Published: 30 Mar 2020

Snakes in a Church

“Welcome to Blessing, New Mexico.”

The road sign was a relic of the 1950s – rusted, faded, and barely legible. As had many of the towns bypassed when the interstate system replaced US Route 66, Blessing had collapsed upon itself, much like the roof of what had been a Stuckey’s that once welcomed travelers to the highway and to the town.

Jonathan drove slowly. He wasn’t sure what he and Tezca were looking for. All he knew was that someone had called for help. That voice that had called had been silent for several hours and Jonathan was worried.

“Are you sure this is the right town?” Tezca asked.

“Pretty sure,” Jonathan replied. “That welcome sign we passed? That looked familiar. I think I saw it in a side-band.”

Jonathan was the spirit of Compassion, with powers – Attributes and Authorities. Tezca was a mortal, rescued by Jonathan, and at the moment, Jonathan’s boyfriend. The voice Jonathan had heard had been telepathic; the side-band was in the mind of the unknown person who had sent an unconscious cry for help.

The highway quadrupled in width to become the town’s main street. A few dusty cars and pickup trucks were parked diagonally on both sides of the street.

“Old Mormon town,” Jonathan said. “They always had wide main streets.”

Tezca nodded, although he wasn’t quite sure what Jonathan meant.

Most of the stores along the main street were closed. Some sported broken windows; others were boarded up. The only open stores seemed to be those selling second-hand goods on consignment. There was a drug store. Its rusty Rexall sign was still legible. A hand-lettered sign behind the flyspecked window read, “Coffee.” The front door was open to the heat and dust of the late morning.

Jonathan was about to pull into a parking space when Tezca spoke.

“This is the place, all right,” he said. “Look.”

Jonathan’ eyes followed Tezca’s arm. Tezca was pointing down a side street to a building that seemed to be very much out of place.

The building was nearly the width of a block, and three stories high. Its white façade gleamed in the sun. A marquee, like that of an old movie theater, projected over the sidewalk and read, “Church of God of Signs and Wonders.” The days and times of services were listed in moveable letters.

Before Jonathan could turn onto the side street, he heard the sound of a siren and saw flashing red and blue lights in the mirrors.

Might as well pull over, he thought. If nothing else, the policeman might have some information. “Good morning, officer,” he said when the policeman reached his window.

The cop saw two boys in the car and put his hand on his duty pistol. “Drivers license, registration, and proof of insurance. And both of you, keep your hands where I can see them.”

“My drivers license is in my back pocket—” Jonathan began.

“Step out of the car, slowly, and assume the position,” the cop said.

Jonathan debated between obeying and pushing a little compassion on the cop, and shrugged. Let’s see what he’s like, first. Jonathan opened the door and stepped out, and reached for the wallet in his back pocket.

The cop grabbed Jonathan’s shoulder, spun him around, and threw the boy against the car. “Assume the position!” he said. Jonathan signaled Tezca – Wait – and then leaned against the car, feet spread, hands on the sunbaked roof. Had he been mortal, his hands quickly would have blistered. The cop knows that, Jonathan thought. It’s getting hard to show him any compassion. On the other hand, perhaps he’ll be impressed with invulnerability. Jonathan heard a mental giggle from Tezca.

The cop pulled Jonathan’s wallet from his pants pocket and fumbled with it, allowing a credit card – but not the cash – to fall to the ground while he pulled out the Illinois driver’s license.

“You’re from Illinois? And you’re nineteen?”

“Yes, sir,” Jonathan said.

“The other boy?”

“A school project, officer. We’re enrolled in the College and Career Academy, in history classes. We’re taking pictures and collecting stories about Route 66,” Jonathan said.

“What do you think you’ll find, here?” the cop asked.

“Not sure, sir,” Jonathan said. “Maybe something about the church over there. What kind of signs and wonders?”

The cop looked at the marquee. “There’ll be snake handlin’ at tonight’s service.” Before he could ask if Jonathan knew what he was talking about, Tezca spoke.

“They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. Mark 16:8”

“You’re churched, boy?” the cop asked. He leaned toward Tezca. Tezca saw his nametag: Sanders.

Tezca thought of the hours of Bible study, the endless recitation of verses and catechism, and exhortation from the pulpit. If he means indoctrinated, I sure was. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Your friend?” the cop asked.

“Yes, sir. Not so much as I was, though.” He added that in case the cop wanted to question Jonathan.

The cop put Jonathan’s drivers license back in the wallet, counted the cash and decided it wasn’t worthwhile. “Here, boy, turn around and take your wallet.”

“You gonna’ stay in Blessing for a spell?”

“Yes, sir,” Jonathan said.

“You’re gonna’ need that credit card, then. You follow me to the motel, you hear?”

Jonathan nodded, picked up the credit card, and got back into the car.

Thirty minutes later, the boys were in a room rented to them by a clerk who looked suspiciously at Jonathan’s drivers license until the cop reassured him.

“What are we going to do until service?” Tezca asked. “I mean, we’ve got to go, right?”

“We’ll go back to the interstate for supper,” Jonathan replied. “Uh, you don’t believe that part about snakes and poison, do you?”

Tezca giggled, “Not any more,” he said.

“Good,” Jonathan said. “’Cause that part of the Book of Mark isn’t real. I mean, it’s not in the earliest known version, and was added centuries later. I mean, even if Mark were the real author – and he wasn’t – that part doesn’t belong.”

Stuffed with boy food from one of the fast food restaurants at the interstate interchange, Jonathan and Tezca walked from the motel to the Church of Signs and Wonders. As they got closer, the sidewalk got more crowded until it looked as if everyone in town were there.

“Good thing you didn’t drive,” Tezca said. Jonathan nodded. All the parking spaces along the wide downtown street were taken, and people were parked along the verge of the highway.

The inside of the Church of Signs and Wonders was barely large enough to accommodate the crowd, but the boys found seats together near the middle of the auditorium. Above them were four tiers of balconies. In the front was a stage. An oversized screen at the back of the stage provided a slide show of a young white man in a robe, surrounded by blond, white children and fluffy, white lambs; then a picture of an old, bearded white man sitting on a cloud; then a picture of a red-skinned figure in a red jumpsuit carrying a pitchfork which he used to prod people toward a burning lake. Music came from an organ that seemed to be part of the structure of the building. When the low notes sounded, the whole building shook.

Every once in a while, someone in the audience would stand and call out, “Hallelujah!” or “Praise the Lord!” or “Amen!” or something like that.

Do we need to do that? Jonathan asked Tezca after someone close to them had stood, yelled, “Praise His Name!” and then fallen to the floor.

No! Tezca sent. Just sit here, quietly smiling like you’re happy, but not like you’re laughing at them.

That is getting harder and harder to do, Jonathan sent.

The organist picked up the tempo of the music. People stood, and swayed from left to right. Okay, now we have to play, Tezca said. The boys stood, linked hands with their neighbors, and joined the swaying.

A young man ran onto the stage, and people in the audience cheered and screamed. The people next to Tezca and Jonathan turned loose of their hand so they could lift theirs into the air. The man was wearing a suit with an open collar shirt. The collar of the shirt lay over the collar of the suit. Chest hair showed at the V of the shirt.

An old – what did they call them – leisure suit, Jonathan thought.

“Praise God!” the young man said. The microphone that he wore picked up the words. The organist had stopped playing. The sound system resounded with “Praise God!”

Voices from the auditorium echoed the words.

“Hallelujah!” the young man cried, and the people in the auditorium echoed that word, too.

Men carrying wicker baskets ran onto the stage. The young man threw back the lid of one of the baskets, and reached within to remove a snake.

Rattler, Jonathan thought. He looked closely at the snake. Poison glands removed. There’s no danger, there.

The young man wrapped the snake around his neck and brought its head to his lips. The snake’s hiss could be heard through the young man’s microphone.

The young man reached into a different basket. He’s being more careful, Jonathan saw. Black mamba! Deadly. Why would he have something like that?

The answer came unexpectedly.

“We have visitors with us, tonight,” the young man said. He held the snake gingerly, just behind its head. The snake wriggled in frustration.

“They were welcomed into our town and invited here by Officer Sanders. Officer Sanders, come forward!”

Oh, ca-ca, Jonathan thought. Who is this guy, and how much does he know?

The cop strutted down the aisle and onto the stage. The organ played the victory theme from one of the Rocky movies. The cop clasped his hands over his head, and shook them. Then, when he approached the preacher, the smile left his face. The preacher, still carefully holding the mamba behind the neck, thrust it into the policeman’s face.

“Do you believe?” the preacher cried.

“I do believe!” the policeman replied, although his voice was not as strong as that of the young preacher.

“Do you truly believe?” asked the preacher.

“I truly believe!” Sweat beaded upon the policeman’s forehead.

“Then take the serpent of Satan in your hand!” the preacher cried, and thrust the mamba into the policeman’s hands.

The snake, released from the imprisonment of the preacher’s hand, struck the policeman. He fell to the floor, trying to shake off the snake that had fastened itself to his cheek.

The poison acted quickly. The policeman quivered for a couple of seconds, then fell still and silent. The preacher grabbed the snake, carefully and behind its head, and lifted it, wriggling, to show the congregation.

“Where faith is weak, there is death!” he thundered, his voice augmented by the electronic amplifiers.

Then he called: “Our visitors claim to be from Illinois. But they are not who they seem.”

Spotlights spun, and then focused on Jonathan and Tezca.

“Bring them to me! Bring them that they may face the judgment of the Lord!”

The people around the boys seemed hostile. Some were pushing at them, perhaps hoping to garner favor by following the instructions of their leader. Others recoiled in horror at the thought of infidels in their midst.

Come with me, Jonathan sent. We have nothing to fear. Please, trust me!

Tezca smiled inwardly. At that instant, the knowledge came to him of who he was, what his powers were, and what he should do – what he was meant do. And, if truth be told, he was looking forward, at least a little bit, to impressing his boyfriend.

The boys stood together on the stage. The young preacher faced them. The black mamba was in his hands.

“You saw what doubt and sin can do,” he spoke into the microphone. “Dare you to take the serpent of Satan into your hands?”

“‘Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents … and nothing shall by any means hurt you.’ Luke 10:19,” Tezca said. His voice must have been picked up by the preacher’s microphone, for it echoed through the cathedral. Tezca reached for the snake.

The young preacher thrust the snake at the boy, who grabbed it and, before the snake could strike, threw it to the floor, whereupon it became a stick. Not just any stick, but a walking stick, about five feet long, of hand-rubbed oak with a leather strap and a steel tip. Tezca picked up the staff.

“This is not the serpent of Satan,” he said. Though he wore no wireless microphone, the amplifiers carried his voice through the speakers. “This is a staff, such as that which Aaron threw down before the Pharaoh. Where Aaron’s rod became a snake, your snake has become a rod. What does your god say about this?”

The preacher reached into a basket. He was angry and careless, but the snake, kept in the cold until this moment, was dazed, and did not strike him. He thrust the snake at Tezca who again took the snake – a cobra this time – and threw it to the floor. He picked up the walking stick that it became, identical to the first, and handed it to Jonathan.

“Again, your snake has vanished and left a staff,” Tezca said.

Now it was Jonathan’s turn to smile. He, too, saw what Tezca had become. There was no corresponding god in the Greek pantheon but he saw in Tezca the image of Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec feathered serpent god of Tezca’s ancient tradition.

“Go to hell!” the young preacher cried.

“I believe the reservations are in your name,” Jonathan said to the young preacher. My turn, he sent to Tezca.

“See the power of the Lord!” the preacher cried. “You come here to challenge us! You come here to challenge the will of the Lord!”

Jonathan stood firm, facing the preacher. “Which lord do you serve? The one who created Eden or the one who corrupted that paradise?”

Neither story is true, Jonathan thought. However, these are stories that these people may believe.

Jonathan waved his hands, and a great fire appeared upon the stage. Another wave, and the young preacher was cast into the flame, in which he screamed and shriveled and died.

“Paul shook off the snake into the fire, and yet felt no harm. Acts 28:5” Tezca said, although he no longer believed what he had read or what had been drilled into him. He believed only what he saw. He knew, however, the quotation from their Bible would resonate with the congregation. The loudspeakers in the auditorium echoed the words.

Jonathan spoke only briefly to the congregation. His words, too, were carried to every corner of the auditorium.

“The creature who was destroyed in the flame had taken power from you, from your worship, from your fascination with him and his trickery. And it was trickery. You have been misled and your power taken from you.

“Only you can overcome this and protect yourselves from others who would use you.

“Doubt everything, for doubt leads to questioning, and only questioning leads to the truth. Use precision in language, and demand precision of others. Be wary of propaganda and persuasion. Question even the most sacred texts.”

As Jonathan spoke, those words appeared on the jumbotron screen behind him and were etched into the side walls of the auditorium. As soon as the echoes of his voice died, he and Tezca disappeared.

On Thermai
Jonathan

I sat beside Tezca and held his hand. Lucas, Whittaker, and Linden had been waiting when we returned.

A Magnolia poured water and lemonade, and then sat beside Lucas.

“The boy whose distress we heard was dead before we arrived. That is why we no longer heard him. We have lost him. On the other hand, we have rid the world – the world of that reality – of a great evil. It was that boy’s dying call that brought us there. He has been vindicated.”

“It wasn’t all trickery, although that’s what we said,” Tezca said. “The preacher was becoming a god. He had found a way to take power from the congregation. But he was becoming an evil god.

“And we have a couple of really outstanding walking sticks.”

“Will they ever turn back into snakes?” Linden asked.

“No, they never were, actually,” Tezca said. “We sent the snakes back to the jungles from which they’d been taken; the walking sticks came from an Appalachian Trail outfitter in Asheville, North Carolina. We borrowed them for the service, and then went there to pay for them.”

Lucas wasn’t quite sure how Tezca had sent the snakes to the jungles and borrowed walking sticks.

“Tezca? That’s a nickname, isn’t it,” Lucas said. “What is your full name?”

Tezca blushed. “Tezcacoatl. It means serpent king. I used to be teased in school, and when the Reverend said it was an inappropriate name for a Christian, it was changed to Terry.

“I didn’t like that, so when Jonathan asked me what was my name, I said Tezca, which was my nickname when I was little.”

“That explains a lot,” Jonathan said, “including why I saw the image of Quetzalcoatl when I looked at you. You’re becoming a god, Tezca. You’ve already gotten some powers.”

Jonathan turned to Lucas. “We really do need an encyclopedia!”

“That’s not our biggest problem,” Linden said. “There’s still the evil of that church.”

Lucas nodded. “Thanks to you two, we know more about what we must do and with Tezca, we have a new ally.

Chapter Notes

After this chapter was written, we discovered Season 7, Episode 9 of The X-Files, which aired in 1999 and was entitled, “Signs and Wonders.” It began in the town of Blessing, Tennessee and deals with “snakes in a church.” We credit this chapter to those writers – and the links between realities.

Please read Bart D. Ehrman’s books, including “Forged: Writing in the Name of God—Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are” for more on why the Book of Mark isn’t what it seems. Available on Kindle in your reality.

Disclaimers and Book End Notes

If immutable laws governed the universe,
the mythical gods of ancient Greece
would have been impotent.
—Lawrence Krauss
A Universe from Nothing

Perhaps he doesn’t
understand the Realities.
—David McLeod

Although these are “end notes,” there are plans to continue the story of Lucas and Thermai, both in this reality and in another. Please watch for these manuscripts.

The quotation of Lawrence Krauss is redacted, without changing the meaning, from his book, A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing, Kindle Edition. He may understand dark energy better than anyone except Stephen Hawking (see Hawking’s book, The Grand Design, also on Kindle, and which we found to be much more useful than Krauss).

Style guides, including the classic by Strunk and White, say that the possessive form of “old names” and “classical names” that end in “s” should not get an “apostrophe s”: Jesus’ not Jesus’s. Okay, if he’s got that prerogative, so should Mars, Zeus, Lucas, and others of that ilk. At least, that’s my belief.

The notion of creating a universal flu vaccine by focusing on the hemagglutinin, which does not mutate, rather than the polymerases which do mutate, is real, and is currently under investigation by the National Institutes of Health. Whether that idea can be extended to HIV is still speculative.

Trademarks used herein are the property of their owners in all realities. Dura Lavado is a registered trademark only on Earth Analogue VII—as far as we know.

“… Reginald Finger, an Evangelical member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, recently announced that he would consider opposing an HIV vaccine—thereby condemning millions of men and women to die unnecessarily from AIDS each year—because such a vaccine would encourage premarital sex by making it less risky.”—Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris, 2006.

If you would like better to understand the Enlightenment and its impact on history, consider reading James MacGregor Burns’ Fire and Light: How the Enlightenment Transformed Our World. It will explain why Athena was concerned with the turn taken by the French Revolution and will likely answer questions that were never treated in USA American schools’ history courses.

We hope that you enjoyed your trip into David’s different realities. David appreciates all comments to his stories. David dot Mcleod at CastleRoland dot Net.

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