They laughed as he died
‘Ha ha ha ha ha, I’m glad he got what he deserved.’
From the Washington Post, which prides itself on accuracy and high standards, or is the most appalling tripe, depending on your politics and understanding of basic grammar.
The story of a man of religion who went to preach to the crowds at Mardi Gras as he had done so many other times. He left his home in rural Virginia on the day that Don Trump declared the virus very much under control, drove with his wife and a friend down to Louisiana and preached his message to the crowds in Jackson Square.
He had picked up a bug of some sort, as he had done many times before, and felt weak with a dry cough as his wife began the long drive home. But he had no fear. His god would save him.
I don’t believe there are incurable diseases. God can heal anything,” Landon said during an interview at a 2016 motorcycle rally in Daytona Beach, Fla. “There are documented cases of God healing AIDS. God can cause limbs to grow out where they’ve been chopped off. God can raise the dead. — Pastor Landon Spradlin
Out of India
There is the tale of the disciple, who listened intently as the holy man described that God is in everything, and God worked to keep all in good health. “Watch and listen carefully, and have no fear,” he was told. “God will protect you.”
He went for a walk in the forest, and found an elephant walking towards him. The elephant driver or mahout, sitting on the broad shoulders, called out to him, “Stand aside, please! My elephant is in a bad mood.”
But the young disciple, seeing God in the huge beast rumbling toward him, had no fear. “God is in everything. God is in the elephant. God will protect me.”
He kept to his path as the elephant approached, ignoring the shrill cries of the driver, and made a polite salute. The elephant responded by picking him up with his trunk and flinging him aside, where he hit his head against a tree and fell unconscious.
When he recovered his wits, the holy man had been summoned and was looking down on him. “Why,” he inquired, “did you not heed the warnings of the mahout?”
“Because, your grace, you told me that God is in everything, including the elephant, and would protect me from harm.”
“But God was also in the mahout, and he warned you to clear a path for the ill-tempered beast. You ignored God!”
Coming for to carry him home
Spradlin’s wife stopped to buy fuel on the way north and opened the door for her husband, who had been sleeping on the seat beside her. Instead, he tumbled out unconscious as she opened the door. Perhaps the Almighty had indicated that he required no seatbelt.
He was taken to hospital, sick with the virus, and the news passed amongst those who knew him.
Word of Landon’s plight had spread through his network of believers, and people began praying for him across the country. There were prayers on the plains of North Texas and in the dying hill towns of southwestern Virginia.
“We just knew he was going to pull out of this,” a friend said.
Those who shared his faith were confident he would recover through divine grace. A man of God could not be struck down so easily.
But the nurses advising Landon’s wife, in isolation nearby, were not so sanguine. “It’s not looking good,” they told her.
And it wasn’t. Landon died of Covid-19, his blessed Saviour apparently unmoved by his disciple’s faith.
Why has my god forsaken me?
With news of his death becoming a national story, the media seized on a social media post he had made before setting out for New Orleans, declaring the virus to be fake news.
Landon — an avid Trump supporter — posted a meme on his Facebook page about the coronavirus, which at the time had killed about 40 people in the United States. The media, it warned, was trying to “manipulate your life” by creating “mass hysteria.”
His loved ones were puzzled by the commentary. “He got what he deserved,” some said. “Evolution in action,” others noted. Some just exulted in his death.
Landon’s friends and family tried to make sense of it. His wife had not caught the disease. A companion on the trip had, but recovered after weeks of illness.
Do I need to rub it in?
Schadenfreude, a feeling that justice had been served, an object lesson, grief and bewilderment — all felt in the wake of his death.
The virus has no faith, listens to no gospel radio or press briefings, doesn’t care about the economy or the politics of its hosts. It operates with deadly efficiency. Some get it and recover, some are scarred for life in their internal organs, some die.
For those who believe in divine beings, there were warnings aplenty. It has certainly been the number one news story for months. Those who are prudent take heed; even churches are fitted with lightning conductors.
And those who think it’s all a hoax to sell papers and make their leader look like an ignorant fool, they’ll have to find some way to explain it, and to wear the jeers of those who see it in a more straightforward fashion.
For myself, I am saddened that anyone is being struck down. Death finds us all, but it is rarely a joyful experience.
But I am also saddened that almost all of these deaths are unnecessary. Listen to the wise, turn aside from the ignorant, keep your distance, wash your hands, don’t pick your nose. Not only will you keep yourself safe, you’ll be guarding the health of those around you.
Britni
Britni Pepper writes for Kindle Direct Publishing. She runs a blog where she reviews erotica, and rambles on about this and that. She may be reached on Twitter and Facebook.
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