The pastor was preaching, continuing with the story.

The pastor was at it again yesterday. Preaching about the fishing disciples in his sermon, and baking cakes. Of course, the focus was on Jesus, who'd escaped the gates. He was focusing on how one can be looking at him, and talking to him, yes, Jesus, and not even know that it's him. But as for me, I was about to see some other things there among them, in the very sermon that he was there, preaching.

So, I'd say, go a-fishing anyway, because "fishers" is what you are, of men, even. So, when catching time comes, it will be fishers who'll be getting some because they'll be in the position to catch fish and reap. Possibly you and me too, yes, my peeps. You'll know what to do with your catch of fish, you're a fisherman too, like these. You will know who to turn to for a fisherman's type of help when your nets start breaking under the weight, and what to ditch her on near the shelf of the Apes. You're a fisherman (or woman).

So, yes, you will know. You'll have a market ready and waiting for your merchandise, you're a fisher. Go on out fishing, fisherman, no matter what? Let all others sit around and wait and watch the Gold Cup match. In comparison to waiting for Jesus to come to feed them with roast fish and bread on the plate (or cake, on rocks).

When Jesus comes, you see, he approached fishermen, like these. Fishers who've been fishing, but who might have caught no fish, "yet." After Jesus was done with fixing them up good and proper, though, the fishers had fish a-plenty to show. What if "non-fishers" had gone out fishing too? Good question, coming from you. Are you a fisherman? Is your storage full now, as it is, and moving on? Is your net already full and up to the breaking point? Is it possible that you are (or have been) fishing on the wrong side of the thing, like, the boated joint? Or even off the bay?

Why then are you so empty? Am I even allowed to ask, my auntie? Okay. Go back to what you do, go and pray, but answer me this before you go astray. Is it possible that one could pray too much? Could it be that she's taking the easy way out of the rush, by praying, mi boss?

"Let us pray," is what they say, like, always. Have you got enough for yourselves and others, as it is, or as it's to be coming to you from those prayers of hers and his? Like that thing there was, with those other fishers. "No." So, let fishers be fishers then, and let them go out fishing. As opposed to other things that they could have been doing, and dishing, or not doing anything, but wishing, away, even. Could it be that Jesus loves fishers, even one such as Peter, more than a few other types of weaker folks, as is ours? No. jokes. But I'm kind of leaning towards a "yes" here, of course, hand me one of your best beers. Yes, there, screw off the corks. Hmm, wow, this is good, "Gulp!" Thank you.

The prayers are good, they have their place and time, as I understood it to be. But it just might be the time now for fishers to be fishers, like these. Be who you are, like who you're called to be. As for me? I will strive to be me, whatever that may turn me out to be. Till then, though, I'mma gonna go on fishing, or more like writing. Let the dead ones go on a-dying, even because of this. Or?

Pastors versus Altern Westview. Which of the two do you prefer?

Altern is here now. Altern is that guy who usually turns up at church once a year; he's always up to no good, my dear. Now, listen up, and you're more than likely to hear.

"Talk to me," said the pastor as he was delivering his usual, fiery message.

Altern: I'm talking, but you're not listening.

Pastor: You're not talking to me!

Altern: Yes, I am, but you can't hear me probably because you're screaming above everyone else, to try and scare me.

Pastor: I can't hear you.

Altern: Maybe if you weren't shouting that loudly, you would have heard me.

Yes, they're screaming so loudly that no one else can get a word in. They are hearing so much from "God" that they cannot hear anyone else, or anything else, no, not even him. Seeing so much in the spirit, that they can't seem to see anything in the real, as it is in real life. The real world that we live in, that is, nice.

...

Elkan's story (uncensored). So, here's the story, the real story as it goes. Born in a farming village in the rural parts of the country, his own beloved tropical country. He's the second of eight living children to his mother (hi mammy). He was a bit on the frail side as a childish kid. Not as ruff-and-tumbled as the rest of the siblings were and are. There were other siblings among them, too. Although his mother had eight, and you, the father's tally amounts to nearly a plate of? no, not of stew, but of twenty.

It was the norm in those days in that neck of the woods, for men to plant their seeds in any and every farrowed ground that's good, unemptied. His sister was the only girl in the mix, her, at the time. The only girl amongst the mother's eight children and crying. Yes, there's a boy thrown in there too, one of a different father than you. But that is the beauty of the family quilt; the rural tropical farm-country kind of family quilt, as it is, right? Yes, right there for you and me, tonight.

Elkhan was sent off to live with his grandmother very early on. But was sent back home later, to go off to schools of higher learning and greater, up or down. Might have been for some other reasons too, but? He was still much too young to fully understand those dynamics in the old lady's shoe, and home, as seen coming from you. Family dynamics patted down to serve them, and guess who? Yes, Hugh, you know? Some things are never talked about in close-knit families like this, which theirs certainly was and still is.

Right here is a good place for us to apologize to the said family, as well as close friends and acquaintances such as them, and you, not me, though. But some valued folks who I'm sure will be finding some things here to get mad at us for. But like it was said, in the hearing of some of you, even, under your head scarves. "Sometimes one has got to be cruel to be kind." There's no kinder thing to do than for one to reach out and try to save someone from falling. Or from dying sometimes, especially if and when they don't even know that they're dying. Which is the case now, and crying. Crying out for someone to chime in, seemingly.

It's time now, though, for the Elk to grow and go. Like, go back to his first love. In this case, it means going back to his family, up above, or down. The real family, not those other ones, nor the clowns. Those same types of families we just mentioned, for example, and those you love and want to? Not the adopted ones. Not the pimp who would have inserted himself into that hallowed place, and trample his way, into space, because he knows how people tend to think and feel, about family, perhaps.

Then such a person would venture into redirecting resources from the real to the fake. Yes, into the fake or adopted families for goodness' sake, my pops. Notice how they used certain words lifted straight out of the family playbook and from the family setting props? Yes, like: Bro. and Sis, for example, look, and that one too, and this. Then insert them into the adopted family setting. Crafty indeed, isn't it mi bredrin? So, the Elk went back home to his parents' dome. He also went back to school to pay rent on loans and went on to do fairly well.

At least in the standards of measurements for those times and places, and the rules to sell them as the case was, as you can tell. Like many others before him, had done, though, it so happened that Elkhan was to eventually join the growing list of immigrants to go. Soon, he too was gone from far behind the farming row. So, for sure, as you all do know the score, wherever in the world they should happen to go, their church is going to have to pack up and follow. Elk was no different in this regard; he, too, was there, carrying it in on his head and shoulders, out of the country yard.

Dragging along the whole mission, too, and the folders to get them across the barbs to you. But, as for you? "No more," he'd said, eventually. "No more will I cast my pearl at the feet of swine first, while the real family of mine suffers from lack and thirst, and grows to hate and name-calling me, as is now showing for all to see. How quickly the adopted ones have forgotten, though, and turned to doing just that? Go.

He knew how it was going to go from way before because Elk had seen it before. You, too, will be turning around to give him evil eyes when he's praying, even when his prayers are supposed to be directed towards you, and for your blessings, as it says in... Your eyes won't be closed along with his, like he doesn't ask you to do, but you already know that you ought to. Or do you? I don't think so, boo. You will be watching him, though. Giving him the evil eyes, like so. Just like he did while you were there praying, for them and him. Telling them lies, sorry, I meant to say when you were praying for him, I, and the rest of the family size? way back when.

Because they would much rather it if you'd blessed them, all of them, the real family. In some real and tangible ways and terms to handle Leigh, when you could address them, and me. But you would have diverted the blessings to your earthly nestlings, the adopted, fake families of his, and the have's. Bypassing them, the real ones, leaving them out among the have-nots. Those whom you'd sworn were the reason why you were immigrating to go look for a better life for yourself, for them, and Gracelyn. Yeah, we saw it, we heard it too, we all did when you?

We've all seen it before. How quickly some of us have forgotten, though? But as for you, yes, you there! You wouldn't even know these things, would you, my dear? Because here this, and that is, if. Like, if you will now hear things. Will you? "Yay." "Okay." You were so busy there praying with your eyes closed, and your head down on the boards; hanging low, you know. Like, just the way they'd thought you to do it, long, long ago, so much so that, you've been doing everything like that ever since. Not just when praying, but every other thing that you happen to do, or don't do, do, near the sinks. You do them all in the same way.

Speaking of the prayer that you prayed. How well do you pray? How much do you believe in those prayers that you've been praying and would have prayed? How much do you believe that God hears you when you pray? Who is the God that you're praying to anyway? How able is she? Why is it that you only seem to be able to pray for those petty things, from me, and give us thanks for those same petty things, from her? If and when, like, whenever you perceive that something, be it a great one, or a small offering from the man, like, the dumb thing there in his hand, might have happened in your favor at all. You will pray again, and call, all day long, even, giving thanks to her.

Even though (in reality,) she might have had little or no part in the game season. Is this all that she can do for you, in the name, Steven? Such a shame. Or is that a reflection of your thinking capacity, to blame? If so, why then should I follow you to go, and your kind too? No, not when it's obvious that we're not in the same place as you. Nor are we going in the same direction, in this race, true? True. But wait a minute, what is that thing I now see? The robots are coming, I'm a warning you P, P.

So, while you were there praying with your eyes closed, several things were happening under your nose. Things that leave you just north of being dead, for the time being, mi bred, I'd supposed and said this to your toes, below your head. You're still there praying, though. If one can even call what you're doing "praying" for? Like, really? Things are still going on around you while you're praying, none of which is in your favor, but you don't see a problem, erring. Holy savior! You don't never did see nuttn at all, I mean, you never could see anything at all, because you love guard. Your god is this, and your god is that.

Your God is going to do that, and this, so relax, and sit. There's no need for you to do anything but hiss and clap. Nothing other than to do nothing and p? like, keep pp-praying, and asking for mayhem, and money, all day in. From folks with the least of it, if anything, to pay him. Any at all to give away, giving it to you or them, okay? Or anyone else, I'd say. But what do you do, do? "Ask, for it shall be given," fast. Yay! Of course.

Then you tell them they, too, should not do anything, old or new. Nothing that might, in the remotest of senses, be able to get them out of the blight, and in a position where they can give a little bit more than him. Like, like, ten cents is one such thing. Or even to have a little bit more, because to do so is sinful and worldlier than before, and not of God.

But "Wait on the Lord," you say, to your followers and believers, that day. But you didn't tell them exactly what to wait for, to please her. Or what to do in preparation to receive it while they're there waiting on the knee slip. Nor what to look for while they wait to grease your hip four ma tick pocket. So that they may know what "it" is and get to know when it comes, like, to their gate near their homes. The thing that they're waiting for and praying for.

They don't know what it is and won't know that it has come when it comes. Could it be that you don't know what to tell them, other than about waiting? While you're sitting there benefiting from the meager little that they have, on the plate thing, and hastening away? The thing they would have gotten from the other man and the date. From the government, not their dad, nor from other men who are glad. While they wait there and die slowly? But, what the hell do I know, Leigh?

Why do you hate yourself so much? Why do you hate your children so much that you won't even give them a chance to be born, and grow up? Those who may have been born anyhow, despite you and you closed up, doors. Or even because of that, and some strange other happenings in your view, master Pat Madden, to the viewers. By you, even. Yet you say that you love them, but you still won't give them a chance to live, and survive, let alone to thrive?

Elkhan did find religion quite early in his life, not in an organized form per se, but faith-based religion anyway. He had a hunger for learning from very early on, but with very little access to it, other than for books. Whatever kind of book he could get his hands on, even from the crooks and the bad men, in those days, he would read. The most readily available book for him at the time was, of course, The Bible, said speed.

So, bible study was to become his favorite pastime and liable to? - ?"Oh! Take heed."

"Okay, I won't bother to say it that way, Ingrid." He didn't have a tutor or mentor. He would just read as much as he could know and would try to understand it all by himself as he went along the men's shores to grow. Probably why he's so messed up now, one might tend to say this while pushing at the wrong door.

But, come on, now. He has managed to read the Bible from cover to cover several times over, by so doing. Not that that makes him out to be any sort of expert, nor a poser, Miss Sue Hingh. A guru or know-it-all, whatsoever, no, not at all. But it puts him in a position where, whenever folks are going about talking sheets of nonsense, (Look here,) Paul, he can quickly pick it up and then some. Needless to say, he has had quite a bit of experience of that sort since that day, and such. Elk was never much of a church-going type then, or, as some might have heard them say, "I was born and raised in the church."

No, it wasn't like that for the Elk, other than for the brief stint that he'd spent living with his grandmother, which was quite something else, or another, like, when and where he would have gone to church with her on a haphazard basis as a brother. He never managed to become a regular worshipper or church-going person. Not until he had grown up and on his own and worsened. There, too, lies another story as it is known by you. But?