spoke up and exclaimed., “Master, never have you been so close to the girl before.”

            “The Memorial Day parade is going down the main streets of De Pere today,” said Flanders Nickels. “It will start in the western side of the city, cross the bridge, and go a way into the eastern side of the city before it ends.”

            “A parade might take your mind off of the woman, Master,” said Equus.

            “As long as I am in her home town, I will never forget her,” said Flanders.

            “You would never forget her even if you were a hundred miles away from her hometown,” said Equus.

            “Niagara is almost a hundred miles from here,” said Flanders

            “See?  And even there you were waxing romantic about the girl that you were telling us unicorns all about again,” said Equus.

            “Yeah,” he said dreamily.

            “Shall we light right down there, Master?” asked Equus.

            “What does that street sign say?” asked Flanders.  “I cannot see as well as a unicorn sees.”

            “It says, ‘Broadway Street,’” said his unicorn confidant.

            “Let’s go down there,” said the unicorn keeper.  “There are people standing on the sidewalk there.  That must be where the parade is going by pretty soon.”  And they lighted upon the ground.

            They did not wait long, before Equus said, “Master, I see the parade coming now from on the bridge.”

            Flanders looked and saw the parade coming toward him.

            “Master,” spoke up Equus, “there she is! That’s the girl!”

            “The girl?” asked Flanders, straining his eyes.

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            “The griffin keeper in all her resplendence,” affirmed the unicorn pet.

            “How can you tell that it is she?” asked Flanders.

            “Everybody knows what Elysium looks like,” said Equus.

            “I see an angel dressed in black and white and silver,” said Flanders.

            “She’s at the front of the parade,” said Equus.

            “She must be the parade marshal,” said the unicorn keeper.

            “Do you see what follows her?” asked the unicorn in awe.

            “I see now what can only be the ten most formidable griffins in the world,” said Flanders.

            “Master, go after her!” exhorted Equus.

            “God would not have me to take glory away from the griffin keeper in her parade,” said Flanders resolutely.

            Unicorn and unicorn keeper gazed upon the pom and dance lady as she drew near in this parade.

Her vibrant colors of spandex shone in the bright ten o’clock sunlight.  Her visage was the incarnation of creation.  Her form was lithe personified.  And her pom pom dance was the highlight of this parade to all of its spectators on the sidewalks.  She discovered Flanders there.  She recognized him.  Everybody knew the great sword fighter.  And she cocked her blonde head to the side and winked with an eye at him and shook a pom pom before him in admiration.  Then she continued on, doing her pom and dance routine for all of De Pere.  Flanders continued gazing upon her.  And he watched her until he could see her no more.

            “I think that she kind of likes you, O Master,” said Equus.

            “She does.  Doesn’t she?” asked Flanders.

            “What are you going to do about it?” challenged his wise unicorn.

            “I shall pursue my wonderful lady archer,” said Flanders.

            “When God tells you to.  Right, Master?” asked Equus.

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            “I must wait upon God,” said faithful Flanders Nickels.

            “When might God tell you?” asked Equus.

            “I believe that God will tell me through the words of Pastor Precept,” said the unicorn master.

            “Our good and Godly pastor,” said the unicorn.  “He knows God even better than we do.”

            “Pastor does not know that I am carrying a torch for the lady archer,” said Flanders.  “I must tell him now.”

            “He teaches marriage enrichment classes to his flock.  Surely he can tell you what God would want for you regarding a girlfriend in Elysium, my master,” said Equus.

            “I believe that my destiny is in Elysium.  You and the other unicorns believe that my destiny is in Elysium.  I need to hear Pastor tell me that my destiny is in Elysium,” said Flanders.  “Then I will know whether God thinks so, too, as well.”

            “Pastor Precept will not steer you wrong, O Master,” said Equus.

            “What a pom and dance dress she wears all of the time,” said Flanders.  “I fell in love with her outfit today just as much as I fell in love with herself just the other day.”

            “It does glitter,” said Equus.

            “Only Elysium deserves such a dress as that,” said Flanders.

            “It looks good on her, I do say myself, Master,” said Equus.  “And that’s coming from a unicorn.”

            “I wonder what it’s like for her to have on,” said Flanders.

            “I do not know,” said the unicorn.

            “I wonder,” said Flanders again.

            “What do you mean, Master?” asked his pet unicorn.

            And he said.  “The parade is done now, good friend.  I have seen and come to wonder upon brave new things today.   Let us go back home now to Niagara.”

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            “Home we shall go, Master,” said the winged unicorn.  And Flanders mounted him, and he lifted up into the sky, and he flew them both back home to the great mansion and the tall tower.

            The next day Flanders and Pastor met together at their special table in Flanders’s fellowship room.  Pastor had a mug of hot instant coffee black.  And Flanders had a mug of hot tea with a lime wedge and sugar cubes.

            Pastor asked him, “So what is the news that you have to tell me, Brother?”

            “I fell in love with the griffin keeper Elysium,” said Flanders.

            “No better Christian lady can any Christian gentleman find for companion, Brother Flanders,” said the Baptist Pastor.

            “And I think that she likes me.  Maybe she could fall in love with me, too, as I have her,” said Flanders.

            “You would make her a great husband,” said Pastor.  “And she would make you a great wife.”

            “I was wondering if God would will she and me to go out together as girlfriend-and-boyfriend-in-the-Lord,” said Flanders Nickels.

            “She would be the best thing for a fellow like you to have as girlfriend-in-Christ,” said Pastor Precept.

            “Do you approve, Pastor?” asked the unicorn keeper.

            “I do approve, Brother,” said the fundamentalist Baptist pastor.

            “Everybody I know who is living for God tells me to go after her,” said Flanders.

            “’…:  and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.’  Proverbs 24:6,” said wise Pastor Precept.

            “I have been much in prayer about this,” said Flanders.  “Would you pray about this right now, Pastor?” asked the man whose heart was smitten by the woman. “I need God to tell me.”

            “I shall do that right now, Brother, and God will give you an answer that you cannot doubt,” promised the Baptist missionary.

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            “This will be the most exciting prayer I ever heard,” said Flanders.

            And Pastor and he bowed their heads at this dear fellowship table, and Pastor prayed that God show Flanders what He wanted for him in his life now about this Elysium–The Girl.

            Behold, a winged angel came down from Heaven, and this angel said, “I am Gabriel, the messenger of God.  God says to you, O great dragon slayer with the sword:  ‘I have ordained you and Elysium to live for me as Christian boyfriend and Christian girlfriend.’  Thus saith the Lord.  Amen!”  And just like that the angel Gabriel went back up to Heaven.

            In awe of the prayer-answering God, Flanders said, “God says, ‘Yes.’”

            And Pastor Precept said, “His angels speak truth, Brother.”

            And boy was about to meet girl.  And girl was about to meet boy.

            And Flanders’s love for the pom and dance girl was soon to be requited.

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CHAPTER IX

            He stood in front of the two signs.  One read “VFW Park.”  And the other one read, “Welcome to the World Archery Tournament.”  This was Flanders looking for his Elysian Girl.  He looked around himself and said to himself, “So this is west De Pere.”  The love of his life lived in east De Pere.  But he had thought to himself, “Surely the quickest way to find my dear lady archer is to find her at an archery tournament.”  Indeed this archery tournament here at VFW Park was for the professional archers only—both men and women.  The best archers everywhere were all gathered here to earn the crown as world champion archer.  And everybody in town knew that their famous hometown hero Elysium would be here participating.  VFW Park had many nice features to it.  There were places for basketball and baseball and softball and volleyball and soccer and tennis.  And there was a swimming pool.  And this park had many picnic tables and picnic shelters and a pavilion and a restroom.  And there was a children’s playground area.  This was a nice community park in a residential neighborhood.

            And across the street from VFW Park, on the other side of Grant Street, did Flanders find the famous Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church.  He waxed surrealistic in his man’s heart.  This

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was Elysium’s very own church.  As he beheld this great house of God, he felt as if he were right there, worshiping the Lord inside, with Elysium at his side.  So romantic would it be to be at this church service with his beloved and to be singing hymns with her and her whole flock.  So romantic would it be to hear a great sermon given by her own good fundamental Baptist pastor, with his own pom and dance girl sitting next to him in the auditorium.  So romantic would it be to be known as Elysium’s boyfriend by all of her flock.  So romantic would be the fellowship of this flock after every church service where he and Elysium could stand side-by-side and talk about God among all of her Baptist flock together.  So romantic would it be to have a beautiful girl who saw in him a handsome guy worship Jesus in corporate worship with him when the doors of this church were open every Sunday School and Sunday Morning Worship and Sunday Evening Worship and Wednesday Night Bible Study and Prayer Meeting.  All of these new daydreams filled his heart with revelations of what would be were the great griffin keeper wish to be the unicorn keeper’s girlfriend.  This church with her was truly even more exciting to him than his own church without her had been all of these good happy years.  This Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church was a brave new paradise that awaited him.  And she would say, “Yes,” to his proposal.  The same God Who had summoned him to come and get the woman was the same God Who would have the woman awaiting him when he came.  Then he turned away from the sign of the church and back to the two signs he was looking at upon first having come into this park.

            And he walked into this VFW Park in search for the world championship of archery tournament.  He well knew what she looked like.  And he knew that he would readily recognize her as the lady archer in that black and white and silver pom pom girl outfit.  And he was sure that, if all else failed, he would be able to identify her as the winner of this world championship when all was done and over.  She was, after all, the most decorated archer anywhere—man or woman.

            And he found a big field across Allard Street, a side street that ran along one side of this park.

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In this big open space next to this park were many open acres roped off by hemp rope and wooden stakes about four feet high.  There were entry gates and exit gates.  But no admission was charged.

And people from throughout the world were within to watch the men and women archers compete.  Flanders walked right in free and found a good place to be which the Holy Spirit guided him to for the best view.  And he scanned the various playing fields of the archers of the world in search for his special lady archer.  Right away he saw a beautiful blond woman who looked to be his age; and she was dressed as a pom and dance girl; and she was accoutered in archery apparel.

            There she was!

            The Lord spoke to him in a still small voice, “Do not pursue the girl this moment yet.”

            And Flanders Nickels forced himself to restrain himself.  Now was not yet the time.  God said to wait.  The Lord knew best.  Perhaps God was testing him.  And Flanders remained silent, though pining ardently.

            And round one of the archery tournament began.  This first round was for short range.  This round was with little tiny targets posted upon signposts five feet high.  These tiny targets measured only six inches in diameter.  And this range was measured at a mere one hundred inches.  And there were ten stations along this range.  And there were many rounds of this short range among a few hundred world class archers.  And these little targets were of concentric colored circles, from the outer circle to the bull’s-eye the colors being the following:  white, black, light blue, red, and yellow.  And each of these colored concentric rings were divided themselves into two rings—an outer ring and an inner ring.  And the nearer to the center of the archery target the arrow got, the more points that shot the archer earned.  Outer white scored one point.  Inner white scored two points.  Outer black scored three points.  Inner black scored four points.  Outer light blue scored five points.   Inner light blue scored six points.  Outer red scored seven points.  Inner red scored eight points.  Outer yellow scored nine points.  Inner yellow scored ten points.  And this yellow was a circle in the center of the target, and that was called the

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“bull’s-eye.”

            This round one began with Europe’s best men and women archers.  Then came Asia’s best archers.  Then came Africa’s best archers.  Then came South America’s best archers.  Then came Australia’s best archers.  Then came North America’s best archers.  There were six such groups, depending upon the continent of the archers’  citizenship. There were no delegates from the continent of Antarctica. This range of one hundred inches for so small a target required a steady hand and very good near vision, as if threading a needle,  and a minimum of arc.  And, round one in progress, several archers got outer bull’s-eyes and inner bull’s-eyes.  Then came up to her station in the turn for those of North America, Elysium—The Girl.  All of her fans in De Pere were here.  And they all cheered her on.

Flanders was just about to cheer her on, also.  But the Holy Spirit suddenly bade him, “Do not cheer the lady archer quite yet, My son.”  Obedient to God, Flanders resisted his urges to cheer his beloved lady archer.  Now was not the time.  Sometime later would come the time.  God was testing Flanders.  And God was his loving Guide.  Flanders might have distracted her if she were to see a famous person like himself cheering from the crowd.  Elysium–The Girl drew her arrow from her quiver, nocked her arrow on her bowstring, drew back the bowstring, aimed, and let go the arrow.  Bull’s-eye.  In fact an inner bull’s-eye.  And she scored ten points in this first round.

            And not long later this short range round one was finished.  Elysium and many other archers had ten points so far.  And many other archers had nine points.  None got less than seven points.

            Then came round two of this world championship of archery.  Round two was a more standard range round.  This time the range covered one hundred feet.  Here one needed a good balance of poise and steadiness.  And here one needed a balance between near vision and far vision.  The normal human vision of 20/20 was best for this medium-range round.  The archery target was twelve inches in diameter.  And it was upon a station three feet high with bales of hay right up against its back.   And the pattern and colors and score points were all the same as they were in the first round.  This time North

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America went first, then Australia, then South America, then Africa, then Asia, then Europe.  And right away Elysium stepped up to her station.  And she studied that target for a while, her artillery not ready yet.  Then she prepared her artillery and fired her arrow.  Bull’s-eye again—in its inner circle for ten points.  All of her fans clapped their hands in applause for her.  Flanders thought to do the same thing with a love in his heart for the girl.  But the Holy Spirit bade him not to clap his hands right now.  God was testing him.  It was good that God was testing him.  This Christian man wanted above all else to come forth as gold after the Lord’s refining fires of testings.  And he did not clap for the girl right now.

The time for his clapping would come later.  The Elysian Girl’s time to see him was not yet according to God’s will. Round two continued.  And there were few outer bull’s-eyes, and there were even fewer inner bull’s-eyes.  And there were lots of reds this time around.  And when round two was done, most or the archers scored eights and sevens.  None got less than five points.

            Then came round three of this archery tournament.  This time the range was one hundred yards.

This round was for long-range archery. But this same target now was eighteen inches in diameter, and it rested upon the ground on its edge, the front facing the archer.  And it had a wooden wall right up against the back of it.  Here an archer needed eyes like an eagle and a knowledge of the science of arcs.

The order of the players now was Africa first, then South America, then Europe, then North America, then Asia, then Australia.  When Elysium stepped up to shoot her arrow of this round three, all of her fans called out her name in great praise.  Flanders thought to do the same thing, his heart carrying him away.  But before he could shout her name, God told him in his head, “Flanders, it is not for you to yell her name right now.”  And he quickly covered his mouth with his hand and spoke not a sound.  Who was he to say the name of the girl he loved out loud if God forbade that for now?  Perhaps it was not time for Elysium to hear the voice of the famous unicorn keeper.  The Good Lord knew all things.  And He knew all that was best for both the sword fighter and the lady archer at all times and in all places.

Elysium—The Girl took an arrow from her quiver, held it up before her face vertically, and looked

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toward the target.  Then she held it up before her face horizontally and looked toward the target.  She then did the same with her bow—looking through it vertically toward the target and looking through it horizontally toward the target.  And she went ahead to fire her arrow.  Behold, a ten-point bull’s-eye!

All chanted her name in this audience except Flanders.  He did chant her name in his fervent silent thoughts though. Round three continued.  And nobody else scored a ten-point bull’s-eye.  And only the European champion scored a nine-point bull’s-eye.  Some got sevens and eights from the red circle.  Most got fives and sixes from the light blue circles.  None got less than three points.

            Then came round four, the last round of this world championship archery tournament.  This was a flight archery range.  And its range was one hundred rods.  And in this final round to today’s tournament the archery target lay upon its back in the middle of a sand pit far away.  Its diameter was twenty-four inches.  And it faced the sky.  In more common measurements one hundred rods is 550 yards, or 1,650 feet, or 503 meters, or 5/16 of a mile or .31 of one mile.  Here in flight archery, an archer was called upon to fire his or her arrow as far as he or she could.  A strong man would have an advantage over an average woman in this round four.  One needed strength in the arms, and a keen knowledge of the physics of moving and falling objects, and a great far vision.  This time the order for the archers was South America first, then Africa, then Australia, then Asia, then North America, then Europe.  When it came for Elysium’s turn in this final round, all of her fans were stamping their feet in great accolades.  Flanders thought to stamp his feet, too, in his delights with this pom pom girl of an archer.   But God said to him, “Nay.  Do not stamp your feet for the woman..”  And Flanders stamped not either foot.  God must truly have wonderful things for him that were to come after these tests.   It is written, “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments:  which if a man do, he shall live in them:  I am the Lord.”  Leviticus 18:5.  Then the lady archer of lady archers prepared her flight archery shot.  She knelt down alongside of her station, bowed her head, and had a quick silent word of prayer.

Then she got back to her feet.  And she said, “Glory to God in the highest!”  And she fired her arrow

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upward at a high angle as far as she could shoot it as an average-sized woman.  It ascended.  It peaked.  It descended. And it landed right into the middle of the sand pit’s perimeter, where the target lay.  She heard the whole park give out a roar.  Because this target was so far away, she had to run up to it to see how she did.  And when she got there, she looked down upon her arrow.  There it was, in the center of the center of the target for another perfect ten points.  Another perfect bull’s-eye here, even from so very far away.  And she looked out onto her fans, and she said, “Honor to God the Most High!”

Then she asked, “Amen?”  And everybody in the crowd, lost and saved, said right back. “Amen!”

In the spirit of love of Elysium and worship of God, Flanders was just about to say “Amen!” the loudest of all of them.  But even here the Holy Spirit bade him to not glorify Him this time with the good holy word “Amen.”  And Flanders shook his head rigorously to avoid for his first time at saying “Amen!” up to God.  He wrestled against himself for a moment, then prevailed in his Holy Spirit.  And he refused to say “Amen” in obedience to God.  Indeed all of these accolades heaped upon Elysium among all of her fans were not wrong in themselves.  And they were encouragements to a lady archer who did fight dragons for God.  And God delighted in exhortations to his woman dragon slayer.  And

God wanted the griffin keeper to enjoy peace and good favor from His world.  But regarding the unicorn keeper, today was not the day that he was to make himself known to her.  Especially as her greatest fan here at this archery championship.  If girl met boy and fell in love at first sight here and now, her archery would have been compromised at this world championship.  He must not talk to her yet.  And she must not talk to him yet.  That would be for another day.  And that day would be the next day.  And it would be at a place of the Good Lord’s choosing.  And it would be the happiest day of the lives of the both of them since their day of their very own salvation years ago.  And that day would be the day in the Lord where man meets woman.  Round four continued after Elysium’s miracle shot.

And when it was done hers was the only one in any of the yellow.   There were no other arrows than hers in the bull’s-eye.  And there were no arrows in any of the red.  And there were only a few arrows

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in the light blue.  Most of the arrows were in the black.  Some of the arrows hit the white.  None got less than one point.  None missed the target completely.

            All of the park, and all of the world, knew right away that the famous lady archer Christian had won this tournament.  Elysium—The Girl was the first archer in history to have scored a perfect forty points in this professional and preeminent archery tournament.  She was crying in exultation.  Flanders secretly wiped a tear from his own eye, his heart exultant for her.  And the Vice President of the United States declared her the winner and the champion of professional archery.  And the President of the United States gave her the championship trophy—a platinum trophy cup with a tiny platinum quiver and a tiny platinum bow and a tiny platinum arrow in it.  And its inscription read, “World Archery Champion” on one side, and the year “2025” on the other side.  She held it up before all of her fans, and she said, “I got this from Jesus, and I give it back to Jesus.”  And all of the crown cheered her and Jesus.  And Flanders had to wipe his other eye from a lone tear.  Never before had he been so moved by any girl than he was now by this Elysium.  She was indeed a dream girl to him now.  And he knew in the Lord that this dream girl was going to become all his.  And he knew that soon he would become her dream man.   And he would become all hers.  If falling in love like this from afar were magical, how much more idyllically magical would be falling in love from near?  He felt giddy, and he liked it.  He felt dizzy, and he loved it.  He felt transcendent, and it was a feeling all over his body that seemed to lift his feet up off of the ground.  He had never had a crush on a woman that had a crush on him before.  But soon he was going to come upon a new life where he was in love with a woman who was in love with him.  A crush was a most especial thing.  But a love cured lonesomeness to the uttermost and for ever after.  He had read in novels about the woman character finding a gentleman character, and he became her companion.  And he had read in novels about a man character finding a lady character, and she became his companion.  Tomorrow sometime, he and his pom and dance girl were going to become each other’s companions—and for the rest of their lives on Earth.

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            He wandered around VFW Park on this side of Allard Street, until everybody else was gone, and the archery tournament was all done, and he was all alone.  And then he let it all out.  He cheered her.  He clapped for her.  He yelled out her name.  He stamped his feet upon the ground.  And he said, “Amen!”  And he even went ahead and performed a veritable pom pom dance with a pirouette and a cartwheel and a “shaking of pom poms” and a kicking up the leg and a putting of his arms akimbo.

There.  Now it was all out of him.  And he no longer felt like bursting from within.

            He then crossed back over Allard Street and stepped out upon the more regular part of this park that was filled with park things.  He had not come here with Equus.  Nor had he come here with his whole unicorn family.  He had come to De Pere on his own by way of public transportation from Niagara.  Such an event that was to come down from Heaven and bless him he wanted to experience alone and with no unicorn.  This time something was coming for him in which he wanted only his Saviour to see.  This first day with Elysium—The Girl was to be between only himself and herself and their God.   He found a swing set in the playground area.  Some of the swings had rubber seats.  Those always squeezed in on his hips and hurt.  Some of the swings were tiny and had a bar across in front.  Those were for tiny tots.  Some of the swings had wooden seats.  One of those would do.  He sat down on one, and he began to swing.  And he began to pray in his thoughts about the girl.  And his thoughts became spoken words.  And his spoken words became romance songs.  And his romance songs became England Dan and John Ford Coley hits.  After a while, he stopped his singing,  And he stopped his swinging.  And he let the swing slowly come to a stop. Then the swing was still.  All was quiet.  And a still small voice called into him, “Come with me, My son.”  And the Spirit of the Lord caught him away.  And he found himself in a surreal place.

            He was standing before a park sign that read “Elysian Park.”  It was made of a big brown wooden board with big yellowish-white letters and brown wooden posts to each side.   He remembered the sign of VFW Park and how that sign was the same as this sign, brown with yellow-white letters and

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two brown posts—but this one with different words.  In his understanding of vocabulary, Flanders knew that the word “Elysian” was another word for “Heavenly”  Literature abounded with Elysian Fields and Elysian Waters and Elysian Skies.  Well this must be an Elysian Park.  And this park must surely be an Elysium. “Elysium,” by definition, meant, “Heaven.”  But beyond this sign, all he could see was a thick fog which hid this park from his eyes.

            Then a voice as of a sound of a still small voice called down unto him from Above, saying to him, “Flanders, Flanders.”

            “Here am I, O Lord,” said Flanders in this vision.

            And God said to him, “Do you see My park?”

            And he said to God, “I see the park’s sign, O Lord.  But I cannot see this park.”

            The Lord then said, “My daughter Elysium—The Girl saw this park.  She saw this sign in a dream of the night.  You see this sign in a vision of the day.”

            “What happened in this park, Lord?” asked Flanders.

            “This is the park where the pom and dance girl first discovered the man she loved.” said the Voice from Above.

            “Is it I?” asked Flanders.

            “It is you, My son,” said the Lord.

            “She loves me then?” asked Flanders.

            “She does, and she will,” said God.

            “What does this Elysian Park look like?” asked Flanders.

            “It is not for you to know what this Elysian Park looks like,” said God.  “This park is a type of Heaven.”

            “Do I meet my beloved lady archer in Heaven?” asked Flanders.

            “You will meet her on Earth and in Heaven,” said God.

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            “Where do I meet her on Earth?” asked Flanders Nickels.

            “I will show you in another vision soon,” said God.

            “Is this place where I meet her on Earth a paradise of its own?” asked Flanders.

            And the Lord said, “Any place where a man and a woman fall in love with each other is a paradise.”

            Just then the fog behind this sign began to float toward Flanders in its thickness.  And soon it came between him and the park’s sign.  And it became hard to read this sign.  “Lord, where are you going?” asked Flanders in dismay.

            And God said, “I will never leave you or forsake you, Flanders.  You will not hear me, and then you will hear me.”

            And, lo, he was back upon his swing in VFW Park.  He reflected upon what he had just seen for a long while.  And then he began to start swinging on his swing again with his legs.  He raised them going forward, and he bent them going backward.  And soon he was once again swinging big wide swings in the air.  Then he began to slow down.  And he bent his legs going forward and raised his legs going backward.  In this way he came to a complete stop quicker.  And he reflected upon his vision from the Lord in a most pensive joy of the Lord.

            Then he heard a second still small voice from God saying to him, “Come with Me once again, My son, and I will show you things to come on Earth.”

            And immediately he was in the Spirit again.  And he found himself standing before a different park sign.  This one read “Voyageur Park,” and it was the same kind of park sign as both the others were—brown wood with tan letters and two brown wooden posts.  Here there was no fog obscuring the park.

            The Lord spoke to him with the noise as of many waters, saying to him, “Flanders Nickels, do

you see Voyageur Park?”

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            “I do see Voyageur Park, my Lord,” said Flanders.  He could see the whole park in the sunlight of noon in all clearness before him where he stood.

            “This park is a type of Elysian Park, My son,” said God.

            “Is this park on the Earth, O Lord?’ asked Flanders.

            “This park is on the Earth.  It is in east De Pere.  It is real,” said God.

            A moment passed.  Then Flanders asked God, “My Jesus…is this where it all happens?”

            “That which will continue must first begin,” said God.

            “It shall happen here then?” asked Flanders to make sure he understood God.

            “Tomorrow, O good and faithful servant,” promised God.

            From where he stood, Flanders looked beyond the sign and searched the park with a gaze.  Flanders did not see her yet.

            “Tomorrow, O man of God,” said God in admonishment.

            “I shall be here,” he promised God.

            “Noon, O Flanders Nickels,” said God.  “My sun will be at its zenith then upon Voyageur Park.”

            “Twelve o’clock noon,” said Flanders in obeisance and great delights.  For now he looked for the woman no more in this park beyond the sign.

            Then the Lord said to him, “It is written, ‘Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.  Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.’  Psalm 37:4-5.”

            “Almighty Heavenly Father, I believe,” humbly prayed Flanders Nickels.

            And God said, it is also written about My love for you, O over comer of five tests, ‘The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.’  Zephaniah 3:17.”

            “My Lord and my God,” said Flanders.

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            “Go now and fall in love,” said God his Heavenly Father.

            Just then he found himself back in VFW Park.  He was on a swing in the playground area.  And there were other children swinging in the swings now to both sides of him.

            And, filled with the Holy Spirit, Flanders Nickels went to the nearest picnic table in this park, and he prayed for three hours.  And at the end of three hours, a dragon in the area sensed the presence of prayer, which disagreed with him very much.  And he looked down from the skies to see where this unpleasant feeling was coming from.  And he saw a man with a sword way down below in VFW Park, his elbows upon the picnic table, his hands together, and his eyes looking down upon the top of the picnic table.  This man was praying.  And this dragon went after him immediately to kill him.  But when he lighted upon the green grass of the park and saw who this man was, this dragon became all the more angry.

            Flanders looked up from prayer and beheld a standard four-legged dragon before him.  This was the most traditional species of dragon used by Satan.  Fearless and seasoned, Flanders said, “Green dragon, you’re interrupting my communion with my Father in Heaven.  I’m not quite done with my prayer yet right now.”

            And the dragon said, “You’re done praying now, O Flanders of Niagara.”

            “Only God tells me when I am done,” said Flanders.  “And He is still listening to me.”

            “Stop your prayer, and He will stop listening,” commanded the dragon.

            “I get riled when someone interrupts my worship,” said the sword fighter.

            “I get riled when someone prays,” said the dragon.

            “I recommend that you leave while you still can,” said Flanders.  The dragon slayer put his right hand to the heft of his sword along his left hip where he sat.

            “I recommend that you take your hand off of that sword, lest you provoke me to shoot my fire upon it and burn up both the hand and the sword and the scabbard, O great dragon slayer.” said the

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dragon.

            “Must I cut you up with my sword as I can your fire?” asked Flanders, standing up now and standing before the picnic table.

            “No swordsman can cut up fire with his sword,” said this dragon.

            “This swordsman can cut up fire into pieces with his saber,” said Flanders.

            “Ha ha ha!” said this proud dragon.

            “Ha ha ha!” replied the fell dragon slayer.  And Flanders Nickels drew his sword and stood still before this dragon much bigger than himself, and the sword fighter awaited the dragon.

            Right away this dragon shot a torrent of fire out of his mouth point-blank right upon where the Christian soldier was.  Flanders swung his saber left and right and right and left.  And, behold, he sliced up this bolt of fire into four different pieces.  One piece fell to the grass at his feet and burned itself out.  One piece landed upon the ground to his left, and that burned itself out.  One piece landed upon the grass to his right, and that burned out quickly.  And the last piece landed upon the picnic table, and Flanders took off his penny loafer and put that fire out with his leather shoe.  Then he put his shoe back on his foot.  No part of any of that formidable dragon fire reached Flanders’s person.

            And this dragon was daunted.

            Then the world’s most famous dragon slayer said, “Go back to the Dragon of Dragons.  Or I will have to carry out my threat to cut you up as I showed that I can cut up your fire.”

            The dragon was intimidated.  But his hatred at this prayer-warrior exceeded his fear for his life.

And though they were filled with evil, dragons by nature did not flee battles.  They were courageous for their wicked cause against Christ and prayer.  Likewise did this four-legged dragon stand his ground against this redoubtable dragon slayer.

            And this dragon leaped and pounced toward Flanders where he stood in front of this picnic table.  Flanders ducked; the dragon missed him; the dragon went past him in the air; and Flanders heard

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the breaking of boards behind him.  Flanders stood back up straight and turned around to face the dragon, his sword held in his right hand above his head.  Behold, this pounce caused this dragon to crash hard upon the wooden picnic table upon his belly, and the picnic table was crushed into broken pieces of wood underneath the dragon now upon the ground.  Flanders, seeing the dragon’s back toward him, took notice of his great reptilian tale that was within his reach.  And the sword fighter took his saber in both hands, raised it above his head, and swung it downward in both arms.  Behold, the dragon’s tail was cut right off at his bottom.  The dragon let out a draconic bellow that resounded in the skies.  Flanders looked across the horizons that echoed with this demon’s great calling out.  But he did not shudder.

            In revenge this dragon turned back around and thrust his mouth forward to grab the man in his own dragon jaws.  His jaws opened up now for the sword fighter’s neck.  But Flanders took his saber in both hands, and he did thrust it upward toward the jaws of this great dragon mouth.  And before the dragon’s teeth could reach Flanders’s neck, the great saber pierced through the whole lower jaw of the dragon.  And in instinct, the dragon forced his upper jaw down, only to make the sword pierce through his whole upper jaw now as well.  The dragon teeth never reached the sword fighter’s neck.

            In a rage from Hell, this dragon thrust his mouth away off to the side and thereby did tear the sword fighter’s own sword quite out of his grasp from both hands.  This sudden great seizing lacerated Flanders’s two hands with gashes. Quickly he put his hands together and put them between his knees where he stood.  For just this moment, he was overcome with pain.  And he was now without his great saber to finish off his foe in battle.  Then he shook the disorientation out of his head.  And he looked back up at the dragon.

            Behold, the saber had effectively shut the dragon’s mouth.  And he could not open it.  And black billowing smoke began coming out of his nostrils.  He was preparing to shoot another bolt of fire at Flanders.  But his mouth would not open.  And because of that, his fire would not be able to come out

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of him and engulf the man.  And the dragon in pain from the two sword wounds feebly fell down upon

his haunches and held his head up by leaning upon his stretched forth forelegs.  The sword clamped his jaws down tightly and firmly.  And his fire within began to dissipate.  And the black smoke ceased to come out of his nostrils.  Then all fire that was within him burned completely out.  And for now he lost his innate ability to shoot out dragon fire.

            Meanwhile, Flanders tore off his vest and wrapped his left hand with it to try to stop the bleeding.  And he tore off his shirt and wrapped his right hand with it to try to stop the bleeding.  And he looked down upon his ominously empty scabbard.

            This was the first time in his dragon-slaying days wherein he lost his hold on his sword during battle.  And he was humbled.

            He looked up upon his adversary.  This dragon was gasping for air.  His back legs were shaking in pain of the excised tail.  And he was bleeding both between his jaws and off of his bottom where he sat.  And yet still this dragon cursed God with a disabled tongue.

            Flanders understood this battle where it stood right now.  He was wounded in both hands.  But the dragon was almost mortally wounded.  And it would not be long before the dragon fell over dead.  There was no more that this dragon could do to the dragon slayer.  All that Flanders needed to do was to wait for the dragon to die.

            But the dragon was a great and terrible soldier of the Devil.  And dragons were accounted the greatest of beasts.  And this dragon was not done with Flanders yet in this battle.  And before Flanders’s very eyes, this dying saurian behemoth took both of his fore paws, clamped them down upon the hilt of the saber that was up against his underside of his jaws, and with the strength of a dragon’s forelegs he did pull the sword downward and out of his mouth in a demonstration of great physical prowess.

            Flanders, astonished, stepped back in great wariness.  Knowing dragons in many dragon battles, he was ever amazed at their ways.  He knew that a normal four-legged dragon like this was many times

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the size of himself.  But something like what just happened here he had never seen before.  Indeed dragons fought like demons.  They were demons.  And this dragon was a beast of insuperable force.  The dragon dropped the sword upon the ground from his two fore paws down close to his hind paws where he sat.  He looked at it.  He did not turn from it.  He did not try to pick it up. His mouth was no longer clamped shut.  And black smoke began to puff out of his nostrils.  And he opened his mouth and looked at Flanders, his hand without his sword.  And black smoke puffed out of his maimed mouth.  His fire was coming back within him.  He was about to shoot fire at the sword fighter who could not now break it up into pieces with his saber.

            But then convulsions shook the dragon where he sat.  Suddenly this dragon went stiff.  He stood up.  He quaked.  He fell down.  And he died there.  And his life was overcome by his mortal sword wounds.  And his carcass lay upon the sword, his back leg on top of it

            “Glory!  Glory!” Flanders prayed up to Heaven in praise of God over the death of this dragon.

            And Flanders took some broken boards of the picnic table that the dragon had crushed, and he made some little levers to lift up the great leg of the dragon to bring his sword out from underneath his great bulk.  Once he drew it out from under the great dragon, the sword fighter held it endearingly in both hands.  Then he sheathed it back in its scabbard.  And Flanders Nickels said in prayer, “It’s great to have my sword back in my possession again, O Lord.  Thank You for this victory this day.”

            He looked at his bound hands.  The bleeding seemed to have stopped.  And he took off his vest and his shirt from both hands and examined his hands.  They did not look all that bad.  And they were going to be okay in time.  He took his sword and practiced with it in his right hand, and it felt good.  And he practiced with his sword in his left hand, and it felt good.  His sword fighting would come back strong and well once again.  And his sword was undamaged.  All he had to do was to clean up the dragon blood from its blade.  And he praised the Lord of providence.

            This dragon battle done now, Flanders said to himself, “Now you can go back and finish your

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prayer, Flanders.”  Then he said to God, “But I have to find a picnic table that is not all broken up,

Lord.”  And he and God laughed together in accord.  And he went to the nearest picnic table and finished his prayer of the day.  Then he cleaned up his sword and went back home to be with his family of unicorns once again.

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CHAPTER X

            Flanders Nickels was sitting upon a middle bench of three at the top of a hill overlooking the Fox River.  This was Voyageur Park.  And it was noon.  And he saw before him at the bottom of this hill the real living Elysium the pom and dance woman.  She was dressed in her trademark black and white and silver spandex pom pom girl uniform.  And she had on black fishnet stockings and black block-heeled pumps and black and white ribbons in her hair and large black and white pom poms in her hands.  She was performing a dance upon the docks of this park for her Lord.  He heard the swishing of her pom poms, and it stirred him up inside.  It made him think of the swishing when a bride or a prom girl would walk by with her dress’s skirt.  She glided from pier to pier as nimbly as a fairy.  She leaped from dock to dock.  She sang out beautiful Sunday school choruses of Baptist churches. She shook her hips.  She set her arms akimbo.  She took away her arms akimbo.  She kicked up her leg.  She did cartwheels.  She did flips in the air.  She shook her pom poms.  She was here.  She was there.  She was here again.  And she stuck every one of her landings with the skills of a woman gymnast.  Every thing she did was magic, because she was magic personified.  This woman were quite an Elysian Girl.  This girl were an Elysium Itself incarnate. This gal were a she-angel from the Elysian Fields.

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            This was Elysium—The Girl.

            Then she saw him.  She saw him up there on this bench.  She saw him looking at her.  She saw him admiring her.  She saw him mesmerized by her femininity from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.

            And she knew who he was.

            This pom and dance woman stopped her dancing for Christ.  And she and Flanders gazed upon each other in ardor for a long moment.   He was at the top of the hill.  She was at the bottom of the hill.

She cocked her adorable blonde head to the side in subtle females’ wiles.  And she smiled, showing much whiteness of perfect teeth.  Her brown eyes shown with the divine light of the Holy Ghost.

Her lips were curved upward in mutual affection.  Her ribbons blew about upon her straight blonde hair in the gentle zephyrs of Wisconsin.  The curve of her face called out to him to reach out for it.  Her bangs covered her forehead more royally than any crown could.  He could see parts of her ears where the wind played its coquette’s games upon her tresses along the sides of her head.  Her lips looked about to speak, and he said nothing, awaited everything.

            The pom pom girl for Christ then spoke up to him, “Are you the famous sword fighter?”

            “I am a sword fighter,” he said.  “Whether I am famous, that is not mine to say.”

            “Flanders Nickels!” she said in sweet admiration.

            “That is I,” he said.  “And you are Elysium, the archery champion.”

            “I am a lady archer, and I am she,” she said.  “And I have become the champion only yesterday.”

            “I was there,” he said.  “I saw the whole thing.”

            “The renowned unicorn keeper was there and saw me shoot my arrows,” said Elysium.  “That is a greater honor even than seeing the President and the Vice-President there.”

            “You’re good,” said Flanders.

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            “So are you, Flanders,” she said.  “Nobody wields a sword more deadly than you do yours.”

            He thought upon looking down upon his sword in his scabbard, but he could not take his eyes now off of the beautiful woman.  He said to her, “Could we talk, Elysium?”

            And Elysium said, “Let us talk, Flanders.”

            A silent moment passed between them.  And Flanders said, “The cat’s got my tongue.”

            And Elysium joked and said, “Tell the cat to give it back.”  And both laughed.

            Then Flanders Nickels said, “Yes.  We can talk.”

            And she said, “Shall we get together down here on the dock or up there on the bench, Flanders?”

            And he said, “Oh, do come up here and sit with me on this bench,”

            “That I shall do,” said the pom and dance woman.

            Flanders stood up and his heart beat with the inspiration of blossoming romance.  With the spirit of a little girl, but with the soul of a woman whose heart was smitten by a man, the pom pom girl hopped up the hill.  And she then stood before the man.   She dropped her pom poms before his bench.  He gently took both of her hands in both of his hands.  And he held them there as they stood, as if holding a fragile glass.   And she said, “God is with us always.”

            And he replied, “In all times, good and better and best.”

            And together they sat upon this bench at the top of the hill.  She sat to his right.  He sat to her left.

            He said, “I’ve been thinking about you lately, Elysium.”

            “I hope that they were good and pleasant thoughts, Flanders,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “They were very good and very pleasant,” he said to her.

            “I’ve had you on my mind, too, Flanders,” she said to him.

            “That is a good thing.  I hope,” he said.

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            “All very good things,” she said.

            “I learned something about myself,” he said.

            “Like what?” she asked.

            “I found out how lonesome I was in my life,” he said.

            “You are the famous unicorn keeper,” she said.  Then she asked, “Were you lonely with ten such amazing unicorns as those of yours for companionship?”

            “I do believe that I was.  And I did not know it before I discovered you,” he said.

            “I do understand,” she said.

            “You do,” he said.

            “I have the ten most famous griffins in the world as companions, and yet the acclaimed griffin keeper was lonely, too, in life,” said the pom pom girl.

            “I had a vision abut this park, Elysium,” he said.  “God was here in the Spirit.”

            “What did God say to you?” she asked.

            “He told me that I would fall in love with you here,” he said.

            “Did you fall in love with me here?” she asked.

            “Then and now, fair Elysium,” he said.  “And I never felt this way before about anything.”

            “I feel the same thing for you, Flanders,” she said. “With you I feel the heights of the seagulls.  With you I feel the surge of the resonant waves.  With you I feel the song of the crickets.”

            “I had another vision, also, about you, O Elysium,” he said.

            “Was God there with you in this vision, also, Flanders?” she asked.

`           “He was, and in the Spirit,” he said to her..

            “What did you see?” she asked.

            “I saw Elysian Park,” he said.

            “You did?” she asked.  “You were at Elysian Park in a vision?”

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            “I was,” he said.  “It was a park created by God Himself.”

            “I was at Elysian Park in a dream, Flanders,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “Was it beautiful?” he asked.

            “It was,” she said.  “I got to see the whole thing.”

            “In my vision, I could only see fog in there,” he said.

            “I fell in love with you at Elysian Park in my dream,” she said.

            “In my vision, God told me that you fell in love with me there,” he said to her.

            “That Elysian Park was a symbol for us of this Voyageur Park,” she said to him.

            “A Heaven shared by two,” he said to her.

            “Flanders,” she asked, “am I better to you than is your Equus?”

            “You are better to me than ten unicorns,” he said to her.

            “You are better to me than my Gryphon,” she said.  “Better to me than even ten griffins.”

            “I have truly stolen the heart of the griffin keeper,” cooed Flanders.

            “And I have stolen your heart, O unicorn keeper,” sang out Elysium—The Girl.

            In his silent thoughts, he understood God’s ways now for his life for the rest of his life:  God was to come first.  Elysium was to come second.  Himself was to come third.

            In like the pom and dance girl understood now in the Lord that her new life was to have as its priorities God first and Flanders second and herself third.

            He looked upon the squirrels and chipmunks and rabbits running free about this park, and he could see the glory of creation now more clearly than he did before he fell in love.

            She looked upon the skies and the waters and the land that God had created here all around her, and she came to see the Creator in the eyes of a woman in love.

            He asked, “Elysium, can it get better for us than it is today?”

            And she said, “We can wait and see, Flanders.”  That was an affirmative.

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            They still held each other’s hands as they sat upon this park bench at the top of the hill.  Below them was the main part of this park with its many docks and its river and its fishermen.  “Don’t ever let go, Flanders,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “I shall keep holding your hands, milady,” he said to her.

            She went on to say, “I hug my griffins a lot.”

            He said, “I do the same things with my unicorns.”

            “And I kiss my griffins on the head lots,” she said.

            “I kiss my unicorns on their heads, too,” he said to her.

            “I never hugged a boyfriend before,” she said.

            “I know what you mean,” he said. “I myself have never hugged a girlfriend before.”

            “Don’t you ever wonder what an embrace would feel like inside?” she asked. “A hug with romance to it, Flanders?”

            “I never thought about such things until I discovered you, Elysium,” he said.

            “Does it sound like a good idea, do you think, Flanders?” asked the pom and dance woman.

            He contemplated magic of romance found in embracing this pom pom girl’s female form.  And he did not fight it.  And he gave himself to it.  They stood up before the bench, and they fell upon an embrace sweet and idyllic and physical. This man never had a woman in both arms like this before.  Nor this woman, any man before.   He could feel the pom pom dress in his hug.  He could feel the female form inside that pom pom dress in his hug.  He could feel her straight blonde tresses against the side of his head.  He could feel her arms covered by her long black sleeves wrapped around his torso.  He could even feel her sleek black skirt caressing him down below.  And he knew that her fishnets were up against his blue jeans.  And he saw the pom and dance woman lift her one leg backwards at the knee as women do in an affectionate hug from a boyfriend.  Then they drew apart.

            “We did it.  We just went and did it,” said the Elysian Girl.  She felt a tingling inside from all

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of this.

            “Oh!  What we just did,” he added in equal fervor.  He felt stirring thrills in his whole body.

            She went on to say, “There is one thing to do now that comes after a hug.”

            “Would it be a kiss, my lady?” asked Flanders.

            “Do we dare?” she asked.

            “Let us dare,” he said, caught up in the moment.

            He reached out his hands and put them upon the white material of the puffed sleeves upon her shoulders and pressed down upon them, and he fell into the spell of her smile, and he drew unto her. And their lips pressed against each other for a sweet magic of romance.  And they drew their faces back apart.  It did not take long.  It was but an instant.  But no moment like this had either of them ever discovered before.  For both of them, this was their first kiss.   And for both of them, they did it most consummately.

            Neither was able to think upon the words to say after what they had just done.

            The two said nothing for a long while.  Then Flanders asked her, “Was it good for you as it was for myself, Elysium?”

            “I never had fun like this before,” she said.

            “Are you glad for what we did just now?” he asked her.

            “Oh yeah.  I am.  I surely am,” she said.

            “Should we have gone and done all that?” he asked.

            “I don’t know,” she said.

            “I had fun doing it.  I am glad for having done it.  I’m not sure whether we should have done it,” he said.

            “We’ll have to do it again sometime,” she said.

            “Next time, if we dare,” he said.

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            “Next time,” she agreed, “if God does not mind.”

            He asked her, “Would you walk with me, my Elysium, in ‘Elysian Park?’”

            “That we can do,” she said.  And he proffered his right arm. And she took it in her left arm.  And the two lovers sauntered around Voyageur Park.  And they looked out onto the people in this park around them.

            A little boy saw them, and he asked them, “Are you two in love?”

            And Flanders said, “We are, young fellow.”

            Then a little girl came up to them, and she said, “I saw you two on the bench.  How come you did all that?”

            And Elysium—The Girl said, “Because we are in love.”

            The two lovers continued strolling around this park.  Then Flanders said to her, “It is written, O Elysium, ‘Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?’”

            “You’re saying that about me.  Aren’t you, Flanders?” she asked.

            “I am, O Elysium,” he said to her.

            “I am that beautiful?” she asked.

            “You are,” he said.

            “That’s Solomon talking to his wife,” she said in Bible wisdom.

            “And now this is me talking to my first love,” he said.

            “That’s from the Song of Solomon,” she said.

            “Chapter six verse ten,” he said.

            “Solomon’s Song of Songs,” she said.  “That is the love ode in the Scriptures.  Every verse is a romance verse.”

            “That verse was for me in my love for you, ‘Elysium’s verse,’” he confessed to this woman.

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            “You make me feel like I am that Shulamite wife,” she said.

            “You make me feel like Solomon,” he said to her.

            “It’s great Scripture,” she said.

            “It’s my favorite verse in that book,” he said to her.

            “I found my own favorite verse in that book the other day,” she said.  “It made me think about that sword fighter up north.  My love for you I could not deny to myself or to my griffins anymore.”         “Was it for you in your heart a kind of ‘Flanders’s verse?’” asked the swordsman.

            “It was.  Right away when I saw it,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “Which one is it?” he asked with bated breath.

            “My Song of Solomon 5:8, Flanders,” she said.

            He knew that verse well.  But he wanted to hear it spoken by his Elysium.  And he said, “Say it now to me if you would, my lady.”

            And she said it to hi:, “I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.”

            “Sick of love,” he said, understanding King James Bible English.

            “Sick with love,” she said in more contemporary English.

            “Lovesick,” he said in today’s words.

            “Head over heels,” she exclaimed.

            “Do you mean your verse to me, Elysium?” she asked.

            “I surely do,” she said.  “Do you mean your verse to me?”

            “I do.  I do,” he said.

            They drew near and rubbed noses in sweet novel affection.

            The two then waxed pensive, and they looked out onto the Fox River from the bottom of the big hill.  The river was wide and deep, and the opposite shore was a long way off.  Pelicans were coming

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up from the water with fish in their big deep bills.  Seagulls were hovering above the water, looking for fish for which to dive down and catch.  The river flowed by before the couple on the shores now from their left to their right.  This was a unique river in that it flowed north.  The Fox River flowed north from Lake Winnebago, and it went by here, and it emptied out into the Bay of Green Bay.  And the bay led directly to Lake Michigan.

            “The Nile River flows north, too,” said Flanders.

            “I was thinking the same thing,” she said.

            “I live in the north,” he said.

            “What is it like in Niagara?” she asked.

            “It is just the same as it is here,” he said.

            “Only a few counties separate your town from my town,” she said.

            “We do not live too far from each other in order to be boyfriend-and-girlfriend,” he said.

            “I could move to Niagara to be closer to you, Flanders,” she said.

            “Or I could move to De Pere to be closer to you,” he said.

            “Or we could both move to places in the middle,” she said.

            “We do have our pets that we love,” he said.

            “My griffins will be with me wherever I live,” she said.

            “And my unicorns will follow me wherever I move to,” he said.

            “Gryphon loves the country,” she said.

            “Equus loves the country, too.” he said.

            “I like the peacefulness of the country,” she said.

            “I like the openness of the country,” he said.

            “I’m a country lass at heart,” she said.

            “And I am a country kind of guy,” he said.

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            “We both could maybe move to places nearer to each other in between my De Pere and your Niagara,” said Elysium—The Girl, repeating her prior idea.

            “Somewhere where we can always be real close to each other,” he said.  “We must let God work it out for us.”

            “God can do anything,” she said.

            “Maybe even at one of those lakes up north, Elysium,” he said.

            “Or maybe one of those creeks up north,” she said to him.

            “We can live in the fields and in the woods,” he said.

            “You and I near,” she said.

            “You and I close,” he said.

            “One big family—you and I and ten unicorns and ten griffins,” she said.

            “That sounds like marriage,” he said.

            “Marriage,” she said.  “That it does,”

            “Do you believe in love at first sight?” he asked.

            “I do,” she said.

            “Do you believe in running away and living happily ever after?” he asked.

            “I do,” she said.

            “Do you believe that that is the Lord’s will?” he asked.

            “I do,” she said.

            “You do,” he said.

            She asked, “Flanders, do you believe in love at first sight?”

            “I do,” he said.

            She asked, “Do you believe in running away and living happily ever after?”

            “I do,” he said.

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            “Do you believe that that is God’s will for us?” she asked.

            “I do,” he said.

            “Someday long from now, Flanders?” she asked.

            “I would think so,” he said.

            “Someday not long from now?” she asked in reverie.

            “I do believe so,” he said to her.

            “Someday soon?” she asked him amorously.

            “Someday soon,” he said.

            “I could become Mrs. Elysium Nickels,” said the prospective fiancée.

            “Down the road, girl, when we find out everything about each other, then will be the time for us to get married,” he said.

            “Then will be the time,” she said.

            “Yes, milady,” he said.

            “Our time,” she said in equally pensive utterance.  He gave no denial.

            They came up to a picnic table now before the big river.

            She took her arm out of his, and she asked, “Would you accommodate a girlfriend on her first date?”

            “I would,” he said, not understanding her.  And she sat down upon a bench of the picnic table and looked up at him.  And he understood now.  And he sat down beside her on her bench.  He would accommodate his girlfriend now.

            And he put his arm around her waist as they sat there on the bench of the picnic table.

            He said, “And would you go and accommodate your boyfriend likewise on his first date, Elysium?”

            “I would,” she said most mutually.

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            And she put her around his waist where they sat together in like.

            Comfortable thus in cuddling next to each other, they leaned their sides against each other, held each other’s hips tight, and took in blissful togetherness in quiet.

            He said to her, “Your silver spangles do feel good on my hand.”

            “Think how good this dress feels for me all over, all covered up in it,” she said.

            “It must be wonderful to be a woman,” he said.

            “Women are pretty, and women dress pretty,” she said.

            “A guy like me would think to buy your dress for five hundred dollars just to keep it on a hanger in his closet,” he said to her.

            “I myself feel the same way,” she said.  “But that’s a lot of money to spend on a little pom pom dress.”

            “Half a grand,” he said.

            “I never had to pay that much for any of my clothes,” she said.

            “Did it cost you much,” he asked, “what you have on?”

            “God gave it to me,” she said.

            “God gave you your pom and dance dress?” he asked.

            “Uh huh,” she said.  “I did not have to pay for this,”  She lifted a black skirt edge in indication. “I got this free from my Good Lord.”

            “How did you get that little dress from God, girl?” he asked.

            “I will tell you someday on a later date,” she promised.

            “A dress like that must surely must have quite a tale behind it,” he said.

            “A good tale and a true tale,” she said.

            “It is almost as pretty as you are, Elysium, and you are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said.

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“I can see that I am to you the world’s most beautiful woman dressed in the world’s most

beautiful outfit,” she said.

            “Now I know why I fell head-over-heels in love with you!  Dream girl!” he exclaimed.

            “And saved, too,” she said.

            “A saved dream girl,” he emphasized.

            “What a lady!” she said, bragging on her self, not without self-effacement.

            “A veritable she-angel,” he said to her.

            “But what about you, Flanders?  Let me say something about you,” she said.

            “Do tell me,” he said.

            “What a guy!” she said.  “I love that overbite!”

            “My buck teeth!” he said.  “Do you like my buck teeth of all things?”

            “A gal like me loves to kiss overbites,” she said.

            “That’s a first time a woman ever said that for me,” he said.

            “And that real neat little goatee you have,” she said.  “It makes you look like a writer.”

            “Do all writers have goatees?” he asked.

            “No.  But all men who have goatees are writers,” she said.

            “I’m not a writer.  But that sounds like a good career to have,” he said.

            “Don’t ever go and shave it off,” she said.

            “I promise not to do that,” he said.

            She reached out her hand and did stroke his beard in affection.  “Was that all right with you what I did?” she asked.

            “It was, Elysium.  I never knew a woman before who liked her boyfriend to have facial hair.  Any other woman would want her boyfriend to shave it all off,” he said.

            “Not this lady,” she said.  “And the same goes with me for your mustache.”

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            “I promise never to shave off my mustache,” he said.  “And I promise to never shave off my beard.”

            “It will grow out longer and thicker,” she said.  “I will wait for those days.”

            “Someday my mustache will cover up my upper lip,” he said.

            “Why, then you will be able to eat your mustache,” she said.  Both laughed together heartily.

            “I think that when that happens, when my facial hair grows out as it will, that I will have a hard time eating ice cream cones and candy canes and French Toast with syrup,” he teased her.

            “”My my.  Men sure have their problems.” she said with a grin.

            “You women have it easy,” he said.  “You don’t have to worry about those kinds of things.”

            “We women have it hard, Flanders,” she said.  “Some of us women with real long hair have their own problems.”

            “What kinds of problems?” he asked.

            “Well, for one, Flanders, for a woman who has long hair–longer than mine even, I do say—that it can be hard for her to read a book at the table with her face looking down.  It seems that our own much hair gets between our eyes and our book.  It’s those long hairs on the sides of our heads that do this.” she told him.

            “It makes sense that bangs can’t do that,” he said to her.

            “And another thing,” she said.  “There are times when a woman like me with my long hair, puts a forkful or spoonful of food into my mouth, and, behold, my mouth also gets a strand or two of my own hair into it as well.”  She went on to say, “Then I have to try to find that hair in there and to pull it out of my mouth.”

            “I can see that women have their problems, too,” he said.

            “But I love my long hair,” she said.  “My long hair is one of the things I like the most about being a woman.  I will not give it up for the world.”

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            “I love your hair long almost as much as you do,” he said.  “Promise me that you will never cut it short.”

            “Oh, that I promise right away easily,” she said.

            “I never saw blonde hair look so good before,” he said.

            “Men go after blondes,” she said.

            “Not myself, Elysium, until you came along,” he confided to her.

            “What did the famous Flanders Nickels go after before he found his blonde pom pom girl?” she asked.

            “Redheads and brunettes and silver foxes,” he said.

            “I am definitely the exception to the rule,” she said.

            “Don’t ever change it,” he said.

            “I shall be blonde for the rest of my life, Flanders,” she said.

            “I love it just as it is,” he said.

            “Straight!” she bragged on her kind of hairstyle for herself.

            “Yes!  Yes!  Nice and straight,” he said.

            “But I need my bangs,” she said.

            “Aye!  I need your bangs, too,” he said to her.  He did not like it when women had their forehead showing on their faces.

            “My bangs are the most important part of my hair to me, Flanders,” she said.

            “Your bangs highlight your brown eyes,” he said.

            “They do?” she asked.

            “And your brown eyes highlight your bangs,” he said to her.

            “They do?” she asked.

            “They both do each other most completely,” he summed it all up.

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            “A woman likes it when her guy tells her that her features highlight her allure,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “I am not one for any blue-eyed girl,” he said.  “And black-eyed girls kind of catch my eye.  But only a brown-eyed girl can steal my heart lock, stock, and barrel.”

            “You and I are completely compatible, Flanders,” she said to him.

            “God has brought two lonesome compatible people together here in Voyageur Park,” he said.

            “Until death makes us part.  Or until the rapture takes us out of here.” she said.

            “You are resplendent on Earth, Elysium, and you will be celestial in Heaven,” he said.

            “You are my prince down here, and you will be my king up There,” she said.

            “You are become to me now this moment, ‘What God Wrought,’” he declared in vows of love.

            “You mean ‘What God Wrought,’ as in an official title, Flanders,” she asked, “as in that I am what God wrought?”

            “I can think of none better,” he said.

            “I’ve got a title to give you now, Flanders,” she said in affection.

            “What is my new title?” he asked.

            “For me you are ‘What God Gave,’” she confided in him in passions.

            “You mean ‘What God Gave’ as in what He gave you in me?” asked Flanders.

            “Very much so,” she said in reverie.  She leaned toward him and they rested their foreheads against each other in raptures.  He felt her blonde bangs on his head, and she felt his brown bangs on her head.

            “Elysium,” he said.

            “Yes, Flanders?” she asked.

            “Let’s plan on a rendezvous,” he said.

            “A rendezvous would make me very happy,” she said.

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CHAPTER XI

            The unicorn keeper and the griffin keeper had their rendezvous the very next day.  He was still in town.  And they were walking together on County Trunk PP in the countryside of the land south of east De Pere on their way to her place.  They had spent the whole night in Bible study and prayer meeting together at Voyageur Park unto this morning.  She at once said, “I am so thankful that I can show my new boyfriend my house on our second day already.”

            “I bet it is a mansion, yourself the most famous woman of Christianity,” he said.

            “And I can show you the house of my griffins, too,” she said.

            “I bet that that is an even bigger mansion,” he said.

            “Oh, it is,” she said.  “There are ten of them and only one of me.”

            “And do I get to meet the lady archer’s griffins today, too?” he asked.

            “Oh yes,” she said.  “The honor will be mine.”

            “And mine, too,” he said.

            “And theirs, Flanders,” she said.

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            “What can a man say to ten such noble and regal griffins as those?” he asked.

            “I would bet, Flanders, that they are wondering what they can say to the great and mighty sword

fighter,” she said.

            “Huh!  I am nervous with them, and they are nervous with me,” said Flanders, quite comforted.

            “They like you and look up to you,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “And I like them, and I look up to them,” said Flanders Nickels in sincerity.

            “And they are all eager to become your friends, Flanders,” said Elysium.

            “I cannot wait to become their friend,” said Flanders.

            “I would like to meet your unicorns sometime, Flanders,” said the pom and dance girl.

            “We can make that our next date,” he said.

            “Yea!  I’d like that!” she said.

            “My unicorns never saw me bring home a girl before,” he said.

            “Well now they have to get used to their master bringing home a woman quite regularly,” said the pom pom gal in flirt.

            He did say, “And the griffin keeper is bringing home a man.”

            “Aye, boyfriend.  She is,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “Look at that big red brick house!” he said. pointing to the next house down the road. “That is the biggest house surely of all De Pere!”

            “That’s my house,” she said in happy pride.

            “What a house!” he exclaimed.  “It has to be bigger even than the governor’s mansion.”

            “Do come into my happy home,” she said.

            He stood there upon the road, gazing upon this house:  It consisted of five red brick towers, side by side, upon a courtyard of red brick, and with driveways of red brick.  The middle tower was five stories tall and one room wide.  The towers to the left and to the right of the middle tower were four

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stories high, and one room wide.  And the towers all the way to the left and all the way to the right were three stories tall and one room wide.  And a span of ten feet separated tower from tower from the first tower unto the fifth tower.  She spoke, saying, “Flanders, the first tower is my library.  The second tower is my Bible study tower.  The third tower is my living quarters.  The fourth tower is my prayer tower.  And the fifth tower is my museum.”

            “That’s a lot of towers,” he said.

            “Is the great Flanders Nickels impressed?” asked Elysium—The Girl.

            “That’s a lot of house,” he said. “And I am impressed.”

            “Do you like it?” she asked.

            “I like it,” he said to her in awe.  “A lot.”

            “Come on in, Boyfriend,” she said.  And he followed the pom pom girl through her front yard of Christmas trees.

            And they stood before the middle tower.  At its base, he looked up to its top.  And he said, “A guy can get dizzy looking up there from down here.”

            “Just imagine looking down here from up there,” she said.  “I get to do that all the time when I’m at home here.”

            “Do you get dizzy when you do that?” he asked.

            “No,” she said.  “I like heights.”

            “I like heights, too,” he said.  “I like to look down to the ground from way high up.”  Then he said,  “But yet I don’t like looking up at high things from way down on the ground.”

            “Most unusual,” she said.

            “That’s why I hated playing volleyball in the grade school gymnasium,” he said.

            “I could never get the ball over the net when it was my turn to serve,” she said.

            “I could just barely,” he said.

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            Then they turned and went into the first tower.  Behold, little bookcases two feet wide and four feet tall upon a floor of yellow bricks.  “Do you like my bookshelves, Flanders?” she asked.

            “I do.  There are lots of them,” he said.

            “Do look at them a little closer,” she said.  “And tell me if they aren’t the wildest things you have ever seen,” she said.

            He came up to the nearest one, and his eyes opened wide.  He said, “Elysium, these books are all just thrown in, and the bookcases have no shelves!”

            “Au contraire, Flanders,” she said.  “None of these bookcases’ books are just thrown in.  They are all neatly organized.  The Dewey Decimal system for non-fiction, and alphabetical order by authors’ name for fiction.”

            “Each book is resting horizontally and not vertically,” he said.  “And they are stacked vertically and not horizontally.”

            “Uh huh,” she said.  “Neat, ‘ain’t’ it?”

            “One book on top of another flatly from the bottom of the shelves to the top of the shelves,” he said.  “It is neat, Elysium.  I never heard of such a thing in any library.”

            “It was my idea,” she said.  “All three rooms are just like this first room in this tower,” she said.

            After showing him her first tower, she then showed him her second tower.  “This is my Bible study tower,” she said.

            “I never heard of a whole private building in which to study the Holy Bible,” he said.

            “But God’s Word deserves it,” she said.

            “It does,” he said.  “The Holy Bible is the Good Book.”

            In the four stories of this Bible reading building were four rooms with four different Bible study sites.  One was a heavy roll-top desk of Red Maple.  One was a grade school desk with a lid that opened upward.  One was a desk with a little table on top and a wire basket underneath.  One was a

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desk with a top that rose up at a forty-five degree angle.

            “You do get around with your Bible-readings, Elysium,” he said in great approval.

            “I like variety when it comes to where I study my Bible,” she said.

            “A whole building full of Bible-study sites,” he said.  “The King James Bible is worth it.”

            “It surely is,“she said.  Then she said, “And now the biggest tower of my mansion.”

            “Where you live,” he said.

            “My living quarters,” she said.

            “It looks like it has five rooms,” he said.

            “That it does,” she said.  And she showed him her central tower of the five towers.  In here were all the comforts of a most fine home with hardwood floors of different woods, paneling on all of the walls, big windows that let in much daylight, fireplaces galore, photographs of her ten griffins on the walls, Bible verse posters on the walls, and many bales of hay scattered randomly about.

            “What are the bales of straw for?” asked Flanders.

            And she said, “Those are for my griffins when they want to be with me in my house,” she said.

“They perch upon the bales, and we chat.”

            “It looks like the one in your bedroom is the biggest,” said Flanders.

            “That one is just for my Gryphon,” she said.

            “He’s your favorite,” said Flanders.

            “He’s the only one whom I allow into my bedroom among the ten,” she said.

            “How come?” asked Flanders.

            “When I go to bed for the night, I take off my pom and dance uniform, and I put on my robe.  At that time and in that room is the only time that I am not wearing my pom pom girl uniform.  And I don’t want anybody to see me when I m in something other than my pom pom dress.  Only Gryphon has ever seen me like that.”  She then said, “When Gryphon and I turn in for the night in my bedroom, I

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turn off all of the lights for the night, and we talk until midnight, then I go to sleep in my bed, and he goes to sleep on his special hay bale.”

            Next Flanders said, “Let’s see your fourth tower, Elysium.  I believe that you call that your prayer tower.”

            “Yes.  Where I pray morning and noon and night.” she said.

            “It looks like here again you have four rooms in this fourth tower,” he said.

            “For sure,” she said.  “My special four prayer-rooms.”

            “Whoever heard of having a whole building in which to pray?” he asked.

            And she showed him her prayer sites of this four-story tower.  One was a braided elliptic rug on a bare hardwood floor.  One was a queen-sized bed full of stuffed animals.  One was a sectional sofa full of cushions and pillows.  One was a floor of red shag carpet just before a fireplace.

            When she was done showing him her four different prayer sites of her prayer building, he said to her, “Now all of those places are great places in which a believer may pray.”

            “I love to pray most of all of my means of worship,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “I like prayer the most, too,” said Flanders. “Both alone with God and with other believers with God.”

            “Lots of times I have folk from church who come here, and we pray in this tower together in great prayer meetings,” she said.

            “There is nothing like a prayer circle to make one’s prayers really reach up to Heaven,” said Flanders.

            “God is in this building,” said the griffin keeper.

            “We could pray together here in our own prayer meeting lots, Elysium,” he said.

            “Just as my ten griffins and I do in here, Flanders!” she exclaimed.

            “We all twelve could pray in our own prayer circle here,” said Flanders.

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            “Yeah!  Yeah!” said the Elysian Girl.  “Amen to that, Flanders!”

            Next she showed him her fifth tower, and she said, “This is my museum, Flanders.”

            “It looks like it has three rooms,” he said of this three-story tower.

            “One story for each room,” she said.

            And she showed him her last building of her mansion.  In these three floors she had rooms whose walls were full of displays of timelines for the Bible.  These timelines displayed years B.C. and years A.D. for all Bible matters.  There were timelines about the sixty-six books of the Bible.  There were timelines for the great men and women of the Bible.  There were timelines for the great stories of the Bible.  There were timelines for the history of the Jewish nation from the birth of Abraham to the present time.  There were timelines for the history of the Gentile nations—including the Egyptian empire and the Assyrian empire and the Babylonian empire and the Medo-Persian empire and the Greek Empire and the Roman Empire.  And there were timelines for the dispensation of the church age through its seven ages—the time of the church of Ephesus and the time of the church of Smyrna and the time of the church of Pergamos and the time of the church of Thyatira and the time of the church of

Sardis and the time of the church of Philadelphia and the time of the church of Laodicea.  The church had begun on the Day of Pentecost, and it would end in the imminent rapture.  And on the roof of this tower there were displays of eschatology—that is the prophecies in the book of Revelation about matters that would take place on Heaven and Earth after the rapture of the saints.

            When she was done showing Flanders her most scholarly museum, he said to her, “I know more about the Bible now than I did before I came here.  Now that I know what years what things in the Bible happened, I have a greater understanding of Scripture.  Great is your wisdom of the Holy Bible, Elysium.”  There was truly no other museum anywhere quite like the griffin keeper’s museum here in her fifth tower of her five.

            “Did you like the roof, Flanders?” she asked.

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            “Yeah.  I did,” he said.  “That was my favorite.”

            “All of these good things that happen to the saved, who get raptured.  And all of those bad things that happen to the unsaved, who do not get raptured,” she said.

            “It is good for us that we are both saved now before the Lord takes up the church to Heaven,” said Flanders.

            “Those who don’t get saved till after the rapture will have to go through Earth’s darkest hour,” she said.

            “The tribulation, as I saw it on your displays,” he said to her.

            “Praise God that we two believers will not have to go through any of that, Flanders,” she said.

            The tour of the house of the griffin keeper all done, Flanders asked, “Could we see the home of your griffins now, Elysium?”

            “Now would be a great time,” she said.

            “Oh.  I must not barge in like that,” he said.

            “They know you’re coming,” she said.

            “Are they ready for company from a stranger?” asked Flanders.

            “You are a stranger to none in the world, Flanders,” she said.  “All the world knows you.  And my griffins look forward to meeting you for their first time.”

            “They are true glories to our Creator,” said Flanders.

            “Let me go and introduce you to my griffins; and my griffins, to you,” said the griffin keeper.

            And she led him to the back of her vast countryside land and there stood an edifice as large as that of her home.  Flanders could tell that this was her griffins’ home.  It was a big red barn a good one hundred feet high and one hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide.

            “What a barn!  I do say so myself,” said Flanders.

            “It is home to my Gryphon and his fellow griffins,” said the griffin keeper.

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            Flanders heard no sounds coming from this big red barn.  He wondered.  Then he asked, “Is anyone home in there, Elysium?”

            “Sir, we are over here,” said a griffin voice behind him.

            He turned around.  There stood the ten biggest griffins he had ever seen.  He saw one of them standing beside Elysium, his neck in the right arm of the pom and dance girl.

            This griffin in the arm of his mistress, said to Flanders, “It is I who had spoken, O Flanders Nickels.”

            Tentative, Flanders asked, “Are you Gryphon, O great griffin?”

            “I am Gryphon,” said this griffin.  “You must be the sword fighter with whom my mistress has fallen in love.

            “I am he,” said Flanders Nickels.

            “I am honored to meet you,, O Flanders,” said Gryphon.  “You are a formidable dragon slayer for Christ.  My mistress has chosen most wisely in selecting a man companion in you for herself.”

            “I am honored to meet you, Gryphon,” said Flanders Nickels.  “You are a loyal and faithful best friend to the pom and dance girl for Christ.”

            “I do defer to your favor,” said Gryphon, bowing his aquiline head in humbleness.

            “Do I have the approval of the world’s greatest griffin for the heart of the griffin mistress?” asked Flanders.

            “I bestow approval and blessings and thanksgivings upon you, O great and mighty Flanders, for your love for my mistress,” said Gryphon.  And he raised his eagle head again in amity.

            And Flanders and Gryphon extended forelimbs for a handshake:  Flanders, his right hand; Gryphon, his right eagle claws.  And mighty sword fighter and mighty griffin shook hands in true Christlike friendship.

            Flanders then looked upon the other nine majestic griffins.  And a moment of silence and

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awe passed from the griffins to the man and from the man to the griffins.

            And the griffin keeper stepped in to speak in this while of great wonder and marvel.  And she said,  “Flanders, you and Gryphon know each other now.  Allow me to introduce the rest of my griffins to you.”  She turned to her nine other griffins.  They understood.  They were to present themselves.

            First came up a griffin that looked truly like a griffin “soldier of soldiers.”  And he said to Flanders, “Mighty dragon slayer, my name is ‘Seven,’  You and I fight the world’s biggest beasts for the cause of Christ. You are the best at it among sword fighters.  And you are the best at it among mankind.

And the Dragon of Dragons himself wants to contend against you.  If he dare defy the wrath of Almighty God.”

            Flanders replied to him, “Almighty Seven, if I be the best among men at slaying dragons, you must surely be the best among griffins at slaying dragons.  You fear not any demon.  You fear not even the Devil himself.  In you I see the complete soldier.”  And they shook hand-and-claw in new friendship.

            Second came up a griffin holding a golden chain in his eagle talons.  He said to Flanders, “Fellow dragon slayer, my name is ‘Street Of Gold.’  Allow me to give you a gift of gold I found in a dragon den. Your prowess against the dragons of the world exceeds even my prowess at finding gold.  And your love for my mistress exceeds even my love for gold.  Accept my gift and become my friend.”

            Flanders reached out and accepted this chain of gold, and he said, “Thank you for this gift of gold, O Street Of Gold.  Gold was one of the gifts of the Magi to the Christ child.  That gold given to the baby Jesus symbolized His future as a king—the King of the Jews.  And your love for your mistress is like unto gold—precious, bright, and gilded.”  And Flanders and Street Of Gold shook hand-in-talons in true friendship.

            Next came up another griffin, and as he stepped up to greet Flanders, God caused a rainbow to form just then across the skies.  This griffin said, “Noble and brave Christian warrior, my name is

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‘Bow.’  And I like colors.  I have helped slay green dragons, black dragons, gray dragons, brown dragons, sorrel dragons.  As for the Dragon of Dragons—the red dragon—praise God I have never seen him. I pray you, also, never see the dread red dragon.  Such a dragon is meant only for the Lord Jesus to take on in battle.”

            Flanders returned greeting, “Thank you for the sage counsel, O Bow.  I will keep that in mind.  I love the white of your mistress’s skin.  I love the brown of your mistress’s hair and your mistress’s eyes.  I love the black and white and silver of your mistress’s pom and dance dress.  I love all of the colors that your mistress makes me feel inside when I am with her.  I like colors, too, as you do.”  After this greeting they shook talons-and-hands.

            Then another griffin approached Flanders, and this one said, “Good swordsman, my name is ‘Covenant.’  And ‘Covenant’ means ‘promise.’  And God says in His Word, ‘For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.’  II Corinthians 1:20.  God’s greatest promise is to give eternal life to all who call upon Him for salvation.  I make a covenant with you this day to be your friend as I am my keeper’s friend.”

            Flanders greeted this griffin back, saying, “Good Covenant, I reciprocate your promise.  I, in like, will be your friend as I am my own unicorns’ friend.  I will take time with you as I take time with my unicorns.  And I will be with you as I am with your mistress.  Only in romance will my love for fair and comely Elysium differ from my love for you.”  After introducing themselves thus to each other the griffin and the man shook hands.

            Next came a griffin with a wise and learned face.  He said to Flanders, “O man of God, my name is ‘Testament,’ and I see in you a fellow student of the Bible.  Your knowledge of the Scriptures is truly that of fundamental Baptist evangelists.  I feel that I could learn the secrets of Scripture from you.  And maybe you could learn secrets of Scripture from me.  But I know in you that your savvy for dragon-slaying exceeds even your savvy for the Bible.  Many of your battle strategies have been

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required reading in military academies among this world full of dragons to fight.  I look forward to fighting at your side as I have my keeper’s side.”

            And Flanders greeted this griffin, saying, “Oh Testament, so full of praise.  Those battle tactics came not from my mind, but rather from the Lord.  In this battle against this dragon and in that battle against that dragon, I call upon the Holy Spirit to tell me what to do next, and he tells me in answered prayer with His still small voice, and I do it, and I win the battle.  To God be the glory for all of my dragons that I have slain.  I make Jesus my Commanding Officer.  I am but His soldier.  And with you at my side, O courageous Testament, God can use us together to fight our Lord’s battles.”  Griffin and man shook hands in new friendship.

            Next a young griffin approached him, and he said to him, “Sir, I am Six Days, and I am called of God to help slay the angels who rebelled against God.  These days we know them as dragons.  I know the six days of the creation of the Heaven and the Earth.  But I know not the day of the creation of angels.  Nor do I know the day of Lucifer’s fall and when one-third of the angels became fallen angels with him.  But I know that Jesus will come and cast the Dragon of Dragons himself into the lake of fire for eternal doom.  Until that day, men and woman and griffins and unicorns of God are called of God to slay such dragons of the Devil.  And I will continue doing that.  I see in you a soldier-of-the-Lord like myself.  We are comrades.  Could we also be friends?”

            Flanders Nickels said at once, “O Six Days, we can be not only friends, but also brothers-in-Christ.  I love the true story of the Garden of Eden.  And I look forward to asking you questions about that earliest time on Earth that we Christians call ‘the dispensation of innocence.’  You know things about that first dispensation that you can tell me about.  That was our planet Earth before sin came within it.  Back then Lucifer was the serpent in the garden.  Nowadays he is the Dragon of Dragons.

And to think that he was once God’s most beautiful and wise of angels.  Pride led to his fall.”  They

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reached out and grabbed hands and shook in alliance and in friendship.

            Next an Adonis of a griffin stepped up before Flanders.  He was so tawny, so aquiline, so leonine.  He was truly “a griffin of griffins.”  And this griffin said, “Comrade, my name is ‘Tawny,’ and I am tawny.  From the top of my head to the bottom of my tail I am perfect griffin tawny.  Wherein my mistress used to say that I was the most handsome one she had in her life, now she says that you are the most handsome one she has in her life.  And I submit to your persuasion over her.  And I submit to your eminence above my own.  And I submit to your friendship if you would have it.”

            “I would have it, and I do have it, O Tawny,” said Flanders.  “Allow a simple fellow the honor to say, ‘You are the most handsome one in your mistress’s life.  Not I.’  I am just a guy who loves Christ.  And I am the lucky gentleman who has found his lady in your mistress. What she sees in me is beyond my understanding.  But what I see in her is most understandable.   Who could not fall for the world’s most beautiful woman?”  After this greeting thus, griffin and fellow shook hands in friendship.

            Next came a griffin who was lots eagle and not so lots lion.  He said to Flanders, “Man of prayer, my name is ‘Aquilinae.’  As you can see, most of me is eagle.  And we both know that the American Bald Eagle is an endangered species.  And we both know that prayer is an endangered worship in America and in the rest of this world.  You and I are champions for the right to pray.  We take on dragons and slay them so that people may pray without persecution.  We fight so that America may pray to our Heavenly Father.”

            Flanders said to this aquiline griffin, “Most venerable Aquilinae, your eagle eyes can see dragons ten miles away.  Your eagle mouth speaks discernment and wisdom.  Your eagle wings take you fearlessly into battles.  And I pray your eagle talons to be eager for shaking the hand of a man who sees in you a symbol of our God-given right and commandment to pray.”  Having said this, Flanders shook the proffered hand of Aquilinae in good friendship.

            Last came a griffin who was much lion and little eagle.  And he said to Flanders, “Mighty

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man with the sword, my name is ‘Felis Leo.’  And I pride myself in my leonine dominance of form.  In Amos 3:8 it is written, ‘The lion hath roared, who will not fear?  The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?’  In those days the Word of God went out by prophets.  These days we have the Bible.  Even our Christ is called ‘the Lion of the tribe of Juda.’   My fellow griffins tell me that my eagle voice even makes a roar like unto lions when I contend against dragons.  Whether that be true, it is not mine to say.”

            Flanders went on to say, “Mighty Felis Leo, is not the lion called ‘the king of the beasts?’ Mankind does not call the tiger ‘the king of the beasts.’  Mankind does not call the bear ‘the king of the beasts.’  In The Chronicles of Narnia the Christian author C.S. Lewis has a lion named ‘Aslan,’ as an allegorical Jesus Christ.  Aslan was the enemy to the false god Tash, an allegorical false Muslim god Allah.  In like you are an enemy of the Devil and his dragons he sends out.  You stand for truth.  And the dragons stand for falsehood.  Christ is Lord.  The Dragon of Dragons is Satan.  You fight for Jesus.

The dragons fight for the Devil.  With God, we are on the winning side.”  And with this final introduction with this final griffin, Flanders and this griffin shook hands in budding friendship.

            A moment passed, then the pom pom girl said, “Beloved griffins, now you have met my beloved Flanders.  And beloved Flanders, now you have met my beloved griffins.”

            “God bless you, O Flanders Nickels of Niagara,” said the ten griffins.

            “God bless you, O griffins of De Pere,” said Flanders Nickels.

            A moment of thought passed.  Then Gryphon whispered into his mistress’s ear.  And she said, “Oh yeah.  Flanders, would you like to see the inside of my griffins’ big red barn now?”

            “I am so curious,” said Flanders.  And he turned to the big red wooden edifice.

            The griffin keeper said, “It has only one story, but that one story is ten stories tall.  And it has a basement which belongs to me—that is my armory.   And it has an attic on the top just below the

rafters.”

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            “Do come in and see our humble home, O Flanders,” said Gryphon.

            “You’ve just got to see the basement first,” said the archer. “That’s my supply room.”

            “”I’ve got to see that, O Elysium,” agreed Flanders in curiosity.

            And Gryphon led the way for the whole bunch.  Flanders lined up behind Gryphon, and the mistress and her other griffins lined up behind Flanders.  “The basement goes down far, Flanders,” said Gryphon, standing before a big red barn door that slid sideways on a pulley across an overhead rail.

            “The barn door looks heavy,” said Flanders.

            “Ten feet wide by ten feet high, Flanders,” said Gryphon. “It is not heavy for us griffins.”

            Elysium—The Girl said, “But heavy for the keeper.”

            Gryphon put his eagle talons to the side of this barn door and slid it open.  Behold, an anteroom with three other doors, one to the left, one to the right, one at the far wall.  These doors were just like the front door.

            The griffin keeper said, “The way down to the basement is the side doors.  The way into the griffins’ quarters is this door right in front of us.”

            And Gryphon pulled open both side doors for the group.  And they filed out of this anteroom left and right.  And here was a wooden staircase very wide and very basic, with just a frame of a steps.  The simple wooden steps were about ten feet wide.  And each step was only a part of an inch deep.  And it circled and descended in a spiral around the whole perimeter of this big red barn underground.

Flanders felt unsure on these steps.  Elysium exuded confidence in these steps.  And the griffins by their weight made the wooden steps to bow in their middle as the griffins stepped down upon them.

Round and round Flanders went in a wide spiral of descent, his hands holding on to the railing next to the walls, the railing on the right side of this staircase.  He would not go over to the railing on the other side of the stairs and lean on that out in the open, the railing on the left side of the staircase.  The ceiling of the basement, the floor of the big red barn gradually became farther and farther away as

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Flanders descended deeper into the Earth.  And for light this staircase had wall lamps of fifty-watt light bulbs in metal lamp covers whose light shone back upon the exterior walls of this subterranean staircase.  It was spooky for Flanders, but he was more fascinated than he was nervous.  And soon he let go of the right railing and went over to the left railing.  On this side he could see this whole vast open space of this staircase room in its equal dimensions to the big red barn above ground.  They were descending thus for quite a while.  Then they came to its end.  And there was another anteroom.  This was an open anteroom.  It served as the base of the staircase.  Flanders stepped off of the last step.  And he looked around.  “Where are we now in relation to this griffin house?”

            And the griffin keeper said, “We are one hundred feet down now, and we are still in the front of everything, like we were when we first started.”

            Before Flanders was a double door of dark wood, each with a latch that needed to be pressed down to open.  “This must be it,” said Flanders Nickels.

            Then the pom pom woman took him by the hand and said, “Do come in and see my supply room as the lady archer, O Boyfriend.”

            And Gryphon went ahead to open these double doors toward himself.   Behold a room with brightness suddenly coming upon them.  Flanders had to blink his eyes to get accustomed to the much light in this armory of his girlfriend.

            Down in here was a most ornate and methodical supply of artillery for any archer.  Truly this supply house of his lady archer was like unto a supply house for a whole battalion of archers there was so much in here.  Such aesthetic displays of “merchandise” Flanders had never seen in any store.

            “Not everyone I meet gets to come down here, boyfriend,” said his dear lady archer.

            “I am glad that I get to be one of them this day, O Elysium,” he said to her.

            “Do look around and see,” she said. “And if you want to touch anything down here, then do go ahead and touch it.  I give you carte blanche down here in my supply room, Flanders.”

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            “I won’t touch a thing,” he said.  “I’ll just look.”

            And he looked. Here he saw three departments—the arrow department and the bow department and the quiver department.

            The arrow department consisted of two sections—the wooden arrows and the non-wooden arrows.  Both arrow sections stored the many loose arrows in wooden kegs with no covers, the kegs each about one foot in diameter and two feet tall.  There were thirty kegs of arrows on the floor in the wooden arrow section, and there were forty kegs of arrows on the floor in the non-wooden arrow section.  And there were official labels professionally printed that were taped upon each of these casks, telling what kind of arrows were in each cask of arrows.  In the wooden arrow section, there were barrels of arrows made of cedar and arrows made of pine and arrows made of spruce.  And in the non-wooden arrow section, there were barrels of arrows made of aluminum and arrows made of carbon and arrows made of aluminum-carbon, and arrows made of fiberglass.  Hence seventy barrels all full of loose arrows here in the arrow department of the lady archer’s armor, organized most meticulously.

            The bow department was a repository for all kinds of bows that Flanders never knew about but which the lady archer knew all about.  Here the bows were stored on individual wooden tables about waist high and wide enough and long enough to fit one bow each upon its tabletop.  Of course there were many such tables of bows spread out in this department.  And the display tables were arranged in concentric rings of tables like unto the pattern of an archery target, but without the colors.  The rings of tables numbered five, one ring of tables for each of the five types of bows that the lady archer had in this armory.  Signs fastened to the ceilings with little chains like unto aisle signs in grocery stores, the archery champion thereby designated which types of bows each ring of tables had.  The front sign read, “Re-curve bows.”  This was the outer circle.  The next sign, behind the front sign, read, “Longbows.”  This was the next circle within.  The next sign, the third in order, read, “”Bare bows.”  This was the third circle going to the center.  The fourth sign read, “Flat-bows.”  This was for the fourth circle.  And

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the fifth sign in this succession read, “Compound bows.”  And that was for the middle circle of display tables.  This bow department took the most space of this supply room of the lady archer.

            Last came the quiver department.  Here were all manner of back quivers, with long straps and strong sturdy repositories.  In this department, the quivers were all stored on four racks with strong metal hangers with thick hooks on top and with thick metal shafts open on one side underneath.  Each rack had about a dozen different quivers, the straps to the quivers held up by the open iron prongs of their hangers.  Upon the flat surface above each of these four racks was a metal sign with a flat base and a stem and a framework within which was a paper sign designating the types of quivers that that rack had on display.  One rack had a sign that read, “leather quivers.”  One rack had a sign that read, “wood quivers.”  One rack had a sign that read, “fur quivers.”  And one rack had a sign that read, “carbon quivers.”

            He must have lost track of time with his looking around.  And he heard his lady archer say to him, “Do you like it—my archery armory, Flanders?”

            And he remembered his companions down here with him.  He said, “What stuff, O Elysium.  Neat—all of this.”

            Gryphon then asked her, “Mistress, can it be our griffins’ turn now with Flanders?”

            “Let’s go see the barn, Flanders,” she said, agreeing with her griffin.

            And Gryphon and his nine fellow griffins led the way back up the many winding stairs back up to the ground level once again, Flanders and the griffin keeper following along in the back.

            Gryphon said, “Flanders, I hope you like it.”

            “I surely shall, Gryphon,” said Flanders.  “The home of you ten griffins must truly be a wonder to behold.”

            And Gryphon said, “Come on in, O Flanders, and make yourself at home.” Flanders followed this chief griffin into the big red barn.  He found himself in a wide and broad room with a ceiling a

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good hundred feet above his head and with a width of ten feet and with a length of one hundred feet. This tremendous height of this room made its width and length seem shorter.  Along these walls on all four sides and above his head were platforms like unto floors of rooms with no ceiling and no walls. These were sturdy perches like unto individual rooms.  And upon each attachment were different things for domestic purposes.  Gryphon spoke and said, “On that platform I read my Bible.  On this platform I do my prayers.  Upon that platform I go to sleep.  Upon this platform I eat and drink.  And with that platform I store my books.   And with this platform I talk to my mistress.”

            “Is this your apartment, Gryphon?” asked Flanders in utter fascination as he looked up.

            “Yes, O Flanders,” said Gryphon.  “All of us griffins have apartments in this big red barn just like this.”

            “You must fly to get from ‘room to room,’” said Flanders.

            “We griffins do indeed,” said Gryphon.

            “What a place you have here—all ten of you,” said Flanders.  “It is perfect for a griffin like you.”

            “It is my home,” said Gryphon.

            “So big and so high,” said Flanders.

            And the nine other griffins at once all desired that they could show Flanders their apartments as well. and Flanders gladly acceded.  And he discovered with wonder the other griffins’ rooms, the same, but different.

            And after this, Flanders said, “Now I have seen where the griffins of the griffin keeper live their lives at home with my new girlfriend.”

            “You haven’t seen the attic yet, Flanders,” said Gryphon.

            “Where is that?  How do I get there?” he asked.  The ten griffins looked up at the ceiling.  “One must fly there,” he conjectured.   The griffins nodded.  And Gryphon lifted him up to the ceiling of the

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large red wooden barn and set the curious man upon the attic floor of this griffin mansion.  Up here it was hot and dusty and bright with many windows.  And bare rafters were on the ceiling.  And there was empty barrenness to it. This top floor to the home of the famous griffins Flanders at first did not like.

            But then Gryphon said, “Up here in this attic, Flanders, we griffins tell our secrets to one

another.”

            And Flanders instantly liked this bare attic.

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CHAPTER XII

            Flanders and Equus were alone together on a flight above Niagara, not far from home.  “Oh, Master, do look down and see the escarpment,” said his faithful and true unicorn.

            “I do see it,” said Flanders.  “From way up here, it does not look so big.”

            “When we stand before it, we have to tilt our heads to look up at its top,” Equus said.

            “Such high solid wall of rock,” said Flanders.

            “With the roaring river at its bottom right in front,” said Equus.

            “The Menominee River,” said Flanders.

            “Master, could we come down and take a closer look at it?” asked the chief unicorn.

            “Let’s do that,” said the unicorn keeper.

            “Hold on tight, Master,” said Equus.  “We shall go down real fast.”  Flanders wrapped his arms around the he-unicorn’s neck and did put his chin upon the back of the he-unicorn’s head.

            And at once Equus zoomed down toward the river below, the Niagara escarpment all along their side, up and down and back and forth.  Then just before he reached the river, he spread his wings outward and came to a jarring stop just above the waters.  And the winged unicorn hovered.

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            “Everything okay up there?” asked Equus, turning to look upon his back.

            “This is like riding a city bus on a bumpy road,” said Flanders.

            “Hopefully you did not fall off,” said the clever unicorn.

            “If I had fallen off, would I be not be fallen into the river?” asked Flanders in tease.

            “Or dashed against the rocks,” the unicorn teased right back.

            “Very funny,” said Flanders.  “You’d like that.” Both laughed.

            “Oh, do look at the rocks, Master,” said Equus.  The two hovering above the Menominee River, they both gazed upon the great wall long and wide immediately upon the shore of the roaring waters.

            “God made this,” said Flanders.

            “And this great river,” said the wise unicorn.

            “This Niagara escarpment was around since creation,” said Flanders.

            “Our fine city Niagara has been around since 1900,” said Equus.

            “Our Niagara is one hundred twenty-five years old,” said Flanders.

            “Master, they call that the ‘quasquicentennial,’” said Equus.

            “The quasquicentennial?” asked the unicorn keeper.

            “Our one-hundred twenty-fifth birthday of our town,” said wise Equus.

            “What a word, Equus,” said Flanders Nickels in wonder.

            “”It has six syllables,” said the chief unicorn.  Then he asked, “How many people, do you think, live in our town so close to home?”

            “The last I heard, Niagara’s population was about one thousand six hundred,” said the unicorn keeper.

            “The big paper mill is practically the whole economy of our whole city, Master,” said Equus.  “It has changed owners a few times.”

            “The river runs right through through the mill,” said Flanders.

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            “I see lots right where that is,” said the pet unicorn.  “It flows down a hill with a roaring of rapids.”

            “Equus, I want to go to the top now,” said the unicorn keeper.

            “I am ever at your service, Master.  To the top we shall go,” said Equus.  And they lifted back up into the air and lighted upon the top of the massive escarpment, and the man dismounted.  And they looked way down at the river below from way up here at the edge.

            “I pray you don’t fall, Master,” said Equus.

            “If I fall, will you catch me?” asked the master.

            “If you fall, I will surely catch you,” said the winged unicorn.

            “I shall be okay then,” said Flanders, rightfully confident in Equus.  And they continued looking down the escarpment, from its peak, upon the Menominee River.

            Equus then spoke, “I look forward to meeting your girlfriend, O Master.”

            “I am so excited to have you meet her,” said the unicorn keeper.  “And I am so excited for her to meet you.”

            “Ah, girlfriend and best friend first meet and become acquainted with each other,” summed up Equus how it was going to be in the eyes of his master.

            “And the others,” said Flanders about his other nine unicorns.  “I know that they are excited to meet my Elysium, too.  And I know that she is excited to meet them, too.”

            “What a grand way to spend a date with the woman,” said the loyal unicorn.

            “Yes.  Already my third date with the girl,” said Flanders.

            “Just think.  I get to see Elysium—The Girl and talk to her and hear her talk to me,” said Equus.

            “She has a resonant husky voice,” said Flanders in reverie.

            “She’s beautiful, Master,” said the unicorn confidant.

            “And that’s coming from a unicorn,” said Flanders.

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            “Uh huh,” said Equus with a nod of his unicorn head and unicorn horn.

            “High praise indeed from the world’s foremost unicorn,” said Flanders Nickels.

            “Were you nervous when the girl introduced you to her griffins?” asked the equine confidant.

            “Maybe a little,” he said.

            “Will you be nervous when you introduce the girl to us unicorns?” asked Equus.

            “Maybe a little,” he said.

            “I’m not,” said Equus.  “I can’t wait to see the woman.”

            “And she can’t wait to see you,” said Flanders.   “And she can’t wait to see the others.”

            “And that’s today,” said Equus.

            “Pretty soon,” said Flanders.

            “In your side yard,” said the best friend unicorn.

            “The one with the pond,” said Flanders.

            “I and my unicorns shall be ready,” said Equus.

            “I want to make it official and ceremonious,” said the unicorn keeper.

            “A lady like Elysium—The Girl deserves such ceremony,” said Equus.

            “It is almost like bringing home to Mom and Dad a first girlfriend,” said the master.

            “In this case bringing home to ten beloved pets a first love,” said Equus.

            “I wonder if a griffin mistress knows what to say to unicorns,” pondered Flanders.

            “We unicorns and she share a unique calling that bonds us to each other.  This bond is dragon-slaying.  We and she will have much to talk about together, good Master,” assured the great unicorn.

            “Life is really good,” said Flanders.

            “God is really good,” said the unicorn.

            “Shall we have a word of prayer up here and then go back home and wait for my special gal?” asked Flanders.

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            “A word of prayer always agrees with me, Master,” said his best unicorn friend.

            And the two formed a prayer circle.  The master deferred the first prayer to the unicorn.  And Equus prayed first saying out loud the following:  “Dear God:  Equus here again talking to you.  Very soon I will be in front of the only other person in the world who is as famous as my master.  Her dragon slaying skills are equal unto my master’s dragon-slaying skills.  With her artillery, she has slain more dragons than I have with my hooves and with my horn.  I heard once how she shot a fly out of the sky with her arrow.  I heard also how she shot two arrows at the same time and slew two dragons at once, one with each arrow.  And I heard one time how she put out a dragon fire that was coming right toward one of her griffins by shooting an arrow that changed directions in its midst.  That arrow turned about in the fire and snuffed out that fire before it could consume that griffin.  And that griffin was all right.  She is more than a queen on Earth.  She is almost like an empress in the world.  Some say that she and my master could rule the world together.  Long have I wondered upon that woman of De Pere.  Men say that she is an even better pom and dance girl than she is a soldier of Christ.  Being a unicorn,  it is not in me to become distracted by her pom pom dress as it is in all men.  But, being a fan of hers, I could sin and fall into paying her homage due only to You, Lord.  I pray that I do not do such.   She’s coming here to Niagara pretty soon now.   And she will be alone.  I cannot wait.  Amen!  In Jesus’s name I pray.  Amen.”

            Next Flanders prayed in this prayer group, saying to God out loud, “Dear Heavenly Father:  As excited as I am to see Elysium—The Girl again, I am just as excited this time that the unicorns all get to see her.  Especially my dear Equus.  Indeed the girl is a legend in the hearts of griffins and unicorns and men and women and children of all the world.  She is the enemy of all dragons.  And she is the friend of all believers.  And she is a champion for prayer-warriors and their rights.  And she is like a guardian angel over Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church.  The well-known Pastor Statute and his wife Emmy are under Elysium’s personal protection in one of her ministries as the lady archer.

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They both pray to You as long and as hard as she does, O Lord.  And though I love the girl for her archery, I love her more for her dancing.   I have wondered in dozens of prayers these past several days where on Earth that my pom and dance woman had come upon so soul-stirring a dress.  Where did it come from?  Who made it?  How long has she had it?  You will tell me someday.  Or maybe one of Your angels will tell me someday.   Or maybe her griffins will tell me someday.  Or maybe Elysium herself will tell me someday.  I will ask her, O Lord.  She’ll tell me for sure.  Her pom pom dress is like one of those secrets that belong unto the Lord my God.  Thank you for bringing Elysium my girl into my life as my girlfriend-in-the-Lord.  In Jesus’s name I pray.  Amen.”

            Just then a terrible collision shook the ground, and the earth shook underneath the two prayer-warriors.  Just then a second terrible collision, crashing into Equus, and, behold, Equus falling down the escarpment toward the river!  Just then a third terrible collision, crashing into Flanders, and, behold, Flanders falling down the escarpment toward the river to his certain death!

            As he was falling, Flanders came to understand what happened just now at the top of the cliffs where the two had been praying.  Their prayers offended the dragons, and there were three of them, and the three dragons all crashed down to wreak havoc on unicorn and master.  One dragon on purpose crashed upon the ground up there to make an earthquake.  The second dragon on purpose crashed into the winged unicorn to knock him quite off of the cliff.  The third dragon on purpose crashed into Flanders to knock him off of the cliff to fall to his certain death.  As he plummeted down along the edge of the Niagara escarpment, Flanders unsheathed his saber, held it in the air, and said, “I’m coming Home!”  As for Equus, he had his wind knocked out of him.  But he had wings.  And he at once began to use his gift of flight.  Seeing his master falling down with him, Equus dove across in a mighty sweeping through the air along the bottom of the escarpment just above the Menominee River.  And he got underneath the falling upright Flanders, and he caught Flanders squarely upon his equine back, and Flanders let out a breath of gasp, and the unicorn swept by just above the waters and just missed the

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deadly escarpment with his self and his rider.  And the artful unicorn lifted back up into the air and back upon the top of the steep cliffs.

            “Equus, Equus, by the mercy of God you just saved my life!” exclaimed Flanders, out of breath at his close call.

            “I did at that, Master,” he said, surprised at himself for so great a rescue.

            Behold, upon the top of this Niagara escarpment now three medium four-legged dragons.  Equus lighted upon the ground up here, and Flanders dismounted.  And the dragons began to stomp their four feet upon the mighty rock that made this escarpment, knocking rocks and boulders off of its edge to fall way down to the river below.

            Flanders’s sword was still in his raised hand, ready to fight now as it was when he was falling to his death a moment ago.

            The dragon who had made the little earthquake upon the inception of this attack mocked the two soldiers-of-Christ and said, “I seem to have had an accident with the ground up here..”

            The dragon who had knocked Equus off of the escarpment said in mock of the two Christian warriors, saying, “I seem to have had an accident with the great unicorn up here.”

            And the dragon who had knocked Flanders off of the escarpment mocked him and told him, “I seem to have had an accident with you, O great sword fighter.”

            Then the first dragon spoke again and said in scorn, “Pardon me if I interrupted your prayers, Flanders, Equus.”

            And the second dragon said in derision, “You were both done already anyway.”

            And the third dragon said in disrespect, “Now we must make sure that you two do not go and start up another one.”

            Flanders spoke now and said, “Do you dragons know what happened to the last dragon that tried to keep me from my prayers?”

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            Equus spoke and said, “That dragon ended up not keeping my master from his prayers.”

            Then the first dragon said, “Did I tell you how I killed a praying believer just yesterday in Beecher?”

            The second dragon said, “And did you know that I killed a praying Christian in Goodman just the other day?”

            “And myself.  I burned to death a person who was praying in Dunbar, O great soldier of Jesus,” said the third dragon.  “That was just a week ago.”

            Flanders looked at Equus.  Equus looked at Flanders.  A certain battle strategy passed from master to pet in their eyes that the dragons neither suspected nor saw.  And the two soldiers proceeded.

            Flanders said, “You dragons.  You shoot fire a lot.”

            “Yeah.  We dragons do that well,” said the first dragon.

            “You are quite good at it.  Aren’t you?” asked Flanders.

            The second dragon said, “We do it the best.”

            “Better than wyvern do?” asked Flanders.

            “Yes, man of God.  Better than the wyvern do,” said the third dragon.

            “And you are accurate,” said Equus.  “Aren’t you?”

            “I can burn up a fleeing wolf or coyote one hundred feet away,” said the first dragon.

            “And it is hot,” said Equus.  “Isn’t it?”

            “It is as hot as brimstone,” bragged the second dragon.

            “And it is a big blast,” said Equus.  “The fire that you shoot out of your mouth.”

            “I have burned down houses with a single breath,” said the third dragon.

            “Why do you tarry with all of these questions?” asked the first dragon.

            “I was wondering which of you three dragons are the best at shooting fires out of your mouth,” said Flanders.

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            The second dragon spoke in impatience and said, “The both of you are very curious about odd things—you and the unicorn.”

            The third dragon said to his two fellow dragons, “Don’t you see what they are doing?  They want us to have a contest among ourselves with our fires against trees and bushes and grass until we end up not having any fire left to take it out on them in battle.”

            “Of course,” said the second dragon.

            “We are on to you,” said the first dragon.

            “You cannot fool a dragon,” said the third dragon.

            The clever dragons were wrong about their interpretations.  And Flanders and Equus continued their subtle baiting of the proud dragons further.

            And Flanders said, “I can fool no dragon with any trick in the book.  But what I was really thinking about is which of you three is the best at shooting fires at moving targets.”

            “Targets like you and Equus,” said the third dragon.

            “Yes,” said Flanders.  “Me and Equus.”

            “Simpletons,” said the first dragon to the two Christian warriors, “what did you think that we came here for?  We came here to slay two troublesome moving targets—you two mighty and holy prayer partners.  And we do it best with fire.”

            “What do you take us for?” said the second dragon, also offended with this seemingly naive proposition.  “We know the ways of praying keepers and their praying pets.”

            “What dragon do you know who does not burn down prayer-warriors like you with fire?” asked the third dragon.

            Subtle, Equus went on to say to the dragons, “Don’t you see what my master is trying to do?”

            The three dragons looked to the he-unicorn and awaited an answer.

            Flanders said, “They figured it out, Equus.  You might as well tell them.”

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            And Equus told them, “You know it.  Don’t you?”

            The second dragon said to his other two dragons, “They are trying to make us mad with their dumb talk.  If we get mad, then we lose our cool.  And if we lose our cool, then we get reckless and careless.  And if we get reckless and careless, then our fires will end up inaccurate, and we will miss them.”

            And the third dragon said, “I heard tell that Flanders can split dragon fire apart with a swing of his saber.”

            And the first dragon said, “I heard that this Equus did the same thing one time with a wave of his unicorn horn.”

            “That’s all wives’ tales,” said Equus to confuse them.

            “And wives are pretty smart women,” said Flanders to throw in a non sequitur statement to this discussion.

            The first dragon said, “What you and your unicorn have just said are apparent contradictions.

Wives’ tails are spoken only by ignorant women.  And ignorant women are not smart women.”

            “Verily,” said Equus.

            “I know what you two are up to,” said the first dragon.  “You’re trying to delay your demise.”

            “Your confusing words are ended now,” said the second dragon in finality.

            “It is time to take out from the earth unicorn and unicorn keeper,” said the third dragon in finality.

            “Let’s burn them up good,” said the first dragon in finality to his fellow two dragons.

            And the sword fighter and the unicorn ally saw black smoke coming out from the nostrils and the closed teeth of the three dragons where they stood.  But master and pet had things in their control.

All was going as planned.  God’s battle tactics never failed them.

            Then Flanders said, “I think that I will go for a walk.”

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            Then Equus, too, went ahead and said, “And I think that I will go for a walk, also.”

            “A walk?” asked the second dragon, mystified.

            “At a time like this?” asked the first dragon, perplexed

            “You’re both mad.” said the third dragon in laughter.

            Right now, the two Christian soldiers were surrounded by the three dragons here at the top of the escarpment near the edge. The sword fighter and his unicorn comrade had their backs to the cliff and their faces toward the rest of the land.  One dragon was straight at the edge to their left.  One dragon was straight at the edge to their right.  One dragon was facing them and the cliff out in front of Flanders and Equus.  And all three dragons were about ten feet away from the two soldiers-of-God.  The forces of good were right in-between the two forces of evil on the edge and were blocked from their way away from the cliff by the one force of evil farther in.

            Then the dragons shot our their fires.  Flanders quickly mounted Equus, and Equus lifted up above the ground.  And three dragon fire bursts came in toward them.  The winged unicorn just in time rose above the dragon fires coming at them from three directions—left and right and front.  And the three dragon fires missed the sword fighter and his winged unicorn.  And the dragon fires from the two dragons to both sides continued on and did fall upon each other in this straight line.  And the dragon fire from the dragon in front ended up burning out in the sky beyond the escarpment and before it fell down to the river.  Lo, two dragons on fire from each other!

            “Curse to you!” said one of the burning dragons to Flanders and Equus.

            “Anathema!” said the other burning dragon to the two soldiers-for-God.

            And they stood there burning up to death as the third dragon looked on, saying, “Woe!  Woe! Woe!”

            Then, consumed and being consumed by the fires, the two burning dragons found themselves leaning over the edge of the escarpment, their wings burned up, and their forms slowly going over the

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edge.  And, as Flanders and Equus watched, the flaming dragons then fell quickly to their death into the Menominee River far below.  The splashes were like cannon shots going off.

            Flanders’s trick worked.

            “Great idea from God, Master,” said Equus.

            One dragon was left, and he was a vengeful and fierce dragon.  And he would say no further words.  Being a dragon, he heedlessly went on to attack.  And he lifted up into the air to assault the winged unicorn and his rider in the skies.  Flanders hacked at the dragon with his sword and did knock off many plates of armor that fell to the ground.  And Equus did thrust with his unicorn horn and did impale the dragon through his armor plates in several places.  And the dragon was stripped of much of his armor and was bleeding through much of the rest of his armor.  His wings were yet unharmed.   And his dragon head was unmarked.  And his tail was not wounded.  But his dragon body was ravaged and severely wounded.  And his great wings began to fail him for the wounds on his body.  And he began to falter in this battle between good and evil.

            He spoke now, and he said in pride, “I deny your Jesus!”

            Then he passed out in the skies and did fall to the ground upon the edge of the escarpment, and he lay there, unmoving and maybe dead.  Flanders and the winged unicorn quickly lighted upon the ground beside the maimed dragon.

            He spoke one last utterance, saying in rebellion, “Long live the Dragon of Dragons.”  Then he feebly rolled over, not knowing where he was lying, and he suddenly fell off of the Niagara escarpment to his death in the Menominee River far below.   The great splash was like another cannon blast.

            Flanders and Equus stood there upon the escarpment and looked down upon the river below.

            “This day three more dragons have fallen, O Master,” said the unicorn ally.

            “Amen, O gallant and wise Equus,” said the sword fighter.

            “Amen, my Master,” said the winged unicorn.

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            “Shall we return home?” asked the unicorn keeper.

            “Home right now sounds to me like a good and safe place,” said Equus.

            “How do you feel after our battle?” asked Flanders.

            “I feel Good,  Master,” said Equus.  “How about you?”

            “I feel pretty good, too,” said the swordsman.

            The two had conquered three dragons without having suffered any wounds.
“Now the highlight of this day next,” said Equus.

            “The coming of Elysium—The Girl,” said Flanders sweetly and affectionately.

            And the two dragon slayers returned home after battle, and the eleven prepared an official place in the side yard by the pond to receive their honored guest, Flanders’s brand new girlfriend.

            And the pom pom girl came in all of her pom and dance apparel in black and in white and in silver.  She stood before the little pond with Flanders and his ten unicorns.  And she stunned man and unicorn with her perfect female beauty as she stood there.  And Flanders said to her, “Welcome to my home and to my family, Elysium.”

            “I find myself in the presence of most irreproachable and blameless servants of the Lord,” said the pom and dance girl in humble acknowledgment.

            “Welcome, milady.  Welcome,” said the ten unicorns.

            “Welcome, unicorns all,” said the pom pom girl with a curtsy.

            And Equus introduced himself to the girl first according to the plans of his master in this most august conclave, “Miss Elysium, I am Flanders’s best friend of the ten unicorns.  My name is ‘Equus.’”

            “I am very glad to meet you, Equus,” said Elysium—The Girl.  And the great unicorn lowered his horn in deference before her.

            And Equus went on to greet her with an address:  “O Elysian Girl, singular are you among archers of the dragon-slayers of the world.  As I speak to you now, I see a woman my master’s equal in

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slaying of dragons.  Your bow is like unto that of Jonathan in the Scriptures, wherein it is said of him, ‘…,the bow of Jonathan turned not back,…’  Your arrows are like unto those of the Lord, in the Scriptures, which He sent out and did scatter the enemies of David.  Your quiver is like unto that of the Babylonians in the Scriptures, which was as an open sepulchre.  I greatly anticipate a new life with you as my good friend and sister-in-Christ.”  And he raised his horn.

            And the lady archer said in greetings, “Good Equus, no unicorn in all the world knows the man that is my boyfriend as you do.  You know things about the great sword fighter that only God knows.  I come not between you and Flanders as a rival.  I come to be with you and Flanders as a new member of the family.  I anticipate a new life with both you and Flanders as personal confidants.  What I tell Flanders I can tell you.  And what I tell you I can tell the fellow unicorns.  And I shall pay you the same respect that I pay to your unicorn keeper.  And as I shall regard you in respect and love, I shall regard also the rest of your unicorns with the same respect and love.”

            Then Flanders said to her, “Elysium, would you come out into the pond?”

            “I would like that, Flanders,” she said, compliant, but not understanding.  “Wherefore?”

            And Equus lowered his back for the great lady.  Flanders said, “I would like my other unicorns to see my pom pom girl in the pond as they greet you and introduce themselves to you.”

            And Equus said, “You will not get any of your pom and dance dress wet, Milady.  My master wishes that you be mounted upon me while I stand in the middle of the pond.”

            “I get the honor of sitting upon you, O Equus?” asked the great lady archer.

            “If you would humor an eccentric, my lady,” said Flanders Nickels.

            “I ever wish to please my boyfriend-in-Christ,” said Elysium.

            And she mounted Equus, and he stepped out into the center of this little pond in Flanders’s side yard, and her skirt portion remained above water and quite dry.  And the nine other unicorns set themselves in their master’s prescribed order around the pond at regular intervals.  And their pom and

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dance girl guest sat upon the back of the unicorn leader in the pond and looked upon them, and they looked upon her.  And Flanders stood off to the side of the pond and beheld the official ceremony of introduction that he had never thought until this day to actually see.

            Now came up to the pond a white unicorn bowing his unicorn horn before the lady in the pond, and he said, “My name is ‘Parable.’  I study parables.  And I write parables.  And I hope to write a parable about a pom pom lady and a soldier and a griffin and a unicorn.  There is no such a parable as one like unto that in the Bible.  Mine can be the first.  Would you read it when I am done?”  And he raised his horn back up into the air.

            And Elysium said, “I would love to read your parable, O Parable.  I will read all of your parables if you let me.  And though the Lord never spoke any parables about unicorns when He walked the Holy Land, I can see in your eyes the wisdom of all of the parables that He had spoken.”

            Next another white unicorn stepped up to the edge of this pond, lowered his unicorn horn, and proclaimed, “My name is Prophecy.  In Abraham’s days on the Earth, an angel of God prophesied to him that his wife Sarah would at age ninety bear a son.  Sarah laughed in disbelief and was rebuked.  Likewise, if an angel were to have prophesied to my master that he would have a love in his life at age twenty, my master might have been tempted to laugh.  But, lo, the unicorn keeper has found a beautiful twenty-year-old girlfriend, himself twenty-years-old.  You and he are meant for each other.”  Having said this, he then raised his horn back up.

            Elysium—The Girl replied, “Prophecy, as my pastor says, ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ I am duly honored by your good words.  And I am duly flattered by your prophecy parallel.  And I am duly encouraged by your friendship.”

            Then another white unicorn stepped up to the pond and lowered his unicorn horn, and declared, “My name is ‘Wingspan.’  With my wings I can carry you and Flanders to the other side of the world and back.  With my wings I can carry a two-legged dragon on my back.  And with my wings I can take

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a rider partway to the moon.  Would you let a unicorn like myself fly with you and your griffins someday, O griffin keeper?”  And he raised his horn after his greeting.

            “O noble Wingspan, you may surely fly with me and my griffins,” said Elysium—The Girl.  “You may fly me and your master to the other side of the world and back.  You may even fly me to the moon—you and I together, Wingspan.”

            Next another white unicorn, lowering his horn, came up to the edge of the pond, and he said, “Good lady archer, my name is ‘Decalogue,’ and I love the ten commandments.  Just as the Decalogue given by God to Moses contains ten commandments, so does my master have ten unicorns, and so do you have ten griffins.  Our force of dragon-slayers will now number twenty-two.  May we do greater things in our ministry as dragon-slayers together than we already had as separate.”  And he raised his horn once again.

            And Elysium replied, “Learned Decalogue, the griffin keeper will fight alongside the unicorn keeper; my Gryphon will fight alongside your Equus;  my griffins will fight alongside you unicorns; and I will fight alongside of you, Decalogue.”

            Next another white unicorn stepped up to the edge of the pond, lowered his horn, and introduced himself to the Elysian Girl, saying, “My name is ‘Psalter.’ and I love the book of Psalms most of all.  In Psalm 89:1, it is written by Ethan the Ezrahite these words:  ‘I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever; with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.’  This is about my life as a dragon-slayer.  And there is even a popular Sunday School song which is based on this very Scripture verse.”  He then raised his horn.

            At once the pom pom girl went ahead and sang this popular modern-day psalm before Psalter:

“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever,

I will sing, I will sing.

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord.

With my mouth will I make known

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Thy faithfulness, Thy faithfulness.

With my mouth will I make known

Thy faithfulness to all generations.

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord.”

            Then another unicorn stepping up to the little pond, lowered his horn and said, “Fair lady Elysium, I am Grey Horn.  Behold my gray horn.”

            “I see your horn, Grey Horn, and it is the finest unicorn horn I have ever seen,” said Elysium.

            “Reach out and touch it, if you wish,” said Grey Horn.

            Flanders said, “Grey Horn, you never let strangers touch your horn before.”

            “This lady is no stranger, Master,” said the unicorn.

            And Elysium the Girl reached out and touched the longest unicorn horn in the world, herself in the middle of the pond, and the unicorn at the pond’s edge.  And the pom pom girl said, “We are friends—you and I, Grey Horn.”  Then Grey Horn raised his horn back up.

            Then the next unicorn lowered his horn and stepped up to the pond where the girl sat.  And he said to her, “I am White Mane.  My master combs my white mane every day with my own set of special combs of bronze.  Alas, my white mane is in disarray right now because of the sudden wind.  Would you overlook my slack appearance this day?”  Right then Flanders pulled out his unicorn comb for White Mane and began to sing a hymn and comb it all straight and long once again.  “Thank you, Master,” said White Mane.  And he raised his horn again and stood sure and confident again.

            “White Mane, before the combing, you looked like the most handsome unicorn of the ten,” said Elysium—The Girl.  “But after the combing, you now look like the most handsome unicorn of God.”

            “Thank you, O griffin keeper,” said White Mane.

            Then came forward with his horn lowered, the next unicorn, and he said to her, “O lady archer, I am ‘Second Advent,’ and I love the coming Second Coming of Christ.  Do you love the Second Coming as I do?”

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            “Oh, I do, O Second Advent,” said Elysium.  “The event after which you are named is right in the times of eschatology.”

            “Eschatology is most good for believers like you and is most bad for unbelievers and dragons,” said Second Advent.  “Likewise the Second Advent is great for the Christians and terrible for the non-Christians and the dragons.”

            “They don’t want Jesus to come back,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “What a terrible way to think,” said Second Advent.

            “The lost do not think the way we do,” said the griffin keeper.

            “They are depraved,” said Second Advent.

            “And reprobate,” said Elysium.

            “Maranatha, O lady archer!” said Second Advent.  And he raised his horn again.

            “Maranatha, Second Advent!” said the pom and dance girl.

            Then, last came another white unicorn up to the bank of this little pond, and his horn was lowered, and he spoke to the illustrious young lady, saying, “I am ‘First Advent,’ O griffin mistress.  I love the First Coming of Christ most of all. And I love Christmas.  And I love Christmas carols about Jesus.  And I have memorized all of the verses in the Bible about the birth of the Christ child and those verse’s references—both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.  And as the Christmas story is a wonder to me, you, milady, are a wonder to my master.  I heard him singing the other day, ‘Ding!  Dong!  Merrily On High!’  and it was not even Christmas.  But I think that he was singing to you in his make-believe.”  Then he raised his horn again.

            And Elysium said, “I love the First Coming and its carols, too, O First Advent.  When I was first born, I was called ‘Carol.’  ‘Carol Bree Dale’ is my name on my birth certificate.  I still like that first name because it reminds me of carols as in ‘Christmas carols.’  But since then, God calls me ‘Elysium’ now.”  Then she turned to Flanders, and she asked coquettishly, “So, Flanders, you were caught singing

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a carol to me.”

            “My unicorn speaks presumptuously, but what he conjectured is truth,”confessed Flanders.

            “Woooo!” said the pom pom girl in romance.  “A Merry Christmas carol.”

            “Merry Christmas, Carol,” he said an ode to her in a play on words, “pretty soon.”

            “Merry Christmas to you, too, pretty soon, Flanders,” she said.

            Equus said, “This is getting romantic.”

            And Elysium—The Girl paused to look around where she sat, and she saw the glory of God in this assembly around her like unto no other glory of God that she saw anywhere else away from home.

And she pondered this great family of the renowned unicorn keeper.  And she felt herself quite meek in their presence. She felt like the Queen of Sheba had felt in the Bible when she stood before Solomon on his throne, the wisest man in the world of his time.

            “My Elysium,” called forth Flanders, “may I sweep you off of your seat?”

            “My Flanders, where shall we go?” she asked.

            “To a place far away,” he said.

            “Do take me to this place far away,” she said.

            And he stepped right into the pond, took her in both arms up off of Equus, and gently carried her out of the creek.  And without another word, he and the pom and dance girl, the lady borne in the gentleman’s arms, went away together to a place alone far away.

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CHAPTER XIII

            Where was this place far away?  It was his secret place alongside County Trunk N on his property one mile from his pond.  It was at the bottom of a steep ditch along the side of the county highway. It was a place shrouded by many Catalpa trees.  It was a land of horsetails and cattails.  It was a sanctuary from the outside world.  It was a place which Flanders had kept secret even from his church friends and from his unicorns.  Here Flanders and his pom pom girl would share the testimonies of their salvation to each other.

            They arrived, and he brought her down into this secret place like unto a pleasant cave.  Flanders pondered how good a place this would be for a wedding night for a bride and groom were he to marry Elysium..  Elysium pondered how good this place would be for the birth of a firstborn were she to marry this Flanders.  Then he set her back down upon her feet down in here.

            “This place is romantic, Flanders,” she said.

            “My pom and dance girl is romantic,” he said.

            “How are your arms?” she asked.

            “They do shake a little after our walk,” he said.

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            “I can see how you can wield your sword with such power after you have just carried me a whole mile like this,” she said.

            “I do not want my girlfriend to have to strain her ankles with a long walk,” he said.

            “You just wanted to feel my pom pom dress in your arms,” she said to him.

            “Yeah,” he confessed.  “That, too.”

            “And you liked my form within it in your arms, too, Flanders,” she said.

            “You are so built, woman,” he said to her.

            She looked around in this dim and cozy refuge.  She said, “It’s hard to believe that the sun is shining out there today from in here.”

            “It is nice and dim down here,” he said.  “Like twilight.”

            “These leaves are so big,” she said.  “I never saw a tree with leaves so big before.”

            “These trees are Catalpas,” he said to her.

            “Their leaves are almost as big as rhubarb leaves, Flanders,” said the pom and dance woman.

            “And nice and green,” said Flanders.

            “And what are all of these tubes growing up out of the ground?” she said.  “Why a girl could snap off partitions of them one at a time with the way they are segmented with dividers in them.”

            “Those are horsetails,” he said.

            “Horse tails,” she said in a pun.  “As in tails at the ends of horses.”

            “Horse tales,” he replied in a pun of his own.  “As in tales, or stories, about horses,”

            “I like these little plants,” she said.

            “And these over here,” he said, reaching for another plant growing in this little private shelter.

            “The tall plants with a big fuzzy brown head,” she said.

            “You know what these are,” he said.

            “Those are cattails,” she said.  “I know about cattails.”

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            In another pun, Flanders said, “Cat tails, as in the tails at the ends of cats.”

            Following through in like, Elysium, of course, went on to continue this play on words, saying, “Cat tales, as in tales, or stories, about cats.”

            “Do you like cattails, too, Elysium?” he asked.

            “I do like these big plants, Flanders,” she told him.

            “Ir’s kind of muddy down here today.  Isn’t it?” he asked her.

            “Where should we sit?” she asked.

            “I do not want to get any of your outfit dirty,” he said to his pom and dance girl.

            “Nor do I,” she said, looking around where they were.

            “You can sit on me,” he said

            “I can do that!” she said.  “I like that!”

            And he in his blue jeans and short-sleeved plaid shirt and penny loafers sat down on a level place in here and set his knees down upon the ground and proffered his lap to the gentle lady.

            “Why, thank you, Flanders,” she said.  And she sat down upon his lap.

            “How are your pumps doing?” he asked.

            “They are the only things set upon the ground,” she said.

            “Will they be okay on the dirt?” he asked.

            “They will be okay,” she said.

            “Let’s talk down here,” he said.

            “Where should we begin?” she asked him.

            “How you changed from ‘Carol’ to ‘Elysium,’” he said.

            “Oh that,” she said.  “It was a sign from God.”

            “A sign from God,” said Flanders, fascinated greatly right away.

            “An angel of the Lord came down to speak to me,” she said.  “I was a little girl of five years old

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then.  I was not yet the pom-pom girl for Christ.  I was not saved yet then in my life.  I did not know God.  I did not even find Gryphon or any of my griffins yet for companionship.  I did not even have my own bedroom to myself then.  My sisters were with me in our bedroom at home.  This angel had legs that shined like polished brass, and he had arms that shined like polished copper, and he had a chest that looked to be made of wrought iron, and he had a face that was as bright as the sun, and he had wings that were like unto a griffin’s or a unicorn’s, and he had on his head a golden crown, and he had in his hand a silver sword.  My sisters saw the same angel that I saw in my room.  They all fell down in fear.  I guess that I kind of did, also.  A little girl does not usually find herself talking to an angel.  But this was a good angel.

            He said unto us girls, ‘Fear not, little children.’  And I lost my fear.  Then he said, ‘I have come to speak to you, O Carol Dale.’

            I dared to speak to him.  And I think I said, ‘Angel, what does God wish to say to me?’

            And the angel said to me, ‘This day you shall be no longer called “Carol.”’

            And I said to him, ‘What shall I be called, O angel sent from God?’

            And he said to me, “’This day you shall be called for now on, “Elysium.”’

            ‘Why is this come to pass, O great angel?’ I asked him.

            And he said to me, ‘You will grow up and become great among women,  In that day you shall be a lady who serves God with the effectiveness of an angel.  And when that day comes, you will be accounted greatest among women in all of Christendom.  And God shall esteem you His favorite daughter.  And you will do things never before done by any among your kind.  And your greatness shall transcend the name “Carol.”  Your greatness will be worthy only of the name “Elysium.”  You are officially for now on called of God by the name, “Elysium—The Girl.”  As the Lord’s messenger I have come down from Heaven to tell you that after I leave, before this day is done, that God will put His Holy Spirit within you to indwell you.  In the Old Testament, God had put His Holy Spirit within

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people of God for certain purposes and for temporary duration in which to do God’s work.  In this church age, God does put His Holy Spirit within all born-again believers for eternity the moment they come to Christ for salvation.   In Jesus’s days, God had John the Baptist born with the Holy Spirit already indwelling him the moment he came out of the womb.  In your case, O exalted girl of God, you in this New Testament age of grace shall receive the Holy Ghost from God for the rest of your life, even now while you are yet not born again.  And with Him you shall become a lady warrior far greater than Joan of Arc, a greater conqueror than Alexander the Great, a greater archer than any man, a greater dragon-slayer than any man except for your equal in time to come, a daughter of God with innumerable rewards and crowns awaiting you in your life to come in Heaven.’

            I dared say to this great messenger angel, ‘Be it unto me according to the will of God for this little girl.’

            Then he said, ‘Before this day is through the Holy Ghost will come down upon you like an eagle.’

            And I said, ‘O great angel, if I be destined to be a lady archer for God, where is my artillery?’

            And he said, ‘God Himself will give you your artillery.’

            And I fell on my knees and said,  ‘Thy will be done, O angel.’

            And he said to me, ‘Worship me not.  I am but an angel of God.  Worship Jesus.’

            And I stood back up and looked up toward Heaven, and I said, ‘Thy will be done, O Jesus.’

            Then the angel turned himself into a flaming fire, and he ascended back up to Heaven.  This really scared my sisters.  But I was not afraid.

            They then said to me, ‘Is that really true, what he was saying, Carol?’

            Then a voice called down to them from Above with the sound of many trumpets saying to them, ‘This is my faithful Elysium, whom I love greatly.  Do regard her now.’

            And they looked at me.  And all of sudden an eagle descended down from Heaven and came

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down upon me and went into me.  I felt holiness inside of myself that I had not felt inside myself before.  And my sisters all said, ‘God is Lord, O Sister!  God is Lord, O Sister!’

            I asked my sisters, ‘What happened?’  I felt different.  And I felt wiser and stronger and happier.

            And they said to me, ‘The Holy Ghost came down to indwell you!   We all saw it happen!  Elysium!  O Elysium!’  They called me by my new God-declared name.  Then they all crowded around me and we all hugged and said sweet things to each other in rejoicing in my own happy exaltation in the Lord.

            Later I did get become born-again.  Later I did get my bow and arrows and quiver.  Later I did become the pom and dance girl for God.  And later I did find my griffin pets.  And later I did become the world’s archery champion.  And now I have you, Flanders.  And in you I have found my greatest blessing from God of all of my blessings from God.  I love you head-over-heels, Flanders.”

            “And I have fallen head-over-heels in love with you, too, O Elysium,” said Flanders Nickels.

            “Now you know the mystery of my name change from ‘Carol’ to ‘Elysium,’” said the pom pom girl.

            “What a most mystifying story,” said Flanders.  “No one in the outside world knows anything about this.”

            “Which name do you like better, Flanders?” she asked in clever female wiles.

            “Well, I’ve got a kind of crush now on the name, ‘Carol,’ but I am still in my first love for the name, ‘Elysium,’” said Flanders a wise and honest answer.

            “I like the name ‘Elysium’ better, too,” said the pom pom girl.  “I like Elysian things.”

            “Shall we go ahead now and do what what we came here for, O Elysium?” he asked.

            In remembrance, the pom and dance girl said, “We came here to tell each other all about how we became born-again believers,”

            “What better place than my secret place here to hear my girlfriend tell me how she got saved,

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and to tell my girlfriend how I got saved?” asked Flanders.

            “What a neat little place for us to give each other the testimonies of our salvation,” said the girlfriend-in-Christ.

            “Who gets to go first?” asked Flanders.

            “You,” said the woman submitting herself to the man.

            “You,” said the gentleman to the lady.

            “Okay,” said the girlfriend to the boyfriend. “I go first then.”

            And the pom and dance girl told Flanders all about how she found Christ as Saviour in her very first day of salvation:

            “It happened at a dog park down the road from Mom and Dad’s house.  I liked dogs then.  And I already fell in love with Lassie on TV.  And fell in love with Lad in the books I read.  Lassie and Lad were both Collies. So I decided that I like Collies best of all dog breeds.  I did not know much about griffins yet back then.  And Mom and Dad both knew how I had a fondness for big dogs, and how I did not have any thing to do with little dogs.  And they asked me, ‘Daughter, would you like to go to the dog park today and see the dogs?’

            ‘What’s a dog park?’ I asked.

            Dad said, ‘It’s a playground for dogs and their keepers.’

            ‘We don’t have a dog.’ I said, complacent.  ‘And I am not a keeper.’

            ‘You know all about Rudd Weatherwax,’ said Dad.

            ‘I do,’ I said.  ‘He owned and trained Lassie.’

            ‘And you read Albert Payson Terhune books,’ said Mom.

            ‘He wrote about Lad,’ I said.

            ‘Well there might be some real Collies at this dog park for you to see, daughter,’ said Mom.

            ‘Do you mean Collies that I can see and pet?’ I asked.

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            ‘If the Collie keepers let you,’ said Dad.

            ‘Oh, surely they would let me,’ I said.  ‘Who loves to pet Collie dogs more than I?’

            ‘Would you like to go to the dog park now?’ asked Mom.

            ‘I never petted a real Collie dog before,’ I said.  ‘Mom, Dad, let’s go now.’

            And they took me to the Brown County Dog Park near the southern boundary of Brown County somewhere.  And I saw lots of big dogs that I liked. I saw German Shepherds and Border Collies and Saluki and Irish Setters and English Setters and Mongrels.  And I saw lots of smaller dogs which I disdained in my heart and did not look at.  And I also saw a Miniature Collie.  Miniature Collies are also called ‘Shetland Sheepdogs.’  They look just like regular Collies, except they are smaller.

            ‘Look, Mom and Dad!’ I said, ‘Is that a Sheltie?’

            Mom and Dad looked.  Mom said, ‘She’s too small for you.’

            And Dad said, ‘Daughter, you told us that you do not care for little dogs.’

            ‘But this Sheltie is beautiful,’ I said.

            Then a man’s voice said, ‘Young lady, this Sheltie is handsome.’

            I looked up and saw an old man with white whiskers and white mustache and white hair.  He looked like a wizard, if there were such a thing.

            ‘O, sir,’ I said, correcting myself, ‘He must be a boy dog.’

            ‘Young miss, his name is “Grandey,”’ said this wise man in kindness.

            ‘Grandey, you are the most handsome dog I ever saw for real,’ I said.

            This man then asked me, ‘Young lady, do you have a dog of your own?’

            ‘No, sir,’ I said.

            ‘I have Grandey to call my own, but I am still wondering what life is all about,’ said this man of many years.

            ‘Does Grandey not make you happy?’ I asked him.

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            ‘Grandey does make me happy, but Grandey does not satisfy me,’ said this hoary man.

            ‘Grandey would make me happy and satisfied,’ I said.

            ‘I have loved Grandey for twelve years, but he will have to leave me someday, and then I shall be alone,’ said this man.

            ‘Would it help if you went and found another Sheltie, sir?” I asked him.

            ‘I shall have to die and leave him someday,’ said this man.  ‘I am old and tired in life.’

            ‘Where will you go?’ I asked, contemplating eternity for my first time.

            ‘To a place from where there is no return and where there is no joy,’ he said.

            ‘Is that why handsome Grandey cannot make you happy in this life, O sir?’ I asked him.

            ‘Alas!  All that I have is this life,’ said the depressed man of years.

            ‘All that I have is in this life, too,’ I said.  ‘But I’ve got the whole rest of my life to live.’

            ‘I used to be young, too,’ said this man.  ‘I decided that happiness can come only through a pet. What better pet than a Shetland Sheepdog?  My first Sheltie was a she-dog I named “Frisky.”  She died, and I went and found another Shetland Sheepdog for my pet.  Her name was “Tease.”  She died.   And I got a third she-Sheltie whom I named, “Feisty.”  She died, and I got a fourth dog—a he-Sheltie I named “Donner.” He died, and now I have Grandey here.  He will die next.  Or I will.”

            ‘Sir, you sound like you have no hope,’ I said to him.

            ‘When I go, I will be no more,’ he said.  ‘And then I will not be able to play with my dogs anymore.’

            ‘I’m sad,’ I said for him.

            ‘Learn life’s lesson from a foolish old man,’ he said to me.  ‘Seek not happiness in a pet.’

            ‘Where should a girl like me seek happiness, O sir?’ I asked him.

            “I have been trying to find the answer to life’s meaning all of my life, and I cannot find it in this Earth,’ he said to me.  ‘I do not know why I am here.’

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            ‘There must be something that life must be all about,’ I asked him.

            ‘Nobody knows the answer to that question, little girl,’ he said.

            ‘Maybe Jesus knows,’ I said.  I had heard about Jesus a few times in my life.  And I had met a few Christians, and they did not seem sad like this old man did.

            ‘I do not know this Jesus,’ said the man not without a bitterness to his tone.

            ‘Ask Him,’ I said, not knowing the wisdom of my words at the time.

            ‘Not that Man,’ scowled this old man.  ‘I refuse to have anything to do with Jesus.’

            ‘How come?’ I asked with a child’s innocence.

            ‘Christ will be no Lord of my life,’ said this old man.  And he turned around and turned his back on me and called forth, ‘Come, Grandey.  Let’s get out of this park.’  And he and the handsome Shetland Sheepdog walked away and out of the park.  I never saw the Sheltie again.  And the next day, I saw this man’s picture in the newspaper in the obituaries.

            But that day at the dog park, I came to wonder what the meaning of life was all about.

            A few days later, Mom asked me, ‘Daughter, would you like a Collie pet now in the family?’

            I remembered how sad that man at the park was having had five miniature Collies in his life and yet had still died in grief.  And I said, ‘No, Mom.  A do not need a Collie for a pet.’

            Then Dad asked me, ‘Maybe because now you discovered miniature Collies, daughter.  Would you like us to adopt a Shetland Sheepdog instead?’

            And I said, ‘No, Dad.  I do not need a Sheltie for a pet, either.’

            Mom asked, ‘Would you like a cat instead?’

            ‘No, Mom.  Not a cat,’ I said.

            ‘A unicorn?’ asked Dad.

            ‘Not a unicorn, either,’ I said.

            ‘How about a griffin?’ asked Mom.

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            ‘No.  Not a griffin,’ I said.  ‘At least not right now.’

            And Mom and Dad asked me, ‘What would you like?’

            And I said, ‘I want someone to fulfill me for forever.’

            And Dad said, ‘You won’t find that anywhere.’

            And Mom said, ‘There is no such thing.’

            And I despaired.

            We never did get a big dog to take care of.  But we kept going back to that dog park in search for something I knew not and which could not be found with dogs.

            Then Dad said, ‘That’s enough, Daughter.  We are not going to the dog park again after this.’

            And Mom said, ‘Today is the last time.’

            And I prayed a secret prayer, thinking to God, ‘Lord, show Yourself to me.’

            And with a heavy heart, I went with Mom and Dad to the Brown County Dog Park for my last time.

            There was a lad my age with a red Irish Setter.  And he was having his Irish Setter do tricks in the dog park.  I watched him in some curiosity.  The boy said, ‘Heel,’ and the big red dog sat down to the boy’s side.  The boy said, ‘Roll over,’ and the big red dog got onto his back and rolled over on the ground.  The boy said, ‘Play dead,’ and the big red dog put himself on his back and set his head upon the grass and held his legs upward and closed his eyes.  The boy said, ‘Jump,’ and the big red dog got back up and leaped.  The boy said, ‘Snack,’ holding a dog treat in his hands, and the big red dog reached up his head where he stood and snatched the dog treat out of the boy’s hands and did eat it up.

            I thought that that Irish Setter were pretty talented.  And I came up to the boy, and I said, ‘You’ve got quite a dog!’

            And he said, ‘Why, thank you.  I teach him things.’

            ‘He knows lots,’ I said to him.

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            ‘Oh he knows a lot more than just this,’ he said to me.

            ‘He must be a smart dog,’ I said to the boy.

            ‘The smartest dog at this dog park,’ the boy bragged on him.

            ‘I thought that Irish Setters are usually dumb dogs,’ I said.  ‘My friend tells me that all Irish Setters are a little daft.’

            ‘You should not say things like that in front of her,’ he told me.

            ‘In front of your dog?” I asked.

            ‘You’ll hurt her feelings,’ he told me.

            ‘I know an Irish Setter in the neighborhood,’ I went on to say.  ‘Her name is “Sarah.”  She gets loose in the neighborhood and runs around our yard with everyone chasing her and nobody catching her.  And all of the dogs around the area start barking at her.  And she just keeps on running.  And then she runs off into another yard.  And everybody chases after her yelling, ‘Sarah!  Sarah!  Sarah!’  She’s a dumb Irish Setter.  But not your Irish Setter.  Your Irish Setter is intelligent.”

            ‘Thank you,’ he said to me.

            ‘What’s her name?’ I asked him.

            ‘”Sarah,”’ he told me.

            Oops!  I apologized and said, ‘Her name is “Sarah,” too.’

            ‘Yes,’ he said.  ‘But a more disciplined Sarah.’

            ‘A different Sarah than the one I know,’ I said.  ‘Sorry about what I said.’

            ‘That’s okay,’ he told me.

            ‘That Sarah and your Sarah are both beautiful big dogs,’ I told him.

            ‘Thank you,’ he said to me.

            He then said to his pet dog, ‘Sarah, shake hands with our friend,’

            And Sarah reached out her right fore paw toward me where I stood.  And I took it in my right

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hand.  And we shook hands.  And I said,  ‘How happy you must be to have a dog like Sarah in your life.’  And I suddenly remembered the old man and his Sheltie at this park of not many weeks before.

            And this boy said, ‘I am happy with my Sarah in my life.’  Then he said, ‘But only Jesus satisfies.’

            At first I said nothing.  That old man with Grandey had a grand dog and did not have Jesus, and he was miserable and without hope and without satisfaction.  But this young lad with Sarah had a grand dog as well, but he had Jesus, and he was happy and of much hope and with all satisfaction in life.

            ‘Only Jesus satisfies?’ I asked the lad.

            ‘Uh huh,’ he said.

            ‘What’s your name?’ I asked him.

            And he said, ‘”Regal Royal.”  What’s your name?’

            ‘I am “Elysium,”’ I said to him.

            ‘As in “Elise?”’ he asked me.

            ‘No,’ I said.  ‘As in “Elysium—The Girl.”’

            ‘That’s quite a name for a girl who does not know Christ,’ he told me.

            ‘How do you know that I do not know Christ?’ I asked him.

            And he said to me, ‘All Christians know that only Christ satisfies.  You asked me if only Jesus satisfies.  Hence a girl who does not have Christ.’

            ‘Only Jesus satisfies,’ I said again to him, trying to understand.

            ‘Very much so,’ said this boy with the Irish Setter.

            ‘Doesn’t Sarah have a lot to do with your happiness?’ I asked, indignant for her sake.

            “Oh, Sarah and I love each other.  That is true.  But she never died for my sins as Jesus did,’ he told me.  ‘I love Jesus much more than I love my dog.’

            ‘I heard about the cross,’ I said to him, trying to sound wise.

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            ‘The old rugged cross of Calvary,’ he said, lost in thought.  ‘There my Saviour bled and suffered and died for me.’

            ‘That hurt,’ I said about this Saviour’s suffering, myself trying to sound as if I knew.

            ‘But His greatest suffering was when He had to bear the sins of the whole earth upon His sinless body,’ said Regal.

            ‘Not my sins,’ I said.

            ‘Your sins, Elysium,’ he said to me.  ‘And my sins, too.’

            ‘And old men’s sins, too?’ I asked, remembering the man with the Sheltie, the man who rejected Jesus.

            ‘All sins of all people,’ he said to me.

            ‘How come people are so sad?’ I asked him.

            ‘Because they reject Jesus as their Saviour,’ he said to me.

            ‘I do see how Sarah cannot be a saviour, Regal,’ I said to him.  Nor could Grandey be that old man’s saviour.

            ‘Humankind’s greatest need is Jesus the Light of the World,’ said Regal Royal.  ‘God created man in His own image.  That means that mankind has intellect and will and conscience and eternal existence within him.  Intellect—Man can reason with great intelligence.  Will—Man is given free choice.  Conscience—Man knows right from wrong.  Eternal existence—Man will live forever after this life—either in Heaven or in Hell.’

            ‘Then what does all of that stuff mean, Regal Royal?’  I asked him.

            ‘It means that only those who become born-again Christians can be content in this life down here,’ he said.  ‘That also means that only born-again believers get to be in Heaven in the life to come.’

            ‘I wonder,’ I said.  ‘Should I get born again, too, like you?’  I was beginning to believe now.

            He then preached to me the truth about us people being created in His image and all that that

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entailed in regard to salvation:  ‘Elysium, our human intellect knows inherently of the Almighty God.  God put the wisdom of His reality into all of us people.  And He gives us all the gift of free choice.   And with that free choice we can either accept the gift of the Son of God or deny the gift of the Son of God.  He wants us to come to Him with our own free will.  And only people among creation have conscience speaking to them within.  When a person does a bad thing, he feels guilty.  When a person does a good thing, he does not feel guilty.  And all people have one thing in common that no animals anywhere have.  We have an eternal soul.  And that means that even when we die we do go someplace in the afterlife and live forever after.  The saved go right to Heaven to be with Jesus for ever.  The unsaved go right down to Hell to be with Satan for ever.  What a person does about Jesus while he or she is still on the Earth for a little while determines where he or she goes for the rest of eternity.’

            ‘That’s serious stuff, Regal,’ I said to him

            ‘It’s truth,’ he said to me.

            ‘I’m beginning to believe it,’ I said to him sincerely.

            ‘And though I love Sarah, and she loves me, I do not make a god out of her,’ he said.

            ‘Do keepers make gods out of their pets?’ I asked.

            ‘Do they love their pet more than they love the Maker of the pet?’ asked the lad.

            ‘They may or may not love their pets.  But they certainly do not love Jesus at all,’ I said.

            ‘Behold, a creature more important to the keepers than is the Creator,’ he said to me.  ‘Therefore a man makes a false idol out of his dog.’

            ‘And I know what happens when a person does not make Christ Lord of his life,’ I said, learning eternal truths now.

            ‘And what is it?’ Regal asked.

            ‘That person never finds contentment in his life,’ I said.

            ‘The lost man and the carnal believer alike never find contentment in this life,’ said this wise

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boy.  ‘The lost man dies unhappy and goes to Hell.  The carnal believer dies unhappy and goes to Heaven.’

            ‘Then even the backslidden Christians never find fulfillment,’ I said.  ‘But at least they still get to go to Heaven.’

            ‘But that prodigal believer goes to Heaven with no eternal rewards waiting for him,’ he said.  Then he told me, ‘The only satisfied people on Earth are those born-again believers who make Christ the Lord of their life.  The happiest place for a saint to be is right in the middle of the will of God.   And such a spiritual believer has crowns and rewards waiting for him in Heaven, and the words of Jesus saying to him, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”’

            ‘I can see now than neither a Shetland Sheepdog nor an Irish Setter can give a man what he needs the most,’ I said.

            ‘And Who gives a man what he needs the most?’ summed up Regal in test.

            ‘The Saviour Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘Only He.’

            ‘Do you believe now?’ he asked me

            ‘I think I do now, Regal,’ I said.  ‘I do believe what you’ve been telling me about Jesus.’

            ‘Would you like to get saved right now?’ he asked.

            ‘I know that I am not saved yet,’ I said.  ‘What can I do to get saved?’

            ‘Only pray now,’ he told me.

            ‘Do I say just anything in this prayer?’ I asked.

            ‘Pray and accept the free gift of eternal life,’ he said to me.

            ‘I think that I can do that,’ I said.  ‘What should a girl say to God to accept this free gift of eternal life?’

            ‘I could lead you through the prayer and make it real easy for you, Elysium,’ he said to me.

            ‘I would like to do it that way for sure,’ I said.

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            ‘But you’ve got to mean it,’ he said.  ‘I led a drunk woman through the prayer once, but I don’t think that she meant it.’

            ‘I’m not drunk,’ I said.  ‘And I will mean it.’

            ‘I led a high man through the prayer one time, but I don’t think that he meant it, either,’ he said to me.

            ‘I’m not high,’ I said.  ‘And I will mean it.’

            ‘Well, kind girl, let us begin.  I will say the prayer line-by-line, and you must say what I said after me, and then, when we finish this prayer, lo, you are then a born-again believer in Christ,’ he said.

            ‘Just like that,’ I said.

            ‘Just like that,’ he said.

            And these were the exact words of prayer that that Christian keeper of the Irish Setter led me through, Flanders:  ‘Dear God in Heaven Above:  I am a nasty and bad and wicked little girl.  That’s because I sin and have a sin nature in me.  You are a most holy God, Who cannot even look upon sin. Sin is more bad to you than prayer is to dragons.  That’s why You sent Your only begotten Son—Jesus Christ—to take away our sins by His shed blood on the cross of Calvary.  The Saviour died in my place on the cruel cross.  But three days later He arose from the dead.  And He lives today.  I am sorry for all of my sins I did in my young life.  Please wipe them clean from me.  And forgive me.  And help me to repent of them all.  I ask You now to become my own personal Saviour.  Give me the joy that You promise to all believers.  And wait for me when my time comes to come Home to Heaven to be with You ever and ever.  In Jesus’s name I pray.  Amen.’

            And right after that, his Sarah cocked her head to the side at me and gave me a most endearing brown-eyed look.  She looked to understand the so great thing that had just happened to me. Regal said to her, ‘Kiss the new convert, Sarah.’  I knelt down before her.  And the adorable Irish Setter kissed me on my face with her tongue.  And Regal said to her, ‘Now let her kiss you, girl.’  How did Regal know

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that that was exactly what I wanted to do with her?  And the big red dog proffered me the top of her head.  And I leaned forward and kissed her on her head with my lips.  I then stood back up.

            And Regal Royal said to me, ‘Now that you prayed and got born-again, tell others about the Saviour, read the King James Bible, pray about everything, and go to a good Baptist church, and live for God.  And let God guide you through the hard times.  That way you will never be lacking contentment and satisfaction and fulfillment.’

            ‘Those things sound like lots of fun,’ I said.

            ‘Girl, you are off to a good start,’ he told me.

            Then he began to sing the hymn, ‘Rescue The Perishing,’ and he and his Sarah walked away to tell other people about the Saviour of the world.  I never saw him again.  That’s probably because that was the last time our family was going to that dog park.  That’s the story of how I became a born-again Christian, Flanders.  And the Lord fills me with his joy day by day now that I am saved.”

            “Amen!  Amen!” said Flanders Nickels here in this very secret place alongside of this County highway in the far back edge of his yard.  “So great salvation upon the prettiest little girl in the world.”

            “Now tell me how you got saved, Flanders,” said the pom and dance woman.

            “I’ll be most happy to tell you all about it, Elysium,” said Flanders Nickels.

            The next chapter will tell the testimony of the salvation of Flanders Nickels in his own words to Elysium—The Girl here in this secret place that only they knew about in this countryside along County Trunk N.

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CHAPTER XIV

            “Before I got saved as a boy, I used to go out into our countryside yard at Mom and Dad’s house and play sports all by myself,” began Flanders the testimony of his salvation.  “And before I found Christ, I used to play sports all by myself inside the house, too.”

            “You must have been an imaginative little kid,” said Elysium.

            “Yeah!” he said.

            “How does a kid ‘play sports all by himself?’” asked the pom pom girl.

            “I made up impromptu football games and baseball games and basketball games and all-star wrestling, and I play-acted them extemporaneously all by myself,” he said.

            “Didn’t you have neighborhood boys and girls to play with you in the countryside?” asked Elysium in fascination.

            “Oh, I did,” said Flanders.  “And I played baseball and football and other games, that I made up, with the children nearby all the time.”

            “Did you have fun with the neighbor kids in your games with them?” she asked.

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            “I did, and we did,” said Flanders.  “We had a great yard with all kinds of sections to play all kinds of kid’s games together.”

            “But I bet you liked playing these same games all by yourself even more so,” said the pom and dance girl in tease and in approval.

            “Yeah!” he said.  “I played my own little football games in the backyard where the garden was after it was harvested for the year.  I played my own little baseball games in the front yard with the hill sloping up toward the house.  I played my own little basketball games in the nice basement of the house.  I played my all-star wrestling matches on my bed in my first floor bedroom.”

            “Now how does a boy play a football game in an empty garden with no one else?” she asked.

            “I use a football.  I play the role of the man with the possession of the football.  And I hike it.  And I take the hike.  I pass. And I catch the pass.  Or I hand off.  And I run.  I kick the field goal.  I kick the extra point.  I kick off.  I return the kickoff.  I punt.  I return the punt. I do it all.  And I was all the many players.”

            “What a great imagination you had as a boy,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “And I made up teams with players from all of this,” said Flanders.

            “You came up with teams of football players out of all this?” asked Elysium.

            “Many names I had kind of stolen from the N.F.L., and other names I made up or whose names I found from irrelevant sources that caught my fancy,” he said to her.

            “Do you remember any of those names nowadays?” she asked.

            “I remember the best four teams,” he said.  “My teams had only about four or five players each.”

            “Do show off your creativity to your girlfriend-in-Christ, Flanders,” she said.

            “The best team had ‘Joe Willie Namath’ and ‘Emerson Adolphus Boozer’ and ‘Burgess Meredith’ and the best front line in football.  The second best team had ‘Rigid Roe’ and ‘Warren

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Merrille’ and ‘Logix-Kosmos’ and  ‘Curtis Zenith Mathes’ and others.  The third best team had ‘Cubic Cal’ and ‘Marvin Calvin Hubbard.’ and ‘Mount Hodag’ and others. The fourth best team had ‘Honda Everest’ and ‘Dick Williams Butkus’ and ‘Mean Joe Ferguson Greene’ and ‘L.C. Taylor Greenwood’ and others.  And there was a ‘Greenfield De Whittier’ and a ‘Grassland De Whittier’ and a ‘Mac McKinley Herron.’”

            “Did you keep straight all of these football players and what they did and how they did it on the football field?” asked Elysium.

            “I still remember lots even now, Elysium,” he said.  ‘For one thing, Warren Merrille was nine feet tall, and he was the fastest man in football.  He always returned the kickoffs and punts deep into the opponents’ territory.  And an end run often resulted in a touchdown with him running.  He could run thirty miles per hour.  And he blocked lots of passes with his arms.  And he could jump over the other team’s line and sack the quarterback.”

            “He must have been quite a fellow,” said the pom pom girl.

            “And then there was Curtis Mathes—he was a running back who dodged and weaved and eluded tackles as he ran downfield.  And Logix-Kosmos and Marv Hubbard and Hodag and Dick Butkus and Joe Greene were physical running backs who ran over would-be tacklers with brute strength.  And Mac Herron was the greatest running back—he had speed and strength and finesse.  Joe Namath was the greatest quarterback of my lot.  Emerson Boozer was the greatest wide receiver of my lot.  Rigid Roe and Cubic Cal were both coach and quarterback.  These two were ingenious play callers.  All the players played both offense and defense.  All of this I can still remember.”

            “Your own football league in your childhood,” said the young woman.

            “I did not call it ‘football.’  I called it ‘the Buffalo Bill Contests,’ making believe that Buffalo Bill invented it,” said Flanders.

            ‘Was this inventor one of the N.F.L.’s Buffalo Bills?” asked his girlfriend.

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            “Buffalo Bill was not a Buffalo Bill,” he said. “My Buffalo Bill Contests had no Buffalo Bill

team per se.  I guess I had no team mascots in my little world in the garden.”

            “Was Buffalo Bill one of your stars in your little game?” she asked.

            “I never thought of that,” he said.  “I just had it so that he invented it long before all those players came at its peak, the names I told you about just now.”

            “Do you remember any other names that you borrowed from today’s football that you play-acted in your Buffalo Bill Contests?” she asked.

            “I do now, Elysium,” he said.  “I had an Isaac Curtis and a ‘Billy Jos Whiteshoes Johnson,’ as I called him, and a ‘Double “00” Burroughs,’ and a ‘Terry Adrian Metcalf,’ as I called him.”

            “Any kickers in your Buffalo Bill Contests?” she asked him.

            “Yes, Marco Polo and ‘George Phineas Blanda,’ as I called them,” he said.  “I had forgotten those two.  ‘Marco Polo’ was inspired by the Green Bay Packer’s Chester Marcol.  Marco Polo never missed.  And George Phineas Blanda could kick or punt the ball the whole length of the field.”

            “Remembrance Lane for my boyfriend,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “I feel that I could go out and play again,” he said about his former pastimes.

            “I can see that you had your greatest fun playing these games as a child,” she said.

            “And my Buffalo Bill Contests were the most fun of all of my sports,” he said.

            “And you said that you played baseball alone, too, with yourself,” she said.

            “That was my second favorite play-acting,” he said.

            “How did you play baseball all by yourself?” she asked.

            “I was always the batter,” he said.  “I played in Mom and Dad’s front yard.  It was a hill.  At the top of the hill was our house.  At the bottom of the hill was home plate—which was actually a stump.

First base was off to the right and halfway up the hill.  Second base was at the top of the hill and right in front of the house.  And third base was off to the left and halfway up the hill.”

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            “Weren’t you afraid that you might go and accidentally break some windows?” asked Elysium—The Girl.

            “Why no,” he said.  “My bat and ball were plastic.”

            “What did you do without a pitcher, yourself alone being the batter?” she asked.

            “I improvised and tossed my ball up into the air at home plate and hit it with my bat as the ball came back down,” he said.

            “This was your Major League Baseball, Boyfriend,” said Elysium.

            “I called it ‘the Khan Contests,’” he said.

            “Did a ‘Khan’ invent this game in your little make-believe world?” she asked.

            “No.  They were the umpires in the game,” he said.

            “They?” she asked.

            “Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan,” he said.  “And they kept order in the Khan Contests when things got out of hand.”

            “My boyfriend steals more names,” she said with a grin.

            “Even from history of the Orient,” he confessed.

            “Tell me more about your Khan Contests,” she said.

            “I remember the best two teams,” he told her.  “The best team had as players, Mickey Mantle and Willy Mays and Babe Ruth.  And the second best team had as players, ‘Atta Batta’ and ‘Bobby Bat-It-All’ and ‘Bat Battic Battica.’  All six were home run kings, but Babe Ruth and Bat Battic Battica were the most prolific home run kings.  I remember that Atta Batta was the fastest at running around the bases.”

            “Tell me, Flanders,” said the interested pom and dance woman, “Did you ever hit any over the house?  What did you do then?  Was that an out-of-the-ballpark home run?”

            “I just had the area behind the house to be a type of outfield,” he said to her.

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            “Your plastic bat,” she said.  “Was that one of those bats that came in different solid colors?”

            “Yes.  Mine was a yellow one.”

            “And your plastic ball—was that one of those with holes around it?” she asked.

            “No.  Mine had a solid surface to it,’ he said.

            “This talk makes a young woman to wish to be a little girl again,” she said.  “But I never thought to do the kinds of fun things as a girl that you thought to do and did do as a boy.”

            “It was most extemporaneous,” he said. “Almost random at that.”

            “Girls play with dolls; boys, with bat and ball,” she said.

            “And I played make-believe basketball with just myself, too,” he said.

            “You said that you play-acted your games both outside and inside,” she said. “Was this basketball one you did outdoors or indoors?”

            “Inside, down in the basement,” he said.  “We had a nice and cozy basement where I did go lots and have lots of fun.”

            “I bet that this basketball you did call something other than ‘basketball,’” she said.

            “Right on, Elysium,” he said.  “This was my ‘Calculus-Grayarc Contests.’”

            “Calculus-Grayarc Contests,” she said.  “Was there actual Calculus involved in your little basketball games?”

            “There was no college math to this,” he said.  “I did not know anything about what Calculus really meant.  I just happened to see that word in a little catalog advertising books for sale.  That book company was advertising for sale a Calculus textbook.  And I came to admire this word enough to steal it and give it an identity—hence the Calculus-Grayarc Contests.”

            “And ‘Grayarc,’ Flanders?” asked the curious lady.

            “Another word or name borrowed from another little catalog.  I think that this catalog might have been indeed a Grayarc catalog itself,” said Flanders.

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            “You mean as in a company called ‘Grayarc?’” she asked.

            “I think so, Elysium,” he said.

            “What kinds of things did they sell in their catalog?” she asked.

            “I can’t remember now,” he said.  “I just know that I liked the word ‘Grayarc,’ and I came up with my name for my basketball with that.”

            “The Calculus-Grayarc Contests,” she said.  “What a jumble of diverse inspirations.”  Then she asked, “Flanders, where did you get these odd catalogs?”

            “That I do remember,” he said.  “I liked to rummage around in my teachers’ waste baskets next to their desks.  And that’s where I got those two names.”

            “Were these two men the make-believe inventors of your little game down the basement?  Were they like officials or referees?  Were they players instead?” she asked him.

            “No,” he said.  “My Calculus and my Grayarc were coaches of teams.”

            “How does a boy play these games down in the basement all by himself?” she asked.

            “With a little red super ball and with a ceiling light with a flat glass cover,” he said to her.

            “Do tell me more so that I can see it,” she said.

            “The object was to throw the super ball and to hit the lamp up there with it,” he said.

            “There was neither basketball nor basketball net nor basketball backboard?” she asked.

            “My own little basketball game down there left much to the imagination.  I do admit,” he said.

            “Who were the players?” she asked.

            “Well, for one there was a player called, ‘Shorty,’” he said.  “Shorty was four feet tall, and he would stand right ‘before the net’–in this case, right under the ceiling light—and he would keep tossing the ball up toward it in a great rapid-fire succession until he ‘got the basket.’”

            “This Shorty and his playing style are dumb,” said the sensible Elysium.

            “Now that I am grown-up, I, too, see that element as stupid, too,” he said.  “But kids are kids.”

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            “What does not make sense to a grown-up does makes sense to a child,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “I agree,” said Flanders.

            “What other players did you act out down in the basement with this?” she asked.

            “I had a Logix-Kosmos who was good, too,” he said.

            “Didn’t you have a Logix-Kosmos playing your ‘football,’ also?” she asked.

            “He was the same man,” said Flanders.

            “Ah, a two-sport athlete in your little world of games, Flanders,” said the pom pom woman.  Then she said, “Where did you get such a name for such an athlete?”

            “I remember,” said Flanders Nickels.  “My big brother bought a science kit one day.  I saw the box that it came in. And the box had the word or name ‘Logix-Kosmos’ on it.  And from there I ended up with that two-sport star.  And I remember another name I got from that same box.  It was the word, ‘Telemeter.’  And Telemeter became one of my Calculus-Grayarc Contests players, too,”

            “Any real N.B.A. basketball players in your basketball teams, Flanders?” she asked.

            “I think so,” he said.  “Pistol Pete Maravich and John Havlicek.”

            “I heard of them,” she said.  “Do you watch basketball?”

            “No.  Not really,” he said.  “I never watch basketball.  And I never play real basketball.”

            “Baseball?” she asked.

            “Not baseball, either.  I don’t watch baseball,” he said.  “But I played baseball with the neighborhood as a kid.”

            “Football?” she asked.

            “That I watch.  I am definitely an N.F.L. Fan,” he said.  “And I had fun playing tackle football with the neighbors when I was growing up.”

            “Who’s your favorite in the real football out there, Flanders?” she asked.

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            “The Dallas Cowboys and their head coach Tom Landry and their defensive end Ed ‘Too Tall’ Jones,” said Flanders.

            “How tall is ‘Too Tall’ Jones?” she asked.

            “Six feet nine inches,” said Flanders.  “He sacks the quarterback, and he bats the passes away out of the air.”

            “Now tell me about your all-star wrestling,” she said.  “That is, your own professional wrestling all by yourself.”

            “I acted out my all-star wrestling between myself and my pillow on my bed,” he began.

            “A pillow what grapples,” she said with a laugh.

            “Leaves much to the imagination,” he confessed.

            “How did you make wrestling out of that?” she asked.

            “By having the pillow represent a species of people who had not been endowed with arms and legs,” he said sheepishly.

            “Grapplers with no arms, no hands,  no legs, no feet,” she said.  “How did they grapple?”

            “I guess this wrestling with people that had only a torso has to be given some leeway with regard to a young boy’s imagination,” said.  “It would never do if written into a book.”

            “Tell me all about how you did your all-star wrestling on your bed,” she said.

            “I would go ahead and begin my wrestling on my bed against my pillow with the kind of combat one would find in A.W.A, wrestling as they do it in the ring.  I knew all about TV’s ‘All-Star Wrestling.’  Early on, before I knew better, I used to think that professional wrestling was real.  I pretended that my all-star wrestling on my bed was real.  Sometimes I lost.  Sometimes I won.”

            “Did you have a Verne Gagne or a Crusher or a Nick Bockwinkle or a Ray Stevens among any of your own all-star wrestling bouts?” she asked.

            “No.  I didn’t,” he said.  “But those four real wrestlers sure could put on a show,”

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            “Which make-believer wrestlers did you borrow from the real wrestlers?” she asked.

            “I don’t think that I stole any names from any real wrestlers with my all-star wrestling,” he said.

            “Then they must have been all made up in your mind completely,” she said.

            “My champion of Class A was a ‘cushion’ named ‘Purple Cheyenne.’  And my champion of Class B, a lower class, was a ‘pillow’ called ‘Green Cheyenne.’  Other class A wrestlers were people named ‘General La Petite,’ ‘Sentry,’ ‘J.S Quigley,’ and the threesome ‘Red Rover’ and ‘Red Rufus’ and ‘Red Ryder.’  The threesome ‘The Borzoi Brothers’ were represented by the three sofa cushions, and they were in class A, also.  And in class B there were classic matches pillow vs. man such as ‘Whitey-Brighty matches’  and ‘Tuffco-Dyno matches.’ The company in town Tuffcote-Dynal inspired that latter twosome for me, but I never knew what they did as a business.”

            “Surely you did not call these pillow species ‘pillows.’  Did you, Flanders?” she asked.

            “I called that species of men ‘Pittcos.’” he said.

            “Why that?” she asked.

            “I saw a road sign that said, ‘Pittco Road.” and I stole the name of that road for my limbless wrestlers,”

            “For any reason?” she asked.

            “For no reason at all other than to end up giving a name of species to ‘my pillows and cushions,’” he said.

            “Childhood fancies,” she said.

            “But the day came when I was about to grow up,” he said.

            “Uh oh,” she said.  “You gave up your fantasies.”

            “I stopped playing by myself my football and my baseball and my basketball and my wrestling,” he confessed.

            “I guess that that was a good thing, Flanders,” she said.

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            “I outgrew my kids’ games,” he said.

            “It all had to end,” she said, somewhat sad for him.

            “I found nothing to do anymore in my spare time,” he said.

            “You were idle?” she asked.

            “Idle and with no new interests to replace my old interests,” he said.

            “They say that an idle mind is the Devil’s workshop,” she said.

            “True for children, especially,” he said.  “And I started searching for new things to do.”

            “I bet that you found something,” she said.

            “I did, Elysium.  I began to write on pencil and paper every game that I had played by myself,” he told her.  “This was supposed to be my brand new life.”

            “You went ahead to relive your games by writing what you had acted,” she said.

            “That was my idea,” he said.

            “Could you remember all of them?” she asked.

            “No.  Not at all,” he said.

            “Could you remember most of them?” she asked..

            “No.  Not most of them,” he said.

            “Some of them then?” she asked.

            “Not even a whole game of any one of them,” he said.  “There were so many.  I found that I could write only individual plays that I could remember of my games. But that did not satisfy me.”

            “That did not work out for you,” she said.

            “What I ended up doing, Elysium, was to come up with new games as I wrote about them.  I wrote up brand new Buffalo Bill Contests and Khan Contests and Calculus-Grayarc Contests and All-Star Wrestling,” he said.

            “You were still doing it,” she said.  “But this time with pencil and paper vicariously.”

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            ”Yeah,” he said.

            “Did that work out for you?” she asked.

            “It did not work out for me, Elysium,” he said.  “All of this was not the same thing for me.”

            “It was time to let it all go,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “Then I lent my pages to my friend Tyrannus,” said Flanders.

            “Did he read them?” she asked.

            “He did,” said Flanders.  “He was an old kid.  He was a senior in high school.  And I was only a freshman.”

            “What did he think?” asked the pom pom girl.

            “He said to me that he loved what I wrote.” said Flanders.  “I said to him that I wrote it down, but that I had used to do it instead.”

            “Did he know what you meant?” asked Elysium—The Girl.

            “He asked me if he knew what I meant by ‘doing it.’  And I told him that I used to play roles with made-up players in made-up games.  Indeed he knew,” said Flanders.  “And he went and told me that he played role-playing games, too.   At once I asked him whether it were football or baseball or basketball or all-star wrestling.”

            “What did he say then?” asked Elysium.

            “He said to me, ‘Dungeons and Dragons,’” said Flanders.

            “Uh oh,” said the pom pom girl.

            Flanders went on to say, “He said to me that he did things in Dungeons and Dragons just as I did things in football and baseball and basketball and wrestling.”

            The pom and dance girl said, “Dungeons and Dragons is a Satanic role-playing game.”

            “Could my fun games have also been a Satanic role-playing game, Elysium?” asked Flanders.

            “I don’t know if your role-playing games with your sports were Satanic, Flanders,” said

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Elysium—The Girl.  “But they certainly kept you from seeking Jesus.”

            “He then invited me to play his Dungeons and Dragons with him,” said Flanders.

            “Imagine the great dragon slayer of today playing Satanic games about dragons as a kid,” said the pom pom girl.

            “That would not look good for the unicorn keeper of today,” said Flanders Nickels.

            “Did you go and do that with Tyrannus?” asked Elysium.

            “No.  He insulted my pastime.  He scared me with his invitation to the occult.  And I wanted nothing more to do with him,” said Flanders.  “I never did play Dungeons and Dragons.  And he went ahead and quit our friendship.”

            “Good, Flanders.  He was a bad influence on you,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “I quit my writing not long after that,” said Flanders.

            “That was good, too,” she said.  “It was time to seek Jesus.”

            “Any time is the time to seek Jesus,” said Flanders.

            “As the Bible says about getting saved, ‘(…:  behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation,)’” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “Amen, Elysium,” said Flanders.  “II Corinthians 6:2.”

            “Children need the Saviour, too,” said Elysium.

            “Then along in my life came Laud,” said Flanders.  “Laud was sent by God.”

            “Tyrannus was the bad guy,” said Elysium.  “Laud must have been the good guy.”

            “He was.  He most surely was,” said Flanders.

            “You needed what your games could not give you.  You could not go back to play-acting.  You should not go on and write it all up.  And you certainly must not go and discover Dungeons and Dragons,” summed up the young woman.

            “I needed Jesus Christ,” said Flanders Nickels in hindsight as he shared this with her.

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            “Every lost sinner’s greatest need,” said Elysium.

            “All of mankind’s greatest need,” said Flanders.

            “What did Laud say about Christ to you?” asked the pom pom lady.                                                            “He came up to me and said, ‘Flanders, it is written, “Again the next day after John stood, and

two of his disciples;  And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!”  John 1:35-36,’” said Flanders Nickels.

            “Amen!” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “I looked around in aversion of God and did not see Him,” said Flanders.  “So I asked this fellow, ‘Laud, where is this Lamb of God of yours?’”  He told me that this Lamb of God was in Heaven Above and in his heart within.”

            “Bravo, good and holy Laud!” praised Elysium this witness-warrior of ago.

            “Then Laud went on to say to me, Elysium, ‘Again it is written, O Flanders, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”  John 1:29,’” told Flanders his Christian girlfriend.

            “Way to go, Brother Laud,” said Elysium to this guy far away right now.

            “I asked him again, ‘Where is this Lamb of God, Laud?’” said Flanders.  “I was offended.”

            The Christian woman interjected, “Ah, Jesus, ‘the rock of offense,’ as the Bible calls Him in the eyes of the lost.”

            “And ‘the stone of stumbling,’ as the Bible also says about Him in the eyes of the unsaved,” said Flanders.  “I was not happy after hearing these verses telling me about this Lamb of God.”

            “That attitude is all about Matthew 21:44, Flanders,” said the believer woman.

            He recited this verse, saying, “And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken:  but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder,”

            She preached on this verse with the wisdom her Christian boyfriend understood and knew in his

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heart, saying, “Whoever falls down before Jesus and allows himself to be broken by Him and by His eternal truths will be saved.  But whoever rejects this same Jesus and His same eternal truths, the Almighty Jesus will fall upon him and will break him the hard way, and that person will be damned.”

            “Woe unto the rejecter,” said Flanders with her now.  “He will be ‘ground to powder.’”

            “That was you then, Flanders,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “I found myself then having to choose between Dungeons and Dragons and the Lamb of God,” said Flanders.

            “More like having to choose between the world and Christ,” said Elysium.

            “In sum I had to choose an eternity in Hell or an eternity in Heaven,” said Flanders.

            “The one decision which all who are born into life do have to make in this one life,” said Elysium.

            “But I was put out at Laud for having showed me all of this,” said Flanders.

            “He cared enough for you to tell you the hard truth,” said Elysium.

            “I was definitely offended by Laud’s Christ,” said Flanders.

            “Did Laud leave it at that then?” she asked.

            “No.  Laud did not give up on me,” said Flanders.

            “What did he say that changed your mind about Jesus?” asked the pom and dance girl.

            “He told me I Corinthians 15:3-4, and after that I was no longer against Jesus,” said Flanders.

            “I Corinthians 15:3-4,” said the Christian girlfriend,  And she recited it, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”  Then she said, “The Gospel of salvation summed up with the power of the Word of God.”

            “The saving Gospel,” said Flanders,  “Jesus died for my sins and arose from the dead on the third day.”

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            “What did you do then?  What did you say then?” asked the pom and dance girl.

            “I went and got humble,” said Flanders Nickels.  “And I first began to consider Jesus the Saviour of the world.”

            “The Holy Spirit softened your hard heart and opened your blinded eyes,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “The Gospel—so simple and so short and yet so powerful and so mighty,” said Flanders.              “The Gospel has the power to save souls and to change lives,” said Elysium—The Girl in eternal truth.

            “Truly this good Christian friend cared for my soul,” said Flanders Nickels.

            “What came then from all of this?” asked his girlfriend.

            “I confessed to Laud that I needed the Saviour of the world in the way that he had Him,” said Flanders.

            “My boyfriend-to-be was about to become born-again,” sang out Elysium.

            “Laud then went and told me that I needed to make this Jesus my own personal Saviour,” said Flanders.

            “Laud cared for your soul,” said the pom pom girl.

            “Which he taught me to be worth more than all of the money of the world,” said Flanders.

            “Every soul is at that,” said Elysium.

            “But this time I knew that it was about my soul,” said Flanders.

            “You were convicted of your sins and of your destiny in Hell as a lost sinner,” said Elysium.

            “I came to know with Holy Spirit wisdom that I needed Jesus so that I could stay out of Hell,” said Flanders.

            “What did you do then?” asked the pom pom girl.

            “I cried out to Laud, ‘What must I do to be saved?’” said Flanders.

            “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,  and you will be saved,” said Elysium.

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            “That’s exactly what he said,” said Flanders.

            “Acts 16:30-31,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “He at once showed me those two Bible verses,” said Flanders.  “And I agreed with them.”

            “The sinners’ prayer, I bet, was coming next,” she said.

            “The prayer that I needed to pray in order to become saved,” said Flanders.

            “I bet that he led you right through it,” said the pom pom girl.

            “He asked me if I would humble myself before God and pray to Him for so great salvation to come upon my eternal soul,” said Flanders. “Of course I said, ‘Yes.’”

            Flanders then said, “And this was what I prayed with him to become a born-again believer:

            Laud began, saying, ‘Dear Father Up in Heaven Above:’

            I prayed after him, saying also, ‘Dear Father Up in Heaven Above:’

            He said, ‘I am a sinner who cannot help but to go down to Hell and to pay for my own sins in eternity in the lake of fire.’

            I said, ‘I am a sinner who cannot help but to go down to Hell and to pay for my own sins in eternity in the lake of fire.’

            He said, ‘But I do not have to go there and burn.  The Lord Jesus paid for all of my sins on

the cross of Calvary.’

            I said, ‘But I do not have to go there and burn.  The Lord Jesus paid for all of my sins on the cross of Calvary.’

            He said, ‘On the cross Your only begotten Son bled and died for me.’

            I said, ‘On the cross Your only begotten Son bled and died for me.’

            He said, ‘And on the third day, He arose from the dead.’

            I said, ‘And on the third day, He arose from the dead.’

            He said, ‘Lord Jesus, please forgive me of all of my iniquities.’

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            I said, ‘Lord Jesus please forgive me of all of my iniquities.’

            He said, ‘Cleanse me from all of my transgressions.’

            I said, ‘Cleanse me from all of my transgressions.’

            He said, ‘Do take away my sins.’

            I said, ‘Do take away my sins.’

            He said, ‘For now on help me to repent.’

            I said, ‘For now on help me to repent.’

            He said, ‘Please become my Saviour.’

            I said, ‘Please become my Saviour.’

            He said, ‘And please give unto me the gift of Heaven.’

            I said, ‘And please give unto me the gift of Heaven.’

            He said, ‘Thank You, Lord.’

            I said, ‘Thank You, Lord.’

            He said, ‘In Jesus’s name I pray.’

            I said, ‘In Jesus’s name I pray.’

            He said, ‘Amen.’

            I said, ‘Amen.’

            And it was done.  It happened for me.  Laud’s work of salvation for me was finished.  I was now a born-again Christian.

            And after leading me through the prayer that got me saved, Laud asked me, ‘How do you feel, Flanders?’

            And I told him, ‘I now know Jesus!’

            And he said, ‘I have just beheld Satan as lightning falling from Heaven!’                                        I could tell that he meant that the Dragon of Dragons had just lost a soul to the Lord of Lords

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and King of Kings through my conversion to Christ.  That is how I become born again into the family of God, good and faithful Elysium.”

            “What a God-honoring testimony of salvation, O Flanders,” said the pom and dance girl.

“Praise the Lamb of God for sinners slain!”

            “Praise the Lamb of God Who took away my sin and its punishment,” said Flanders Nickels.

            Having spent much of the day down in here in Flanders’s most secret place in his big rural land, both agreed to part ways for this day and to meet again the next day for another special and joyful date in the Lord.

            “God bless you, Flanders,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “God bless you, Elysium—My Girl,” he said.

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CHAPTER XV

            Flanders and his ten unicorns were in a prayer circle one day in the side yard, and their prayers were felt by some wicked dragons to their much draconic discomfort.  And they came down to fight.  Behold, three six-legged dragons, one with one head, one with two heads, one with three heads!  And they shook the earth where they lighted.  The dragon with one head was a giant; the dragon with two heads was a Gargantua; the dragon with three heads was a colossus.  Truly these three dragons were among those who stood before the Dragon of Dragons in his domain.  Rarely had Flanders seen any one dragon as big as this one-headed dragon, and this dragon was the smallest of these three.  And this two-headed dragon could reach down and eat up Flanders.  And this three-headed dragon could reach down and eat up one of his unicorns.  And to see these three dragons together all at once, never before had these dragon slayers seen such a host of so-massive dragons in one dragon army.  It seemed almost like an Armageddon to Flanders.

            The one-headed dragon said, “Great and terrible Flanders, I shall make today’s prayer your last prayer.”

            The two-headed dragon with one mouth said, “Cease,” and with the other mouth said, “Stifle.”

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            And the three-headed dragon with one mouth cursed Flanders in the name of the Lord, with another mouth blasphemed the Lord, and with another mouth maligned the unicorns with a directive to go to the Devil.

            To all of this, the unicorns were reticent.  Equus was about to speak.  Flanders put his index finger to his lips before him, and he did not speak.  Flanders spoke to their foes saying, “Neither the Devil nor any of his demons will keep us from our prayer, O great dragons of the Dragon of Dragons.”

            And six dragon heads among three great dragons gave out roars of disdain and contempt.

            And Flanders said, “We eleven prayer-warriors ask you three prayer-foes to leave now.”

            The one-headed dragon said, “Flanders of Niagara, neither man nor unicorn tells a dragon what to do.”

            The two-headed dragon said with one head, “Death to prayer!” and said with the other head, “Death to those who pray!”

            And the three-headed dragon said with his three mouths, first, “I shall stomp you,” second, “I will shall bite you,” third, “I shall burn you.”

            “You three will not leave?” asked the unicorn keeper icily.

            The three dragons laughed in scorn.

            Flanders looked at Equus.  Equus asked, “Is it time, Master?”

            Flanders said, “It is time, good Equus.

            And Equus said to the other nine unicorns, “Charge!”

            And ten large unicorns charged three enormous dragons, Flanders leading the way.  Flanders massed two of his unicorn troops against the one-headed dragon; three of his unicorn troops against the two-headed dragon; four of his unicorn troops against the three-headed dragon.  And he and Equus moved about in battle from dragon to dragon.

            And Flanders gave battle commands, “Go for the heads!”

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            He himself would go for the feet.

            Thus the ten unicorns took on the six heads, and he took on the eighteen feet.

            And where the dragons stood, the unicorns’ horns fought their heads up in the air; and where the dragons stood, the man’s sword fought their feet upon the ground.

            The three great dragons found themselves being jabbed in their heads by unicorn horns and knocked by unicorn hoofs.  And upon the ground the three fell dragons found themselves being cut up in their feet by the formidable sword fighter’s saber.  All this while the agile unicorns of the unicorn keeper by way of their wings eluded the snaps of the six dragon heads.  And the athletic Flanders, on the earth, deftly dodged the stomps of the eighteen feet.

            And good was prevailing over evil.  The three dragons were on the defensive now, and the unicorn keeper and his unicorns were on the offensive now.  And Flanders humbly reveled in the Lord.

            Then the three dragons began to think as dragons do when seeking the offensive.  They would blast out fire.

            Having agreed to this, the three dragons then ganged up on Flanders, three against one, and they forced him to retreat and to separate from his soldiers. And the dragon with one head shot fire out of his mouth toward Flanders.  Expert at swordsmanship, Flanders stood there, ready to put the fire out with his sword before it could come upon him.  But the fire came not upon him.  Instead it came upon the tall grass in front of him in this field.

            Why did this dragon do that?  That was of no account.  Flanders wondered in doubts upon this incongruous strategy.  The dragons were up to something clever.  And the grass fire burned.  And

Flanders could not so easily put out a roaring grass fire with his sword as he could the dragon fire itself.   This grass fire was one straight line left to right in front of the Christian soldier.  And it kept Flanders out of the action. And he could no longer help his comrades in battle.

            Then the two-headed dragon went and shot out two more fires from his two mouths this time.

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Again the fires did not come upon Flanders, but rather upon the tall grass in this battle field.  One line of fire started at the left end of the straight line of fire and stretched a span from it at an angle, thus further sealing off Flanders’s right side.  The other line of fire started at the right end of the straight line of the original fire and stretched a span from it also at an angle.  This further shut off Flanders’s left side.   Before him now were three lines of fire, each at sixty degrees from each other.  It was becoming hard now to be safe back in here.

            What were these two dragons hoping to do by not directing their three fires just now at Flanders himself?  Dragons were wily in their ways.  They had the cleverness of Satan in their tactics.  Their strategies were ever-innovative and effective.  And Flanders prayed back here.

            Then the three-headed dragon came up to Flanders.  And with his three mouths he shot out three more fires upon the field grass.  The first fire started at the far end of the diagonal line to Flanders’s one side and spread a span farther, also at an angle.  The second fire started at the far end of the diagonal line to Flanders’s other side and spread a span farther, herein at another angle. The third fire started at the end of the former fire that he had just made upon the ground and covered up a span to the end of the latter fire that he had just made upon the ground.  Lo, the six fires were now complete.  The six fires were now joined together.  The six fires now surrounded Flanders where he stood with his sword.  The unicorn keeper with his sword was now in the center of a burning hexagon, the six sides of the hexagon all walls of fire in the field.  And Flanders was trapped in this fire.

            Meanwhile the ten unicorns were dominating the three dragons in the skies.  The dragons were sorely wounded in their faces and their heads and their necks.  And the unicorns were yet unscathed by

anything that the dragons could think to do to wound them.  Equus and company were most agile in the

air, and they continually eluded any of the blows with which the three dragons attacked.  And Flanders saw now wounds and blood coming from the dragons’ ankles and feet and toes.  This was done to them by Flanders’s sword before they had driven him out of this battle.  He thought now in the Lord ensuing

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battle commands were he to escape this burning and converging hexagon of fire.  The tops and the bottoms of these dragons were wounded.  Now they must attack the middle.  That must be the wings.

            He called out to beyond the fire unto his unicorns:  “Attack the wings!”

            And the ten formidable unicorns now attacked the wings.

            And Flanders understood that his unicorn allies must not leave the battle to rescue him right now.  There were three great dragons to slay first.

            Nonetheless, he called forth nervously, ‘Guys, it’s getting hot in here.”

            Flanders wiped his sweating face and again studied the battle outside of his burning hexagon. He could see major and minor tears in many wings of the three dragons.  Again he saw his adept unicorns continually dodging dragon feet and dragon teeth and dragon tails every time.  And the thrusts and swings and feints of the unicorn horns scored repeatedly.  And the unicorn hooves did equal damage to that of the horns.

            Then the three dragons lifted up into the skies and did ascend high up into the skies. The ten unicorns pursued them unto the very clouds.  Then the dragons ascended above even the clouds.  This was higher than any unicorn had ever flown.  In essence the dragons ascended above the level of tolerance for unicorns. The ten soldiers of God could ascend no higher.  The dragons had escaped.

            But Equus said, “Fellow unicorns, they have not fled battle.  They will come back anytime now in great vengeance.  They are plotting strategy now from above the atmosphere.”  Then he said, “Let us now make Godspeed and descend and rescue our master.”

            Flanders was praying about his likely death by fire, “Lord, not my will be done, but Thy will.”

            Behold, a mighty phalanx of unicorns coming down toward the ground from the skies!  There was room now in this hexagon inferno for only one unicorn to light upon the ground.  Equus lighted before his beloved master, fitting his equine form gingerly in the fire.  And the loving unicorn cried out, “Flanders, you live!”  He had never called his keeper by his first name before.

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            “Equus!!  My Equus!” exclaimed Flanders Nickels in passions.

            Flanders mounted him, and unicorn rescued master.  And Flanders was now out of the fire.  “Thank you and bless you, good unicorns,” said Flanders.

            Lo, master and unicorns now safe from the fire and in a pause in the battle.

            Right away the three sinister dragons came back down in a descent.  Equus said, “They look to be in the places of vertices of a triangle coming down from above.”

            Flanders quickly ascertained these dragons’ next trick.  He said to his ten unicorns,  “They wish to surround all eleven of us in a burning triangle upon the grass.”

            Equus gave forth battle commands in due authority, “Unicorns, let us charge!”

            “Belay that order,” said Flanders.  “Rather spread out far and wide and remain on the ground.”

            At once the ten-unicorns ran off in all different directions in obedience to their master.

            This clever tactic of Flanders’s forced the three dragons to widen their  planned triangle of fire and to make three very long lines of fires upon the field grass in order to close them in.  And the dragons were forced to spend a great deal of time to shoot their fires out of their six mouths.  And when they finished making their much-longer-than-expected triangle of fire, not one of the three dragons had any more fire left inside to spew out of his mouths.  And the winged unicorns with their master had no problem to fly out and over the burning triangle out onto the safe ground outside of it.

            And the dragons lighted upon the ground before them in a thud.  Flanders studied the three dragons.  And he could see that as wounded as were their feet, their heads were even more wounded.  And he could see that as wounded as their heads were, their wings were even more wounded yet.

And their fires were all gone out of them for the rest of this battle.  They looked quite defeated as they stood there, gasping for breath and bleeding all over.  And Flanders and his unicorns, though they were weary from fighting battle, not one of them were wounded.  They looked now like victors in Christ.

            The sword fighter said now to the one-headed dragon, “Will you let us eleven finish our prayer

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now?”

            Yet this one-headed dragon gave rebellious rebuttal, saying to him, “Only if you finish my life now with your sword.”

            Flanders said to his ten unicorns, “Bring his head down toward me.”

            And the ten unicorns flew up and grabbed a hold of his dragon neck and did force his dragon head upon the ground before Flanders’s feet.  [The other two dragons did nothing about this.]  And Flanders raised his sword in both hands and swung downward in a death stroke.  Lo, the dragon’s head was cut off.  That dragon was slain.

            Next, Flanders addressed the fatigued and weary dragon of two heads.  Flanders asked his two heads, “Are you going to stop setting fires to the good Christians out there praying to God?”

            With the rebellion of a dragon heart, one of the dragon heads replied stubbornly, “I live so that prayer-warriors die.”  And the second head said to him in gritty determination, “I am not done with you, O Flanders of Christ.”

            Then Flanders said to his ten unicorns, “Take his two heads and force them to the ground for the cause of Christ.”  [In this meanwhile the other dragon did nothing to help out his own kind.]   And the unicorns flew up toward this dragon’s two heads.  Five unicorns occupied with one head, and five unicorns occupied with the other head, this two-headed dragon found his two heads forced down and held down hard upon the earth before the mighty sword fighter of God.  And with two strokes of his sword, the dragon slayer soldier cut off both heads of this two-headed dragon.  This dragon was dead now, slain in battle.

            There was now one dragon left—the massive three-headed dragon.  All here yet alive in this battlefield knew what was happening next.  He, of the three dragons, was the most wounded.

            Flanders asked the three heads of this mega-dragon, “Are you sorry for what you did in slaying praying Christians in the midst of their prayers by way of your burning fires from Hell?”

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            In a rage from Hell, this three-headed dragon said first with one mouth, “I am not sorry–even unto my own death,” second with another mouth, “Would that I had killed more believers,” and third with another mouth, “You were going to be my greatest triumph.”  And his three heads spat upon the unicorn keeper in utter contempt.

            Flanders commanded his troops, “Unicorns, bring down now his three heads so that I may behead him of all three of them.”

            And three unicorns grabbed his first head; three unicorns grabbed his second head; and three unicorns grabbed his third head.  Equus stood guard before the unicorn keeper in case this biggest of any dragon that they had taken on in battle try one last thing to get the unicorn keeper.   And the nine unicorns of good brought down against the ground the three heads of the dragon of evil.  And Flanders swung downward—once, twice, thrice.  And, behold, three decapitated dragon heads lying upon the ground along with one headless dragon carcass.

            A quiet moment of reflection passed now between the eleven victorious dragon slayers.  This was the most intense dragon battle any of these Christian warriors had ever fought for Jesus.  And once again in Christ they had prevailed.  And once again all of the dragons fell in battle.  And once again none of the soldiers of the cause of God had been wounded in battle.

            Equus wondered about what to do with the burning fires spreading now in this yard of theirs.  Flanders was pondering the same thing,  Both prayed a silent prayer to God that He put out the fires in a way of His choosing.  And, behold, a great storm of rain and hail and sleet came upon this burning land.  And, lo, the great fires were put out.  And the sun came back out. Then Flanders prayed that God cleanse his land from the corruption of the dragons’ carcasses.  And God brought the crows and the vultures and the gulls en masse in flocks like unto three plagues.  And the carrion birds ate up all the meat and all the bones and all the organs of the three dead dragons.  And the land was cleansed thus by Almighty and all-wise God.  And the carrion birds flew away.  All was good now.  And all was well.

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            “Let us now have a word of prayer and thank God,” said Flanders.  And the ten unicorn pets formed a prayer circle, and their unicorn keeper had a short word of prayer before them to thank God for another victory in battle as dragon-slayers.  After this, they then looked up to Heaven and commenced to give blessings to God Above in a medley of praises.  And God looked down from Heaven, and He was well-pleased.  Their utterances were a sweet savor to the Almighty.

            And He said down to them, “Well done, ye good and faithful soldiers.”

            And the dragon slayers were most greatly encouraged by the Good Lord.

            Then God said to them, “Come apart from your battle and rest a while,”  And they did so.

            Not too many days later, all of the griffin keeper’s griffins and all of the unicorn keeper’s unicorns first met each other and became acquainted and became friends and comrades.  It was quite the introduction all full of all manner of formal ceremony and venerable cordiality and good cheer.  Flanders and Elysium were justifiably confident that all would go well in the presentation of their pets to each other.  And the unicorns took a fancy to the griffins’ beaks.  And the griffins took a fancy to the unicorns’ horns.  And at once they compared and contrasted the griffin wings to the unicorn wings.  And Flanders’s pets admired Elysium’s pets in sincerity and amity.  And Elysium’s pets were instantly fond of Flanders’s pets in truth and accord.  And instantly they all became as close as family.

            One day Gryphon and Equus got together alone to share respective nostalgia with each other regarding how they had first found their keepers.  Gryphon went on to edify Equus with the true story of how the griffin keeper and the ten griffins had first found each other as mistress and pets.  And Equus went on to tell his story of how the unicorn keeper and his ten unicorns had first become master and pets.

            Gryphon told his story first, saying, “I was going to school at the distinguished Honor Roll Institute.  That was an upper level school that taught griffins how to be good griffins.  It was a school for all good griffins who wanted to become good pets to good men and women and children.  It

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taught humanities and social sciences and natural sciences.  It taught also morals and etiquette and manners.  And it taught Judaeo-Christian values.  The school academic buildings were located in Sault Saint Marie in Michigan in America.  And the school dormitories were located in Sault Saint Marie in Ontario in Canada.  Between the two was a long bridge over the St. Mary’s River, which joined Lake Superior and Lake Huron.  We griffins would commute to class in the air and commute back to home in the air.  It was but a short commute as you probably know when it is done in flight.  Each dormitory, eleven stories tall, housed ten griffins, and a resident director griffin lived on the top floor and oversaw the things going on in each dorm and made sure everything was in order.  The dorm rooms were very spacious, and they were all full of books and study tables, and each had a perch outside of it like unto a balcony so that a griffin could light upon it and go into his floor.  There were ten such dormitories for a whole class size for the school of one hundred students.  The academic buildings were composed of indoor offices of the faculty and open courtyards for the classrooms.  All of the faculty were most honorable griffins.  And the faculty offices had even more books than did the dormitory rooms.  And the desks of the teachers were the most expensive furniture in the area of any person or griffin.  The classrooms were all outside in the open outdoors.  And the griffin students in class each had a wooden raised platform upon which to sit or stand according as he wished during the lecture.  And there were ten griffins per class session—never less and never more.  And these courtyards were often adorned with statues and busts and columns all of concrete.  The final authority over all matters big and small at Honor Roll Institute was a griffin named ‘ the Headmaster.’  He was considered by many to be the wisest griffin in the world.  That was one of the criteria for being hired as Headmaster at Honor Roll Institute.  The Headmaster had a veritable mansion for a home, and he lived right on the water on an island.  He loved to have his students come and chat with him at his mansion.  And his students loved to come and chat with him at his mansion.  The same went for him and his professors.  His professors had fancy houses along the shores of the two Great Lakes near this school.   And professors and

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students got together lots at these fancy houses.  I and my fellow griffins whom you now know and who now know you, Equus, all lived in the dormitory called, ‘Empire Hall.’   I was on the Dean’s List.  I was graduating Summa Cum Laude.  And I was the wonder scholar of Honor Roll Institute.  My fellow dorm neighbors at Empire Hall were all graduating Magna Cum Laude.  And I was the valedictorian at the graduation ceremony.  And Testament was the salutatorian of the graduation ceremony.  Then came recruiting day for us griffins.  That was the day for desiring people to come to the campus and look for a pet griffin to adopt.  And I and my graduating class stood outside ten dormitory buildings out upon the lawn of the campus and awaited a person or persons to take a look at us and see if they wanted a pet in us.  And we ten griffins were out in the front yard of our dormitory, and we looked out onto the many people to see what we might end up with as griffin keepers.  And I saw a beautiful little girl with blonde hair and brown eyes.  Her hair was all uncombed.  Her bucket hat came down too close to her eyes.  Her sweater was too long for her arms.  Her blue jeans had its zipper down.  Her belt was not all buckled up.  Her socks, I could tell, were two different colors.  And her sneakers both had their shoestrings broken.  Do you know who that was, Equus?”

            “Elysium—The Girl,” said Equus.

            “Right,” said Gryphon.  “The little girl Elysium before she became the prim and proper pom and dance girl.”

            “My master never saw such the Elysian Girl as she at that time,” said Equus.

            “That was before she became a woman and took to making herself look beautiful,” said Gryphon.

            “The great and wonderful Elysium when she was sloppy and unkempt and ragtag,” said Equus in mirth.

            “And I was there then and saw her thus,” said Gryphon.  “But even then she had a pulchritude that would soon blossom into young womanhood.  I could tell that in her.”

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            “Was Elysium the lass alone when you two saw each other?” asked Equus.

            “No.  Her whole family was there with her,” said Gryphon.

            “Lots then,” said Equus, knowing the many siblings that the griffin keeper had in her family.

            “But that day’s visit was all for her,” said Gryphon.  “Little Elysium was the one who wanted a pet griffin the most.  She promised to take care of her new pet griffin with consummate dedication.  The other family members were not so pet-minded as she was.  And this griffin was not going to become the family’s pet so much as Elysium’s pet.  Her mom and dad would help some.  Her siblings would pet and talk to the griffin.  But Elysium would love her griffin.  She wanted a best friend.

And she wanted a best friend who was a griffin.  And her dad said to her, ‘Choose wisely, Elysium.’

And her mom said to her, ‘Choose from the heart.’  And her brothers said to her, ‘Pick a pretty one.’

And her sisters said to her, ‘Pick a handsome one.’

            And we ten all stood at attention when Elysium the lass stood there and looked upon all of us.

She said to her family, ‘I want this one.’  And she pointed to me.

            Her dad said to her, ‘He is a good choice, little girl.’

            And her mom said to her, ‘He’s a catch, my daughter.’

            Then she pointed to another one of us ten, and she said, ‘I want this one, too.’

            And her dad asked, ‘You want two pet griffins?’

            Her mom said, ‘Two griffins are better than one griffin.’

            Then she pointed to a third griffin among us, and she said, ‘I want this one, too.’

            And her dad asked, ‘You want three griffins?’

            And her mom said, ‘Three griffins are better than two griffins.’

            Then she pointed to a fourth griffin among us, and she said, ‘I want this one, too.’

            And so on until all ten of us griffins standing there were all picked thus by this one little girl.

            Then her dad asked, ‘Elysium, are you sure that you can take care of ten griffins as their

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mistress?’

            ‘I cannot in my own strength and wisdom, but I can in the Lord’s strength and wisdom.’ she said to him.

            Then her mom said, ‘Ten griffins will keep us safe from dragons.’

            And her dad said, ‘Ten griffins we will have.’

            And her brothers said, ‘We wanted a she-griffin.’

            And her sisters said, ‘Yea, we have a whole bunch of he-griffins to pet.’

            I then proffered my eagle head toward my new little mistress.  And she reached out her hand and pet me on my griffin head.  She then proffered her blonde head to me, and I leaned toward it and kissed it with my eagle beak.  I became hers that moment, and she became mine that moment.  That is how Elysium—The Girl had first become the famous griffin keeper.”

            “How was she as a mistress with herself being a young girl back then?” asked Equus.

            “She at once took upon herself this great responsibility with consummate regard,” said Gryphon.  “As our griffin mistress is as a woman, so was she then our griffin mistress as a girl,” he emphasized.

            “No stone unturned,” Equus praised Gryphon’s mistress.

            “Nothing was overlooked in her care for and love of and time with us,” said Gryphon.  “In all that she did for us and does for us, a griffin can clearly see Christ in her.”

            “Are griffins expensive to adopt?” asked Equus.

            “Each griffin who graduates from Honor Roll Institute is gratis to any who want to adopt him or her.  It is the griffin who pays the tuition who makes the school meet its expenses,” said Gryphon.

            “Is tuition high at Honor Roll Institute?” asked Equus.

            “It is a year’s wages,” said Gryphon.

            “How long does a griffin study at Honor Roll Institute before he graduates?” asked Equus.

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            “Until he has learned everything,” said Gryphon.  “Like grad school for people scholars, there is no set time in which to graduate.  He simply studies until he is all done with what he needs to learn.”

            “How long did you and your dormitory friends study there?” asked Equus.

            “One year,” said Gryphon.

            “That sounds quick,” said Equus.

            “We ten griffins were the brightest students at school.  The other griffins at Honor Roll Institute had to study there two or three or four years, maybe five years, before they were ready to graduate and become pets,” said Gryphon.

            “What exemplary scholars you all were,” said Equus about the ten griffins of the griffin keeper.

            “God wanted us ten to be the best griffins we could be,” said Gryphon.  “Who would have known that we would someday become comrades of the lady archer in our most noble calling from God?”

            “Indeed the lady archer deserves the best griffins that God can give her,” said Equus.

            “God, Who sees things from an infinite viewpoint, knew ahead of time that we eleven together would someday come to slay many dragons for Him,” said Gryphon.

            “God sees things in His own eternal wisdom that transcends the temporal wisdom of those of us of His creation,” said Equus.

            “II Peter 3:8, good unicorn friend,” said Gryphon.

            “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,” recited Equus this Scripture verse.

            “And here we are now, best of friends,” said Gryphon.

            “How did you manage to pay for the costs of one year of school?” asked the unicorn.

            “Through a program of the school called, ‘work study,’” said Gryphon.  “Work-study is a job on campus designed just for the students wherein they go to work around the school doing jobs for hire.

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Some are cooks.  Some do grounds maintenance.  Some do buildings maintenance.  Some are mentors.  Some are teachers’ aides.  Some are even counsellors.  Some are resident assistants who help out the resident directors of the dormitories.  And pay is good for work-study employees at Honor Roll Institute.  Most who graduate from this university have already paid off their school costs by the time they graduate.”

            “What a school,” said Equus.  “One that makes gentlemen out of he-griffins and ladies out of she-griffins.”

            “How did you and your unicorns become the pets of the unicorn keeper?” asked Gryphon.

            “My master found us ten unicorns at the Wisconsin State Unicorn Stables,” said Equus.

            “I heard about that place,” said Gryphon.  “That’s up north by Lake Superior.”

            “Way up north and way out west in the farthest away place from civilization in our state,” said Equus.

            “Was that in Bayfield County?” asked Gryphon.

            “Farther,” said Equus.

            “Douglas County?” asked Gryphon.

            “Right there,” said Equus.  “Right on the shores of cold Lake Superior.”

            “Are the beaches cold there as the water is?” asked Gryphon.

            “The beaches most of the year; the waters, all the year,” said Equus.

            “Kind of as it was for me where I first discovered my mistress,” said Gryphon.

            “When I first saw my master-to-be up there, he already had a sword,” said Equus.  “He had come there to adopt ten unicorns not just for companionship, but also as worthy allies for battles.”

            “He already knew how many unicorns that he needed in his walk with Christ?” asked Gryphon.

            “God had told him to come here and pick ten,” said Equus.  “So Flanders came here to pick out ten unicorns.  And God made sure that he found the ten best unicorns for his purpose at my Wisconsin

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State Unicorn Stables.  I, as you can see, was blessed to be one of them.”

            “I can see a God Who answers young men’s prayers when I look upon you ten unicorns,” said Gryphon.

            “Do you remember in the Bible how Jesus prayed all night long before He picked his Apostles?” asked Equus.

            “I remember that passage.  Jesus was alone in a mountain and praying to His Heavenly Father,” said Gryphon.

            “Well my master-to-be prayed all night in his bedroom to his Heavenly Father before he came and picked us ten out up there in our unicorn stables the next day,” said Equus.

            “How did God tell him which ones to reject and which ones to accept?” asked Gryphon.

            “God spoke to him when he was there, looking us over,” said Equus.

            “Do tell me all,” said Gryphon.

            “I would have to tell it from how he told it to me,” said Equus.  “We ten lucky unicorns did not come until the end of the story.  But we all heard about it much in our years together since.”

            “I’m all ears,” said Gryphon.

            The following is a third-person narrative that completes the story of how Flanders and his ten unicorns first met:

            Flanders was there looking at the unicorns for sale.  And this unicorn stables had all of its unicorns grazing in its many rural and pleasant fields.  And there were different ranges that offered different types of unicorns that would be best for the needs of many different keepers.  Flanders was specifically looking for unicorn warriors to be at his side and fight dragons.   In one field were all manner of wild unicorns, male and female and winged and wingless.  In another field were all manner of tame unicorns, male and female and winged and wingless.  Flanders stepped out first into the field of wild unicorns, and he looked around with discerning eyes.  He saw unicorns bucking horns, fighting,

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running wild, even throwing their riders.  And suddenly he was knocked hard to the ground by a great force.  And as Flanders lay there, a wild unicorn tooted a victory toot on his horn.  This wild unicorn had purposefully run right into him.  Flanders was all right, but was sore all over.  And he got back up, and the unicorn pranced away ostentatiously.  And the still small voice of God said to Flanders, “You shall not have undisciplined unicorns as pets.  Go now from this wild unicorn range.”

            And Flanders left the wild unicorn fields and came into the tamed unicorn fields.  Here was a field of female unicorns with wings and without wings and a field of male unicorns with wings and without wings.  Flanders went into the female unicorn range.  And he looked around and studied and observed.  They were gentle, peaceful, and agreeable and docile.  They would be good with children like himself.  And they would make a good addition to a good family.  Just then a little red fox came running in from outside the unicorn stables.  And the female unicorns panicked.  Some escaped into the air.  Some escaped on the ground.  All of these female unicorns blasted toots of alarm and fear on their horns.   And chaos came upon the range.  The human workers had to come in and restore the peace among them.  And they finally settled back down.  The fox was gone.  All was calm now.  And the still small voice of God said to Flanders, “You shall not have fearful unicorns for pets.  Go now from this female unicorn range.”

            And Flanders left this female unicorn range.  And he came into the male unicorn range.  Here were two ranges—one for wingless unicorns and one for winged unicorns.  Flanders went into the wingless unicorn field.  These male unicorns looked like they could make great soldiers.  No fear shone in their eyes.  And their bulk could fight great battles against enemies such as dragons.  And they looked like most noble white equines that any master would be proud to have for his own.  Just then a wyvern came down from above and lighted upon the ground in the midst of these brave wingless male unicorns.  And he threatened them with a taunting word.  And these unicorns charged in upon him from all sides as mighty soldiers of God.  Behold, this nasty wyvern simply lifted back up into the air and

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easily got out of their reach.  He hovered above them, quite out of their reach, and he mocked them for their lack of wings.  The unicorns kept leaping to try to spear him with their horns.  But they could not reach him in the air.  Then he casually flew away, laughing at them for their lack of gift of flight.  The still small voice of God spoke to Flanders, saying, “You will not have land unicorns for pets.  Go now from this wingless unicorn range.”

            And Flanders left the wingless unicorn range and went to check out unicorns for him and his future ministry in the winged unicorn range.  Behold, winged unicorns running about in happy games on the ground and flying about in happy games in the skies.  They were tame and male and winged unicorns.  Never before had Flanders seen so majestic and wondrous unicorns such as these.  He fell in love with all of them.  He wanted all of them.  He could have but ten of them.  Just then a little two-legged dragon with two heads came down from the sky and lighted upon the ground.  And he blasphemed the name of God in a challenge to the unicorns in this field.  Behold, ten of these unicorns in this range at once came charging toward him.  The other unicorns in this same field did nothing about this dragon.  This dragon, now falling upon fear and regrets for what he had just done, lifted up into the air to escape.  The ten winged unicorns who were assaulting him for the cause of Christ also lifted up into the air and went after him.  He got his tail end all battered and pierced, and he fled for his life.  The ten Godly unicorns let him get away.  And they came back to their field and lighted upon the ground once again.  Flanders saw all of this.  And he knew that these ten were the ones that God would have for him.  And the still small voice of God said to him, “These are the ones, O Flanders Nickels.  Choose now these ten and take them home and live with them for the rest of your life.”

            Equus said now to Gryphon, “Thus the tale of how Flanders Nickels and we unicorns first met and became master and pets.”

            “God worked mightily for you and the unicorn keeper as He had for me and the griffin keeper,” said Gryphon.

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            “And here we are together now,” said Equus.  “We are all together now an army of dragon slayers that numbers twenty-two.”

            “Do you think that God would have us to take on Beelzebub himself?” asked Gryphon.

            “The second-in-command of dragons?” asked Equus.

            “The Dragon of Dragons’ own right hand dragon.” said Gryphon.

            “That’s serious stuff you’re talking about,” said Equus.

            “We are in a serious ministry,” said Gryphon.

            “I know,” said Equus.  “I know.”

            And with this the two great dragon slayers parted ways for the time.  And they flew back home to be with their keepers.

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CHAPTER XVI

            Elysium and Flanders were on a date together on their way to Sunday School at his Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church.  She was riding Gryphon in the air, and he was riding Equus in the air.  And they were side-by-side.  The rest of the pets stayed behind to play griffin games and unicorn games.

            “I’ve never been to another church other than mine before, boyfriend,” said the pom and dance girl.

            “You’ll like it,” said Flanders.

            “Will they object to my outfit?” asked the pom and dance girl.

            “We welcome with gladness any who come to visit,” said Flanders.

            “I can see that your church is as loving as my church, Flanders,” said the pom pom girl.

            “Elysium, you will be a most honored guest there,” said Flanders.

            “Perhaps my fame precedes me,” she said, and she laughed at herself.

            “Not every church gets to have the renowned griffin keeper come and worship with them,” he told her.

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            “I get to meet other Baptists for my first time,” she said.

            “It will be fun for you,” he said.  “And it will be fun for them.”

            “A good Baptist is a good person,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “We are all born again in our flock,” said Flanders.

            “My flock is all saved, too,” said Elysium.

            “Two mighty churches still standing in these days of dragons,” thought Flanders out loud.

            “Praying churches,” she said.

            “God’s churches,” he said.

            “What will I say to your Pastor Precept?” asked the griffin keeper.  “He’s quite the star in Christendom.”

            “Don’t be nervous,” said Flanders.  “Just talk to him like you do your Pastor Statute.  He is a star in Christianity, too.”

            “I get to meet your pastor’s wife,” said the pom pom woman.

            “Bethy,” said Flanders her name.  “She’s a woman of integrity and understanding and living faith,” said Flanders.

            “She sounds just like Emmy at my church,” said Elysium.

            “Pastors’ wives are the help meets to Baptist pastors,” said Flanders.  “Their Godly ministry is essential and often taken for granted by the flock.”

            “Master,” said Equus, “we are nearly there.”

            “Is that it down there?” asked Gryphon.

            “That it is,” said Equus.

            “It looks like quite the building,” said Gryphon.  “It is like a little pyramid.”

            “It is that indeed,” said Equus.  “My master’s church is a pyramid.”

            “But with lots of windows,” said Flanders.

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            Gryphon said, “It looks smaller than Egyptian pyramids from up here.”

            And Elysium said, “And smaller than Mesopotamian ziggurats.”

            “Our little pyramid is three stories tall,” said Flanders about Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church.

            “I can’t wait to take a look inside,” said the griffin keeper.

            “I, also,” said Gryphon.

            “It’s cozy and comfortable and full of the Holy Spirit,” said Equus.

            “It’s my home away from home,” said Flanders Nickels.

            And the four travelers lighted upon the ground.  And there stood Pastor and Bethy, the first ones to get here once again.  And once again Flanders was the first of Pastor Precept’s flock to get here for the services this morning.

            Flanders said, “Pastor, Bethy, I would like to introduce you two to our visitors today.”

            And Bethy said to them, “I know you two.  You are the griffin keeper, and you are her griffin.”    In great privilege and honor, Pastor said, “I recognize the lady, Flanders.  This must be Elysium—The Girl.  And this must be Gryphon.”

            Flanders said to his girlfriend and her griffin, “And this is Pastor Precept and his wife Bethy.”

            “Welcome all!” said Elysium..

            “Glad to meet you two,” said Gryphon.

            And they exchanged greetings among each other, saying, “Praise Jesus!” and “Glory to God!” and “Thank the Lord!” and “Yours in Christ!”

            Then Pastor Precept said, “Do come into our little church and see what it looks like inside.”

            And the pom and dance girl and her beloved griffin followed them inside.  Therein was an auditorium with four sections of pews arranged in four sides with a pulpit in its center.  The pews numbered five per section for a total of twenty pews.  And each pew looked to be able to seat five

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people.  That was sufficient for a flock of one hundred.  And upon a little ziggurat of a dais of three successive platforms was the church pulpit.  As Pastor Precept would preach, one-quarter of his flock could see his front, one-quarter of his flock could see his left side, one-quarter of his flock could see his right side, and one-quarter of his flock could see his back.  Pastor never faced the same side two services in a row.  He took turns from among his four sides throughout the four services of this Baptist church per week.  Equus said, “Master, this time is Sunday School.  Pastor will be facing the right side of the church auditorium for the service.”

            “Let us go to the pews on the right side of this auditorium,” agreed the unicorn keeper.

            “The front row again, Master?” requested Equus.

            “The front row again, good unicorn,” said Flanders.

            And the four sat down upon the front pew of the right side.

            Elysium said, “This is weird, but yet I like it.”

            Gryphon said, “I’m glad that we have you two to show us around.”

            The four walls were each one big screen window top to bottom and side to side.  And right now the nice summer air was blowing hard into the auditorium, making it comfortable and homey and quite windy.

            The Elysian Girl asked, “Flanders, what if a storm comes up with all of these screens?”

            And Flanders said, “These screens have storm windows that come with them.”

            Equus said, “Our church has all combination windows.”

            “I don’t see any combination windows.” said Gryphon.

            “The storms are up above the outer roof of the first floor,” said Equus.  “When summer comes for the year,  the deacons go around and work together to raise the storms of the combination windows up into the ceiling and above the roof outside of the second floor.  And when winter comes for the year the deacons go around and work together to let back down the storms of the combination windows to

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this first floor.”

            “I never heard of such combination windows before!” exclaimed Gryphon.

            “They must be heavy!” exclaimed Elysium—The Girl.

            “They are the world’s biggest combination windows,” bragged Equus.

            “And the deacons use hand cranks,” said Flanders.

            “Cranks,” said Elysium.  “I see them now.”

            “I see them, too,” said Gryphon.  “They look big and solid and sure.”

            “The deacons know how to use them,” said Equus.

            “What’s on the second floor of this Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church?” asked the pom pom woman.

            “The second floor is Pastor’s and Bethy’s parsonage,” said Flanders.

            Gryphon said, “The church people probably cannot go up there.”

            “Nay, Gryphon,” said Equus.  “All who come to church are welcome to come up to Pastor’s parsonage anytime.”

            Gryphon asked, “Anytime?”

            “Whether Pastor and Bethy are home or whether Pastor and Bethy are not home,” said Flanders.

“All are welcome to come up into the parsonage anytime he or she feels like it.”

            “Why, Pastor and his wife are crazy-accommodating,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “He’s a mighty trusting soul—both of them are,” said Gryphon, incredulous at so-great hospitality.

            The pom and dance girl then asked, “Flanders, what’s on the third floor of this Baptist church of yours?”

            “That is Pastor’s office, where he prepares his sermons four times a week,” said Flanders.

            To this, Equus said, “Nobody is allowed to come up into Pastor’s office.”

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            “That doesn’t mean you, Flanders,” said Elysium.

            “That means even myself, Elysium,” said Flanders.

            “I’m sure his wife can go in there,” said the griffin keeper.

            “Bethy is not allowed in Pastor’s office,” said Flanders.

            “Nobody can go there?” asked Gryphon.

            “Nobody,” said Equus.

            “Why not?” asked the pom pom girl.

            “I know why not.  He told me,” said Flanders.  “And Bethy knows, too, and he told her, also.”

            “Should we know such a secret?” asked Elysium—The Girl.

            “It’s a situation that brings glory to God.  And Pastor has since come to every member of his flock one-on-one and told them, some time after he told me and Bethy.  He told us so that we can pray for him,” said Flanders.

            “What happens in his office at the top floor of this Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church?” asked Elysium.

            “Pastor Precept wrestles with a demon,” said Flanders.

            “A real little dragon,” said Equus.

            “It is his thorn in the flesh.  It is his messenger of Satan,” said Flanders.  “And he does not want to put his people in peril for their lives in his office.”

            “Well, that sounds like a job for the sword fighter of his church to take care of,” said the Elysian Girl, bragging on her boyfriend.

            “I cannot help him with my sword,” said Flanders.  “I can help him only by prayer.”

            Most discerning, Elysium—The Girl asked, “Does God want him to take the dragon on alone and without you and your sword, Flanders?”

            “That’s what makes it his thorn in the flesh,” said Flanders.  “God has sent this dragon after

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Pastor to keep him from becoming proud.  And this little dragon does not like Pastor to preach his sermons, because his sermons encourage the members of his flock to pray and tells them what to pray about.  And this little dragon has the same attitude against prayer as all dragons do.  And he is relentless and dogged and tenacious in his persecutions of Pastor.”

            “Could you maybe lend your sword to Pastor Precept?” asked Elysium.  “Dragons kill for their cause against prayer, you know.”

            “He refused me his taking up my sword,” said Flanders.  “Pastor always preaches to us of his flock II Corinthians 12:9-10.  You probably know those verses,” said Flanders.

            She recited it in better understanding:  “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee:  for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake:  for when I am weak, then am I strong.”  Then she said, “Paul the Apostle said that.”

            “Pastor Precept says that and lives that with his dragon persecutor as Paul the Apostle did with his own mysterious messenger of Satan,” said Flanders.

            “Does the same God who gives strength to your Pastor thus also protect Pastor in his struggles in his office?” asked Elysium—The Girl.

            “God has told this dragon not to kill Pastor, not to harm Pastor, and not to tear the papers upon which Pastor writes his sermon notes,” said Flanders.

            “What does this evil dragon do?” asked Elysium.

            “He simply goes about and wrestles with Pastor,” said Flanders.

            “A literal wrestling then, and not a figurative wrestling,” said Elysium, now knowing all.

            “Poor Pastor is exhausted after wrestling with a demon in his office by the time he has his notes all prepared for the next service,” said Flanders.

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            “You do always tell me how his prayer requests for himself on your prayer meeting services are always that God give him strength,” said the pom pom lady.  “I can see why now.”

            “Does your Pastor Statute have to wrestle against demons, too?” asked Flanders.

            “My pastor always tells me and Emmy how exhausted he feels after preaching his sermons to the flock,” said Elysium—The Girl.  “Maybe he has an unseen dragon standing upon him at the pulpit when he gives his messages.”

            “Second to only you and me, Elysium, our two fundamentalist Baptist pastors are the next greatest enemies of the dragons of the world,” said Flanders.

            “Woe!  How the Dragon of Dragons does target God’s two great missionaries,” she lamented.

            “But our Lord will prevail in the end, O Elysium,” said Flanders.

            “God’s angels outnumbers the Devil’s dragons,” said Elysium—The Girl.  “And with God on our side, we will win when it is all said and done.”

            “Look, Pastor is stepping up to his pulpit.” said Flanders.

            “Is it time for Sunday School for us now, Flanders?” asked Elysium.

            “Uh huh,” he said with a nod of his head.   “Pastor is about to start.”

            And the auditorium became silent with anticipation and eagerness.

            And Pastor Precept began to teach his flock in today’s Sunday School lesson:  “Dear Flock, young and old, today I shall teach upon prayer.  What is prayer?  There are many different types of prayer, and there are many things of which the Bible tells us to pray about.  I hope to share these things with you this morning.  I would like to teach upon the different types of prayer that the saint is called upon to pray about as a prayer-warrior-for-Jesus.  There are intercessory prayers and petitionary prayers and salvation prayers and thanksgiving prayers and praise prayers and even prayers about anything, which covers all else.

            First of all, there are intercessory prayers, wherein a person is praying for someone else.  That

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can include someone who is sick, someone who is struggling in his walk in Christ, someone who is struggling financially, someone who needs so very great salvation from his sins, someone with a broken heart over the loss of a loved one, someone who is injured, someone who is struggling in school, someone who is running for office, someone who is beset with stress at the job place.  These are just some of the examples of what to pray about in your intercessory prayer life.

            Second of all, there are petitionary prayers.  These are also called ‘supplications.’  These are prayers for yourself. Are you sick?  Pray that you get well.  Are you backsliding on God?  Confess that sin and ask God to bring you back to Him.  Are you poor or broke?  Claim the promise of Philippians 4:19 in prayer and wait upon God to provide for you. Are you lost, and you know it?  Repent and pray and ask God to save you. Have you lost a saved loved one to death?  Pray and claim the promise of I Thessalonians chapter four, and God will comfort your hearts when you reflect upon how you will see that loved one again in Heaven where the saved go when they die.  Are you injured and in pain everyday?  Pray to God to give you overcoming grace, and He will help you through your trial day by day.  Are you having difficult times with your classes in school—grade school or middle school or high school or college or grad school?  Pray to God, and He will hear you and guide you into His truth.  Are you running for a political office?  Make sure first that you are saved.  After that, pray to God that if the people do elect you, that you preserve your integrity and Christian standards by making decisions for the cause of God and not for the causes of money and power.  Are you sick and tired of your job?  Pray to God and tell Him how blessed you are to have a steady regular income that pays the rent, and pray and ask Him to help you serve the Lord with gladness at the job place, and pray and tell God that you will go to work for Him and not just for the boss.

            Third of all, there are prayers for salvation.  We Baptists call these special prayers ‘the sinners’ prayers.’  These are the prayers that can be prayed only by lost people seeking to get saved.  These are the prayers where a soul seeking Christ comes to believe in Christ and asks for and receives the free

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gift of eternal life.  Such prayers as these are the only prayers of the lost that God hears.  All other prayers of the unsaved, God does not hear.  I have led many through these sinners’ prayers to Christ.  In some cases I lead them through the prayer line-by-line.  In some cases I let them pray this prayer with the words of their own heart.  God gives me the wisdom to let them pray the salvation prayer the way they need to do it best.  God promises to hear their prayers and patch up places in their sincere prayers in their heart that are not perfectly right according to doctrine.  On Thursday evenings, I and Flanders and other men of our church go out knocking on doors in Niagara and the surrounding countryside and spread the Gospel and share the love of Christ and lead lost souls through sinners’ prayers unto salvation.  And each time we win a soul down here for Christ, the saints in Heaven who have gone on before us, rejoice with great joy over that soul.  That man or woman or child whom we led to the Lord from then on has a home waiting for him or her in Heaven in the life to come.  Thus the sinners’ prayer.

            Fourth of all there are also thanksgiving prayers.  These kinds of prayers are favorites on the holiday of Thanksgiving.  But they are better meant for all-year-long.  What are thanksgiving prayers?  Of course, they are prayers of giving of thanks to our Good Lord.  And what is the definition of ‘thanking God?’  It is, ‘extolling God for what He gives us.’  We can thank him for big things like a loving family, like a happy job, like a good church to go to, like the death of a dragon, like the dragon slayers out there, like providing us with daily food and drink, like a happy day, like being able to live in America, the greatest nation on Earth, like a roof over our heads, like our homes that keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer, like the change of seasons that we get to see, living in Wisconsin, like the veterans that preserved and do preserve our freedoms as citizens of our great nation, like friends and good neighbors, like a King James Bible to read and time to read it everyday, like the mansion that each Christian is promised in the Bible for when he comes Home to Heaven, like days of health.  These are just a few of the bigger things that a Christian can pray a thanksgiving prayer to God

for.”  Pastor Precept then went on to preach, “And what are life’s little things for which we can give

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thanks in prayer?  I have many of my own which I can share with you now.  I do thank God for my enjoyment of coffee.  I always have coffee with my Bible studies and my prayers.   And I thank God for that cup of coffee each time.  I study my King James Bible every day with my pencils with which I underline and write notes in the Good Book.  I thank God that I have many pencils and that my old hands can still hold a pencil steadily and that my old eyes can still see what I read and underline and write in the Holy Bible.  I have never spilled my coffee in my Bible studies.  I have spilled my coffee only once in my prayers.  I thanked God for that that one time, telling him that it was a good thing that I had not spilled it upon myself and that I did not get burned.  My coffee is my kind of hot.  I also thank God for how Bethy had won the Bette Crocker Award back in our high school days together long ago.  You know that old saying:  ‘The fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.’  My wife is a great cook.  And I do thank God for that every time she and I sit down to eat. And I thank God for that delivery of propane gas to our parsonage and our church that one winter that was so cold.  There was a shortage of propane gas, but God made sure that we get our tank filled so that we would not have to freeze.  And I thank God also for the fans that were donated to the church from one of our supporting churches.  July can be hot humid month even here in northern Wisconsin.  I put some fans in my office, some in my parsonage, and some down here in our church.  We do not have air conditioning.  And fans work quite well for me and Bethy.  And I am thankful for our generator we have outside.  There were times when the power went out in the parsonage, and the generator kicked right in and kept our power running.  These are just a few of the little things about which I do pray thanksgiving prayers up to God.

In I Thessalonians 5:18, God’s Word tells us, ‘In everything give thanks:  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.’

            Fourth of all there are praise prayers.  As you can tell, praise prayers are prayers where a child of God praises the Lord.  Now take note, praising God is not the same thing as thanking God.  These are two different things in the eyes of God.  Both glorify Him equally.  What is praise then?  What is

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the definition of ‘praise?’  ‘Praise,’ in its self, is ‘extolling God for Who He is.’  And what do we say to God in praise prayers?  We praise Him for his Divine attributes as the Most High.  What are the Lord’s attributes as this most high Deity?  Characteristics such as His omnipotence, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His mercy, His grace, His eternal perspective, His infiniteness, His patience, particularly His love, most of all his chief attribute His holiness.

            God is omnipotent.  That means that He is all-powerful.  He is so all-powerful that he even has the Dragon of Dragons on a leash, letting him do his diabolical work only so much and no more.  God is omniscient.  That means that He is all-knowing.  The Lord knows every word of every book of every library in the world.  He knows our every thought and every word and every deed.   And He knows the secrets of Heaven.  Our Lord is also omnipresent.  That means that He is everywhere at once.  Nothing happens in this world where He is not there to see it.  He knows the fall of every sparrow.  He sees all the evil and all the good that happens in this world.  He sees us when we go to bed, and He sees us when we get up out of bed.  He is here and there and everywhere and anywhere all at once.  He is also a merciful God.  What is God’s mercy?  It is not giving us the bad things that we deserve being sinners.  We deserve to go to Hell, but He wants to save us and keep us out of hellfire and brimstone.  He is also a gracious God.  What is God’s grace?  It is giving us the good things that we do not deserve as sinners. ‘Grace’ can be defined in an acrostic:  ‘God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.’  None of us deserves to go to Heaven, but God has saved us through Christ, and through Him we can go to Heaven.  We praise Him also for His eternal perspective.  He sees all that is time as an equality in past and present and future.  We people living in time do not understand this.  It is beyond our comprehension.  It is a thing we are not created to fully grasp.  Suffice it to say that God is not only the here and now and not only the eternity future, but also the eternity past.  Christ has always been.  Think upon that and wonder in great marvel.  Think upon His infiniteness, too.  You know about infinity as regards math.  Infinity in math is a countless unending series of numbers.  And mathematicians regard different infinities.  There

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is the infinity of the number ‘pi.’  Pi, as a decimal, never ends on the right side of the decimal point.  And there is the infinity of whole numbers, the infinity of positive numbers, the infinity of negative numbers, the infinity of rational numbers, the infinity of irrational numbers.  Some math scholars say that some infinities are bigger than others.  Well, good flock, God is infinity personified.  Another trait of God is His patience.  Who is more long-suffering than Jesus?  We commit our sin that so easily besets us once again, and we come to God in prayer, and He forgives us every time.  Mankind is filling God’s wonderful Earth with sin and iniquity and transgression, and still the Lord delays His day of judgment upon man, patiently waiting for more souls to come to Him for salvation.  Our own country America has long ago as a people said to God, ‘We don’t’ want You in our lives.’  And God must soon leave the United States alone and take away her blessing and leave her to her sins.  And America will fall from within.  But God has not let that happen yet.  He’s waiting for lost souls in our land to come to him for forgiveness and repentance.  And you know about God’s attribute of love.  We church people call God’s love ‘Agape love’—that is perfect love which God alone possesses.  It is the kind of love that gives all and gets nought.  It is the Father’s love for us sinners for which He sacrificed His only begotten Son on the cross of Calvary to die in our place.  It is the Son’s love for us sinners for which He bled and died for us on the old rugged cross and rose again the third day.   It is the Holy Spirit’s love for us that He convicted us of our sins and of our need for a Saviour.  It is true that the Lord is the God of love.  But there is one more attribute to mention in today’s Sunday School lesson.  There is one attribute more characteristic of God than even His love.  The one thing that is God the very most of all things is holiness.  Above all, God is holy.  That is what makes God the most God.  ‘Holiness,’ by definition, is ‘loving righteousness and hating unrighteousness.’  Righteousness is right living.  Unrighteousness is ‘unright’ living.  And our most holy God cannot look upon sin.  In Isaiah 6:3 the seraphim before God’s throne in Heaven say, ‘…, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts:  the whole earth is full of his glory.’   And in Revelation 4:8 the four divine beasts before God’s throne in Heaven

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say, ‘…, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.’  My favorite hymn is ‘Holy!  Holy!  Holy!’  For my Lord’s attribute of holiness I do praise Him every night in prayer just before I go to bed.   These are the kinds of praise prayers that a child of God can pray in his times of worship in his home and here in prayer meeting nights.”

            Then Pastor said, “And we are also commanded to pray about everything.  What God wants the most when we pray about everything is a clean slate, a sincere heart, a humble spirit, a Holy Spirit inspiration, a spontaneous tongue, and a sense of reverence.  Though God the Father is the prayer-warrior’s best friend, He is also the Most High.  Fear God.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Heed Him.  Obey Him.  Pray daily to Him.  And listen to Him.”

            The adult Sunday School lesson done here at Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church, Pastor said, “Let us now sing a hymn about prayer.  Turn to hymn number 347, and let us sing ‘Tell It to Jesus.’”

            And the flock sang this hymn from the church hymnbook:

“1.  Are you weary, are you heavy-hearted?

Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus;

Are you grieving over joys departed?

Tell it to Jesus alone.

Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus,

He is a friend that’s well-known;

You’ve no other such a friend or brother,

Tell it to Jesus alone.

2. Do the tears flow down your cheeks unbidden?

Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus;

Have you sins that to men’s eyes are hidden?

Tell it to Jesus alone.

Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus,

He is a friend that’s well-known;

You’ve no other such a friend or brother,

Tell it to Jesus alone.

3. Do you fear the gath’ring clouds of sorrow?

Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus;

Are you anxious what shall be tomorrow?

Tell it to Jesus alone.

Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus,

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 He is a friend that’s well-known;

You’ve no other such a friend or brother,

Tell it to Jesus alone.

4.  Are you troubled at the thought of dying?

Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus;

For Christ’s coming kingdom are you sighing?

Tell it to Jesus alone.

Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus,

He is a friend that’s well-known;

You’ve no other such a friend or brother,

Tell it to Jesus alone.”

            Then Pastor called upon the church deacon for a closing word of prayer, and the deacon prayed a closing prayer.  And then Pastor said, “This concludes Sunday School.  Do stay for Sunday Morning Worship which starts in fifteen minutes.  See you here.”  And Flanders and Elysium and their two pets stayed for the morning worship service.  And after the morning service, the four began to fly back home.

            “Well, Elysium.  What do you think of my church?” asked Flanders.

            “It is just as good as my own church, Flanders,” said the pom pom girl.

            “How about you, Gryphon?” asked Equus.  “Were you glad you came?”

            “God is in this church, too,” said Gryphon.

            “I’m glad I came,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “I, also,” said Gryphon.

            “Elysium,” said Flanders, “if something happened to your church…”

            “Like a dragon coming and burning it up?” she asked.

            “Yeah,” he said.

            “And Pastor is killed?” she asked.

            “Yeah,” he said.

            “And I am the only one of the flock left alive?” she asked.

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            “Yeah,” he said.

            “Then I and my griffins would come to your church all of the time,” she said.  Then she asked him, “How about you in these perilous days, Flanders?”

            “If I lost Marriage of the Lamb Baptist Church and Pastor and all of my church friends to the dragons, I would go to Marriage Supper of the Lamb Baptist Church,” he said.  “I and my unicorns.”

            “There are not a lot of churches like ours out there anymore,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “There are not a lot of people praying out there anymore,” said Flanders.

            “Those quitters are not true disciples of God,” said the griffin keeper.

            “The dragons scare away the pretending Christians, and they quit praying now that the going is getting rough,” said Flanders.

            “Maybe God is testing Christendom with the fires of refining,” said Elysium.  “Who are His and will not cease from praying?  And who are not really His and will cease from praying?”

            “God seems to be using the dragons to weed out the tares from the wheat here in this dark world,” said Flanders.

            “Often times revivals of Christianity occur only during persecution,” said the pom and dance girl for Christ.

            “Perhaps eternal good shall come in time in this dark day of dragons,” said Flanders.

            “I don’t see revival happening yet,” said the griffin keeper.

            “It will come,” said Flanders.  “God’s ways always come about.”

            “And maybe not in our days.  But maybe after our days,” said Elysium.

            “The Lord is coming soon,” said Flanders.

            “I can’t wait,” said the pom and dance girl.

            “I’m eager for the Lord to come, too,” said Flanders.  “Titus 2:13.”

            She recited this verse:  “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the

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great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;”

            “The blessed hope:  the rapture of the church,” he said.

            “The glorious appearing:  the Second Coming of Christ,” she said.

            “First the rapture,” he said.  “You and I being snatched up alive to Heaven and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

            “Then the seven years of the end times—the tribulation throughout the Earth upon those left behind,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “Then you and I and all the saints and Jesus Himself in His Second Advent all coming back to Earth from Heaven to set up His Millennial Reign of Christ,” said Flanders Nickels.

            “When Christ comes back, He will take away all dragons from this Earth,” said Equus.  “Won’t He, Master?”

            “That He will do,” said Flanders.  “In that day He will put down all evil and all wickedness.”

            “And the Dragon of Dragons himself, too, hopefully, Mistress?” asked Gryphon.

            “God will put away the Dragon of Dragons into the lake of fire in the great and terrible day of the Lord,” said the griffin keeper.

            “The day of the Lord will be most good for us of the Lord,” said Flanders.  “But it will be most evil for the dragons of the world.”

            “We griffins may see that day,” said Gryphon.

            “Maybe,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “Will we unicorns see that day, Master?” asked Equus.

            “I don’t know,” said Flanders.

            “All that we believers know is that there will come a day on this Earth where there are no more dragons flying around in the air.  And Christ will be the reason for that,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “And prayer will be unhindered and uninterrupted and without reprisals,” said Flanders.  “There

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will be a be a great revival in this world.”

            “And we shall see our Saviour,” said the pom and dance woman.

            “And we shall be with Him face-to-face.” said Flanders Nickels.

            Equus said, “Something like that sounds like time itself has to end.”

            “That sounds like the beginning of a new eternity.” said Gryphon.

            “You’re both right,” said the pom and dance girl.  “At that time time will end and eternity will begin.”

            “What does that mean?” asked Gryphon.

            “Do explain that to us,” said Equus.

            And Flanders Nickels told them, “That is when the Good Lord makes a new heaven and a new earth.”

            “Amen!” said Elysium.

            “Whoa!” said Gryphon.

`           “Wow!” said Equus.

            “Maranatha!” said Flanders.

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CHAPTER XVII

            Flanders and his pom and dance girlfriend in all of her traditional attire were in her backyard playing most ardent romance games in battles of the sexes.  This looked to be their funnest date together since they started going together.  Right now they were standing on opposite sides of a little pond of hers and looking at each other, a big hemp rope in the pond and along both banks on the ground at their feet.

            “Pick up the rope, girl,” he said.

            “Girl?” she asked.

            “Woman,” he said.

            “That’s better,” she said.

            “Pick up the rope, woman,” he said.

            And Elysium—The Girl picked up the rope from the ground on her side of the pond.  Likewise Flanders picked up the rope at his feet from the ground.

            “Tug-O-War,” declared the pom pom girl.  Flanders looked at her funny.  And she corrected herself, saying, “Tug-Of-War.”

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            Flanders declared, “The winner will be the one who pulls the opponent into the pond.  The loser will be the one who gets pulled into the pond by the opponent.”

            “You’re going down, unicorn keeper,” said Elysium.

            “Well, you’re going in,” said Flanders.

            “I am woman.  Hear me roar,” said the griffin keeper.

            “You are woman.  See you get dunked,” teased Flanders right back.

            “You are a short thin fellow, and I am a tall well-built gal,” said the Elysian Girl.

            “I’m still man enough to whip your bottom,” he said back to her.

            “And I am still woman enough to show her guy his place,” she said to him.

            “Show me my place,” he said.

            “Whip my bottom,” she said.

            And the tug-of-war began.  And the rope became taut above the pond.  And pom pom girl and boyfriend were leaning their forms back in great pulls.  At first there was a standoff between the two.  This gave the woman confidence.  This did not daunt the confidence of the guy.  And this standoff lasted for over a minute.

            “Give up, boyfriend?” asked Elysium—The Girl.

            “No,” said Flanders.  “Do you give up?”

            “Hardly!” she said in sureness.

            And the tug-of-war continued.  Then the pom and dance girl found herself being overpowered, and she found that she had to take a step forward toward the pond.  On his side of the pond Flanders found himself taking a good safe step back away from the pond.

            “Hey!” cried out the woman.

            “Hey what?” he asked in fun.

            “No fair!” said the pom pom girl.

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            “No fair what?” he asked the girl.

            “You’re pulling me,” she said in zany rebuke.

            “I’m supposed to pull you,” he said.  “That is what tug-of-war is all about.”

            “What kind of way is that to treat a woman?” she asked in fun and games.

            “If you think one pull is bad, wait till you see the next pull,” he said.

            “Boyfriend, the next pull will be mine,” she said.

            And the game continued.  And the man pulled with more strength than could the woman.  And the pom pom girl had to take another step forward, and her boyfriend got to take another step backward.

            “This is getting hairy,” she said.

            “For you, my pretty little lady, this will soon get wet,” he teased her.

            “What if I go in?” she asked about the pond.  She was no longer overconfident.

            “You would get your pretty little dress wet,” he said.  “And all of your other clothes that go with it.”

            “I can’t get my pom pom girl uniform wet,” she said.

            “Forbid the thought that a woman would get her pom and dance uniform wet,” he said to her in mirth.

            “Flanders, you’re terrible,” she said.

            “And you are losing,” he said.  He pulled harder.  And she was forced to take another step closer to the pond, and he got to take another step farther from the pond.

            “I can’t stand very surely in these,” she said, showing her shoes.

            “A girl should not wear pumps in a tug-of-war,” he said to her.

            “I love my pumps, and I don’t like taking them off,” she said.

            “Well at least you won’t get your fishnet stockings wet today,” he teased her in flirt.

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            “That’s because I have on my black tights,” she said to him.

            “Those will get wet,” he promised her.

            “Not my black tights,” she said.

            “All of everything,” he said in imminent victory.

            And he pulled and dragged her one more step toward the pond, and he was now one more step away from her pond.

            “I am far away from your pond, girl, and you are right up to its edge,” bragged Flanders.

            “Uh oh,” said the pom and dance girlfriend.

            “It may be time for a word of prayer,” said Flanders in merriment.

            “God can still give me the victory if I pray now and ask Him to give me Holy Spirit strength,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “God has nothing to do with this tug-of-war,” said Flanders.

            In the zeal of the moment, the pom pom girl prayed to God for strength.  They both tugged one last pull.  And the woman was pulled right into pond.  She fell in face first, and she went down completely under water, and she came back up, her and her uniform drenched to the uttermost.

            “God did not answer my prayer,” she said sheepishly.

            “Do not tempt the Lord your God,” teased Flanders.  “Deuteronomy 6:16 and Matthew 4:7 and Luke 4:12.”

            “Woe!  A trifecta!” she said of these three Bible verses.

            “You look like you got caught in a rainstorm, pretty lass,” he said.

            “’Pretty lass,’ you say.  Well at least this gal is still pretty after a mishap like this,” said Elysium—The Girl.

            “How does it feel now—the spandex dress?” he asked.

            “My pom and dance dress feels like it is clinging against my form,” she said.

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            “I see that,” he said.  “And it looks foxy on you.”

            “It is not uncomfortable for me, though,” she said.

            “It is comfortable when it is wet?” he asked.

            “It feels good wet,” she said.  “Just as it feels good dry.  But different.”

            “Well do come up out of the pond, milady,” he said.  “You lost.”

            “You won,” the pom and dance girl conceded to her boyfriend.

            And he dropped the rope and ran around the pond to her side and reached out his hand.  And she took his hand in hers, and he helped her up out of the pond onto the land once again.

            “The man who pushed the lady into the pond is still a gentleman,” said Elysium as she stood there, dripping from head to foot.

            “Not pushed.  But pulled,” he corrected her.

            And Elysium—The Girl said, “The man who pulled the lady into the pond is still a gentleman.” Then she said, “Thank you for helping me out of the pond, Flanders.”

            “The pleasure was mine, my lady,” he said.  She, too, knew that the pleasure in winning their tug-of-war was his.  But she had the special pleasure in losing their tug-of-war.  And she was quite happy, nonetheless.  Man and woman were happy together in this date of so unique romance that only a Christian couple would think about to satisfy their urges with one another.

            “Well, Flanders,” said the pom pom girl.  “What could we do next for some more fun back here where nobody can see us?”

            And he said, “I was thinking about maybe us two having some fun with ‘wheelbarrow rides.’”

            “That sounds kind of sexy,” she said.  “I’ve got a wheelbarrow.  It’s in the shed.”

            “I’ve got a wheelbarrow, too,” he said.  “But that’s way up in Niagara.”

            “What should we do?” she asked.

            “Elysium, in my wheelbarrow rides, we do not use real wheelbarrows,” he said.

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            “Are we supposed to use make-believe wheelbarrows, Flanders?” asked the pom and dance woman, not understanding.

            “No,” he said.  “One of us is the wheelbarrow.”

            “I’ll be the wheelbarrow if I don’t have to fall into another pond again,” she said.

            “We shall stay away from the ponds,” he said.

            “What does the wheelbarrow do?” she asked.

            “She gets pushed around on the ground,” he said.

            “Being the wheelbarrow does not sound fun for me now,” she said.

            “You will be okay,” he assured her.

            “What do you do?” she asked.

            “I push the wheelbarrow around on the ground,” he said.

            “This time it is pushing and not pulling,” she said, trying to back out of this game.

            He went on to explain it to her, “You will be walking on your hands, yourself parallel and above the ground, and I will be holding your legs up from behind you by your ankles.”

            “That’s it?” she asked.

            “That’s it,” he said.

            “That sounds a lot better now to me,” she said.  “How do I get ready?” she asked.

            “Maybe you could get down on the ground and make like you are doing a push-up in calisthenics,” he said.  “Then I can take over from there,”

            She did that.  And he grabbed her ankles and lifted her up.  And now her arms were straight out and upon the ground.  And she was prone and in the air.  And her legs were safe in his steady hands.