[note: This is a sample from the Earl's World email list. Earl, a simple country man, asks child-like questions about the basics of our faith in an innocent, yet moving manner] I don't know 'bout you, but there's some things I just don't understand. Take poison ivory fer example. It's a little leaf with a bad attitude that'll punish you just for being around. A while back, I somehow got mixed up with some poison ivory and broke out in itty bitty bumps that grew into big bumps. I was scritchin' and scratchin' so bad Enid started treatin' me like a leper. I decided to mosey into town and see Doc Martin. Doc is a real nice fella with a good heart. I'm sure you'd like him if y'all met. I don't think anyone knows his real first name. We all just call him Doc. He took one look at me and said, "Yep, you got it." I told him I knew I had it, I just didn't want it. He said if I didn't want it, I ought not go into the woods but we both knew that weren't going to happen.

Doc gave me a shot and some pills. Actually, his son give me the pills cuz his son is the pharmacist, which is kinda handy when you think about it. Anyway, they said the shot and them pills was s'posed to help my body fight the poison ivory and I was going to be okay. Enid was happy about that. Maybe she'll let me sleep in the house again soon. Pastor Fred saw my poison ivory when me and Enid went to church on Sunday. He said, "Yep, you got it." I asked him if he had talked to Doc Martin but he said no, he just knew poison ivory when he saw it. He said it was part of the curse God put on the ground when He kicked Adam and Eve outta the garden. A curse! Who would have thought that? After all these years, that little plant still holds a grudge. I asked Pastor Fred if maybe I talked it out with the plant, we could patch things up and the feud would be over. He just laughed and shook his head. Sometimes I don't understand Pastor Fred. So I goes home and thought about God's curse and the feud that's been going on ever since. Man's been feuding with the ground and the ground's been feuding with man. This whole thing wuz awful! The fight started long before I was borned. I don't even know if me and Adam and Eve is kin or not and what this feud had to do with me. I had Enid get the Bible and read about the feud to see if we could figure out what started this mess. Enid reads to me sometimes. I can read pretty good, but she's better at it. When she reads to me, I can think about what she's saying. When I read, I think about reading and that's different. Anyway, Enid fumbled around for a while and then found the part 'bout Adam and Eve when they was in the garden. She kept readin' until she got to the part about a snake that could talk. Whoooeeeee! That was sumthin! This snake was really the devil and was tryin' to get back at God by messin' with His kids and I guess it worked. The story goes sumthin' like this. God had told Adam and Eve they could do anything they wanted. They just couldn't eat from one special tree, which sounded like a good deal to me. This snake talked Eve into eatin' from that tree. Then Adam ate some too and pretty soon God found out and kicked them both outta the garden. When He was slammin' the gate, God put a curse on the land and said from then on, Adam was going to have to work. I scratched my head for a minute and wondered how come the feud was still going after all this time and how I got in the middle of it. I hadn't ate from that tree. I didn't even know where the tree was! Then it hit me. I do stuff that God doesn't want me to do. Maybe it was me that was keepin' the feud goin'. Well, me and some others I know who is hooligans. God just wants us kids to behave and as long as we keep actin' up, we're going to have problems. The End. - Earl
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• Topic: Devotionals

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