I smell a whore...

I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues." "All the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality and the kings of the earth have had sex with her and become rich by the wealth of her sensuality." She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. (Revelations 18)

Condom wrappers, purple panties and surgical tube...strange items to find littered at the feet of a beautiful wooded grove. I guess devils and saints find such places perfect for solitude. I was reflecting on my walk through our little neighborhood forest today. In moments like these, I hear a "voice from heaven", a quiet call that is whispered in the cool breeze of the just awakened spring air. It speaks of a tragic emptiness that these unholy sacraments offer. A fleeting pleasure that tastes sweet to the tongue but ends with bitterness in the belly. A brief connection, but not of souls, only of genitals. A wild rush of chemical escape that becomes a noose around the will, not just the arm; a piercing of not only the skin but the spirit. An infusion of fire that kindles in the here and now and grows into a pyre of eternal smoke and flame. This is polluted ground that writhes and moans with twisted contortions of sensuality that lock its victims into a prison. The dirt here smells of sulfur. The gravel is pregnant with talons that prick the flesh like a double barbed hook...easily it goes in...but damned are they that try to pull it out.

"Come out of her" is a biblical sexual reference with all its potent imagery. A pleading as much as a warning, you can hear the desperation in the prophetic sigh. I feel it often walking and living among these homes, hovels and desecrated places, unholy altars to sensuality.

Man-made idols to the Great Whore.