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Pepper's Lament
by Pamela Elizabeth PEPPER: Salt, how I despise you. How I loathe you. I have nothing but reproach for you. Yet, day after day, century after century, here I am, haphazardly cast to your side like paper tossed next to an open flame with nary a thought. You suppress bitterness and are essential for life, while I bring tears to the eyes, not through comic relief, but through the annoying condition of sneezing! Endless requests to "pass the salt" grate my nerves, while "pass the pepper" is never uttered, and I doubt it's due to a dislike of alliteration. Evil merchants cheapen me with dirt and stone to fill their pockets, while you are used to ward off evil itself! You are placed upon the lips of babes and thrown over shoulders as though you are a deity! You are wisdom, incorruptibility, eternity, and alliance between God and man. "Salt of the earth" they call good men. You glorify every meal and preserve every choice meat. You would not endure for one hour, what I have tolerated for centuries. Would it be for you to wonder why I am pungent? You would not be sweet either if you were cursed with my fate. In my cold bastion, I am ground down by day, and left forgotten by night. My enclosure, my home, is absent of light, made darker only by my very existence. Strong and dignified I may appear, yet humiliation and despair are my clothing. I am but your dark shadow and what does darkness have in common with light? This makes my involuntary alignment with you all the more contemptible. What other reason could my existence purpose except for the entertainment of God? I spew forth rage at my birth, and suffer such gnashing and weeping, the likes of which could only reach the realm of the Almighty. SALT: Pepper, your words are truth and your plight is heard. Your ignorance and pride are also noted. Throughout the ages, you have been chosen to reign beside me. You have been appointed to dine amongst kings and nobles! To observe first hand brotherly love around a shared meal! You are added to the setting of a perfect table amongst the reddest of roses for courtship dinners. Placed beside the finest delicacies and champagne flutes, you have been privy to secret conversations which have felled kingdoms and doomed enterprises. How quickly you forget your legend of "black gold". Are you too not a chosen seasoning? Does garlic say, "Because I am not mint, I am useless?" and if cumin should say, "Because I am not myrrh, I am not part of a meal?" Is your fruit not cultivated? I am mined, while you are planted -you will live forever! You are a fool! You cast aside the wisdom of the proverbs and seek your own understanding! Do you not remember your Maker called you? Do you merely seek your own glory? Do not hold in contempt the aspects you were created for. Repent and turn from your pride. Seek to glorify yourself and you will reap a forgotten soul. __________________ As a former atheist and occult practitioner, Pamela is passionate about encouraging Christian women to contend for their faith and discern false teachings. Visit her at www.GuardingTheDeposit.com Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |