Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine November Edition | Page 31

NO ORDINARY NOEL
by Pat G’Orge-Walker
Prologue
O
ld man Crazy wasn’t supposed to visit the Crossing Over Sanctuary church
during Christmas time. Crazy had eleven other months it could’ve dragged the
church into chaos.
But not in the winter of 2010, that year Old man Crazy showed up gift-wrapped,
tied with a bow of sincerity around a box of hope. Like any surprise epidemic
Crazy’s, message spread quickly, from the pulpit to the back pew and all around the
town.
Moreover, plenty of church folk should’ve seen its signs. Those church Mothers
with their so-called visions and the old Deacons’ that claimed third-eye discernments.
The Reverend and the Church Board that boasted all sorts of spiritual gifts, yet none
saw Crazy coming. They didn’t even know the sign on the church lawn read, “When you
come into the House of the Lord, just pay and leave your worries behind.”
But Lee Ester, the unpaid former head of the church’s custodial board knew about
the sign, especially since he’d hung before he filed for bankruptcy.
There were other signs all over Pelzer, South Carolina: Going out of Business,
Liquidation, and A Two Days Only B4 Honest Eddie Goes 2 Prison Sale. Big and little
signs declared one thing or another.
And God decided Christmas or not, He would send Sister Betty to thwart old man
Crazy; of course, she didn’t want to do it.
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