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                                                        The School of the Prophets and Prophetesses
                                                                                           by
                                                                                       Josprel

                                                                                     Part Two

Work scholarships were supplied to student prophets and prophetesses in need of financial assistance with tuition and board. Since the G.I Bill of Rights provided all the expenses for my schooling and then some, I needed no other assistance. However, as already mentioned, I was one of two unmarried student prophets who owned a car, so the administration asked me to drive to the town post office six times weekly to pick up the school's mailbags, because the other unmarried car owner refused the task.

At first, I also declined the task, since it would occupy my Saturdays, the only free day I had. Nevertheless, taking advantage of my humble, gentle, generous, cooperative and magnanimous disposition, the administration slyly manipulate me into compliance by insisting that I was refusing to do the "Lord's work." After they brainwashed me into their way of thinking on the topic, I meekly consented. What especially irked me was their not even offering to supply gas for my car, though I would have refused the offer had it been made.  But it irritated me that the administration took for granted that, because I was an unmarried veteran, they could impose on my finances that way.

I noticed they looked after their own school auto expenses, however. Whenever the faculty and staff did a driving chore for the school, they always turned in an expense voucher, no matter how short the trip. In my admitedly unbiased opinion, that set an extremely bad example to an innocent, unknowing, naive, unsophisticated, undemanding, pasto- obeying, student prophet in his very early twenties.  So cruelly did they stumble innocent me that, from then on, whenever a faculty member spoke at chapel services, I dozed.  Yes, I actually dozed!  And I  dreamed of a well-deserved retribution that never came. If not for my super-spirituality, my magnanimous forgiving nature, and my incomprehensible, natural, Mediterranean misunderstanding of what could never be understood, I would have quit my prophet business studies and become the only Sicilian-American monk in Tibet; I was that stumbled!!
                                                ***** *****
I especially disliked that student prophetesses did all our laundry. Each student was required to write his or her name somewhere on a piece of laundry sent for washing at the school's laundry facility. This was somewhat embarrassing for me. When stationed State side with the Air Force, I always had my laundry washed by anonymous civilians who operated our airbase laundries. When I served overseas, unknown native workers hired by the Air Force washed our laundry for us. I could walk anywhere on base and pass a laundry worker, never recognized as someone whose clothes the worker had cleaned.

Not so at the school of the prophets and prophetesses. There the student prophetesses washed the laundry and knew the owner of each item, since they could read our names indelibly printed on the clothing. It wouldn't have been so bad if all they washed were our outer garments, plus socks and handkerchiefs. But noooooooooo, nooooooooooooo; they washed all our undergarments, too. Whenever one of the laundry student prophetesses happened to glance my way, she semed to give me a knowing look, pondering a scheme to deprive me of my unwedded bliss.

I know this makes it appear that I considered myself a "catch," but please believe me, I did not. It was just thatl I didn't want to be caught.   I was afraid of being  like a fish flopping at the end of a fishing line. After all, I had never been married before. What did I know of the holy state of matrimony, other than having observed some of my friends heading in that direction? I thought of making heroic attempts to rescue them, but my courage failed in the presence of their future spouses, who would glare at me menacingly, with a don’t-you-dare-even-think-it look.  It took me quite a while to get over my sense of guilt for this cowardly behavior.

No doubt, the fact that most of my student prophet buddies were married tended to color my imagination of the "You know I washed the most intimate of your clothing, so don't you think we should get married and share out lives together?" glances I attributed to the laundry student prophetesses.  I confess that I was paranoid and could think of nothing to do about it, other than to transfer to different school, hoping my pastor understood.

He didn't!

When I phoned him to reveal my concerns, he pontificated, "Joe, you survived three years of Air Force duty!  Are you now permitting a bevy of predatory student prophetesses to route you from your studies? I'm surprised, ashamed, annoyed, disappointed, sorrowful, stunned, shocked, chagrined, mortified, humiliated, affronted, vexed, slighted, and offended, by your decision. How many more descriptive verbs must I bombard you with to define my feelings regarding your transfer to another school of the prophets and prophetesses?

"Do you actually think an interesting, handsome, friendly, personable, pleasant, attractive, good looking, eye catching, likable, amiable, cordial, sociable, genial, affable, easygoing, jovial, congenial, fellow such as you are will fare better with the student prophetesses at a different school? No, of course not! Some men are blessed with bland personalities. You and I, however, are burdened with the trials of attracting womanly attention and admiration. It's a burden we must endure to the end of our days on earth."

"But that's not fair!" I protested, "Why should I be selected to bear such a burden? Why can't I be an average Joe like other student prophets? Why must I endure the husband-hungry glances of the student prophetesses, when other student prophets do not?"

"Only God knows, Joe. Hang up now. Remember, this is a long distance phone call."

Needless to say, the call to my pastor solved nothing, nor did his multi descriptive analysis of my personality, especially when he placed himself in the same category as me, saying we must endure the burden of womanly glances for the rest of our days. It was easy for him to talk; he's close to eighty years old, due for his promotion to glory  - or elsewhere -  at any moment. On the other hand, if the Lord permits me to live out my three score and ten, I'll be around for a while.

But wait!!   Hallelujah – I've solved the problem!  No longer am I compelled to endure what my pastor called, the "womanly attention and admiration" of the student prophetesses. I've left the school of the prophets and prophetesses.   I’ve moved to the Amazon jungle. All I need fend off here are the attempts of these giant Amazonian women to capture and enslave me to labor manually for them, as they have done with all their desolate men.   

Oh, oh; gotta run now; I can hear them stomping after me through the jungle again.
                                                                         -30-
                                                                      josprel@verizon.net
                                                                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                                               

You are a very good writer.  The thing that I was wondering though was did you model your character after yourself?  And do to the content of your story I have to ask, do you view all other Christians as flesh-seeking hypocrites?