Cursed Be the Child by Mort Castle Page A

sisters all the children of God. “We are, you know,” he said, “all children of God.”
    What was happening to him? It seemed he couldn’t think, couldn’t talk. He was sick. The healer was ill; physician, heal thyself. These days, he had no appetite, had to force himself to eat; everything seemed to have a burnt plastic aftertaste. He couldn’t sleep.
    And he could not heal—not anymore.
    He was shaking now. Could they see it, his brothers and sisters, or was the tremor only within him, a trembling not of the body but the soul? He had to get a grip on himself.
    “God is our Father,” he said, “and He’s a loving Father. That’s what he tells us throughout the Bible.” Though it was there at the edge of his mind, the next thought eluded him. A moment’s anxiety, and then he was sure he had it. “God is a God of love, you see. That’s what He has told us, you see. And He is a God who cannot and will not lie. God loves the truth, you see…” His voice trailed off.
    And what of those who lie in His name?
    Did he say that aloud or to himself? Or did he say it at all? Was the Lord speaking to him?
    Within his mind, Evan said to God: Lord, I need you.
    “I…I’m sorry,” he told the congregation. “I keep on…What I think is that my tongue’s getting in the way of my eyetooth and I can’t see what I’m saying, so…”
    Lord, he prayed, be with me now. Let Your love fill my heart, let Your wisdom clear my mind, let Your words be in my mouth.
    He glanced down at his notes on the lectern. There’d been a time when he never outlined sermons, when he knew what to say simply and eloquently. But you could hardly work that way on television. Taping Witness to Wonder, he employed a teleprompter, sometimes giving him words he’d written, sometimes the words of others—and sometimes he’d wondered if they were the words of God.
    Today’s text was from Malachi: “Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us?” The handwriting was slanted and jerky; it didn’t look familiar. He didn’t remember writing it.
    When Evan spoke, the words were a surprise to him. He was not citing Malachi but Micah, chapter six, verse eight. “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” The next words he uttered were from Proverbs. “If sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination unto the Lord. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right. A righteous man hateth lying…”
    Confused and frightened as he was, Evan Kyle Dean could not doubt the Lord had spoken, but not to the brothers and sisters gathered here in True Witness.
    To Evan Kyle Dean.
    Everything was hazy, the faces of his brothers and his sisters floating and anonymous before his eyes. He brought Carol Grace into focus. She sat in the first pew, and he saw the concern and love on her face.
    “Friends,” he said, “brothers and sisters…”
    It would be all right. He would go home with his wife, and it would be all right. “I’m tired. I am very, very tired. I…I need to rest.”
    But before he could go home, he had to conclude the sermon. He knew what to say. He knew what he believed and would never doubt.
    “Brothers and sisters, God is love.”
     
    The following Sunday, in Grove Corner, Illinois, with her daughter, Vicki Barringer went to church for the first time in years.
    On the same Sunday, for the first time in years, Vicki Barringer’s brother-in-law, Evan Kyle Dean, did not preach to the congregation of True Witness Church in Mt. Franklin, Alabama, nor to anyone in any church. He lay in bed all day long, wishing he were dead and thinking that perhaps he, or his soul already was.
     
    — | — | —
     

Twelve
     
    Missy thought the choir sounded beautiful. It was fun to sing along when you were supposed to, trying to follow the melody and keep up with the words in the book when you had never seen