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Out west in the silver hills of Nevada, where sagebrush blows, and common sense is said to be on life support, a man by the name of Joel Vargas-Escobar—known to his companions in the art of dismemberment as “Momia”—was formally indicted for what some folks might call a touch excessive in the way of ambition–eleven murders, two murders in aid of racketeering, and enough gun charges to stock a revolution.

Now, you may be asking, “Why, pray tell, would such a man be wandering free in this land of liberty and orange traffic cones?”

Well, friend, it’s because he was kindly escorted back across our southern hospitality zone to El Salvador in 2018—only to reappear as if by magic, ducking laws and fences like a squirrel in a cornfield. He spent four years here on an extended vacation from justice, all while captaining the Parkview clique of MS-13 like it was a particularly bloodthirsty paddleboat.

Democrats, bless their gentle hearts, might describe this fine gentleman as a “hardworking, peaceful person just looking to make a better life for himself and his family,” if you count an eleven-body pileup in the desert as “betterment” and define “family” to mean a hierarchy of machete-swinging gangsters.

According to the Department of Justice, Escobar was a key cog in the MS-13 machine, issuing commands and death warrants from Las Vegas to California. Their victims, poor souls, were often lured or snatched up and hauled off to the sort of remote spots that rattlesnakes hesitate to visit. Once there, the true meaning of “Parkview hospitality” commenced.

Said Attorney General Pamela Bondi, “The American people are safer following the arrest of yet another MS-13 leader.”

She went on to call Escobar a terrorist—though it’s worth noting that in some political salons, calling a criminal anything harsher than “misunderstood” is liable to earn you a citation for insensitivity.

The alleged crimes? Too grim for polite company. Torture. Mutilation. Murder. Repeated. Eleven times. And that’s just the known toll. There may be more skeletons in the hills than gold nuggets.

Escobar now sits in federal custody, likely wondering whether Nevada prison food compares favorably to El Salvador’s. Should he get convicted, he faces life in prison, where he will get three meals, occasional recreation, and no chance at another desert getaway.

So next time you hear someone insist these are “peaceful folks chasing the American dream,” you might want to ask–whose dream, exactly? And whether the rest of us are waking up to a nightmare.

By One Rolling in Truth and Sarcasm

It’s that time again—when the Federal Election Commission flings open the shutters and lets a little sunlight in on who’s got the money and who ain’t. The first quarter fundraising deadline has passed like a church collection plate on payday, and the news from Nevada is rich with figures, flattery, and a few eyebrow-raisers.

The Democrats have come out swinging, with Rep. Susie Lee leading the parade at a whopping $421,588—though it ought to be noted that $30,000 of that was just a refund, likely for services rendered and then un-rendered by some slick-talking media outfit. Next in line is Steven Horsford with $371,102, then Sen. Jacky Rosen with a tidy $255,374.

Never one left out of a good pass-the-hat, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto chipped in $200,977—though she ain’t even on the ballot until 2028. Dina Titus, meanwhile, turned in a modest $160,164, as Mark Amodei, Nevada’s lone Republican in this liberal-leaning fandango, clocked in with $142,514, and that’s counting $4,370 spent on flags, likely sewn with faux gold thread and patriotic ambition.

Among the upstarts and would-be challengers, things are a bit less flush. Christopher Brandlin scratched together $140,529. David Flippo tossed $45,000 into the pot—all from his pockets, mind you. Greg Kidd rustled up a meager $1,538, and Marty O’Donnell didn’t raise a single dime but swears a million of his dollars are riding in on the next stagecoach.

I’ll believe that when I see it filed under “Cash On Hand” and not “Pipe Dream.”

But here’s the real kicker in this tale of dollars and Democrats—while all this money’s flying around like a barn dance on payday, Michelle Fiore gets the short end of the stick over a measly $5,000. That’s less than what Titus spent on Talbots gifts for her donors and barely more than what it cost for Greg Kidd to look fancy in a photo shoot. It makes you wonder what kind of justice is gettin’ served when a gal gets the shaft over a sum that wouldn’t cover a decent dinner party in Jackson Hole—where Susie Lee dropped nearly two grand on a fundraising frolic.

And let’s not forget—Jacky Rosen handed over $650,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. That’s right, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars changed hands while Fiore’s getting grilled like a trout over a campfire for five grand.

If that ain’t the definition of lopsided–I don’t know what is.

So, with $1.55 million raised between just the top five Democrats—while ol’ Michelle gets hauled over the coals for a sum so small it wouldn’t buy half a horse in Virginia City—maybe it’s time we all squinted a little harder at where the money’s going. One side’s got a boat full of gold, and the other’s being sent up the river over pocket change.

But then again, Nevada politics was never known for being fair, just colorful, contradictory, and mighty expensive.

Gather round and lend me your common sense—for we’ve another parable from the Silver State, where politics ain’t just a profession–it’s a full-blown rodeo. The latest bronco buckin’ the headlines is none other than Michele Fiore, Nevada’s pistol-packin’ truth-talkin’ councilwoman-turned-convict, who just got thrown under the wagon by a federal judge with all the warmth of a stovepipe hat in a hailstorm.

The Honorable–by title only–Judge Jennifer Dorsey, dressed in her Sunday best black robe and drippin’ with the solemnity of an undertaker at a gold rush funeral, saw fit to deny Ms. Fiore a new trial. Now, Ms. Fiore, bless her battle-scarred reputation, had requested as much—sayin’ her first legal team had all the spine of boiled asparagus and couldn’t lawyer their way out of a saloon tab.

But Dorsey, who was plucked and polished by none other than President Obama, dismissed Fiore’s plea like a gambler tossin’ snake eyes. In a tome that spanned 77 pages—written in the King’s English and the Devil’s punctuation—Dorsey said the jury had it right–that Fiore used bank wires to swindle goodhearted donors and stuff her corset with the spoils.

It smells like old fish wrapped in last week’s Comstock Chronicle.

The funds in question were for a memorial to Officer Alyn Beck, a man who gave his life in the line of duty. But the government claims Fiore took that money and rerouted it like a stagecoach on the lam—straight into her rent, her daughter’s wedding, and even, Heaven help us, some cosmetic upgrades.

And sure–it don’t sound good when you say it like that. But this is a state where politicians use taxpayer dollars for everything from foot massages to foie gras, and yet Fiore’s the one gettin’ dragged behind the horse.

Her new attorney, Paola Armeni—who wisely kept herself clear of the trial’s initial circus—says they’re “extremely disappointed.” Well, of course, they are. The lady didn’t get a trial–she got a performance and not the good kind, but more like a traveling medicine show where the tonic’s weak and the bearded lady’s also the judge.

And let us not forget the most curious detail of all–the prosecution’s star witness was Governor Joe Lombardo, who dropped a $5,000 donation into the pot like it was his personal poker table. Shortly after, it danced to Fiore’s daughter’s account to cover Mama’s rent.

I’ve played enough political strip poker to know a setup when I see one.

So here stands Michele Fiore, firebrand, patriot, and the Left’s favorite dartboard, waitin’ for her sentence while the political class polishes their halos. She’s been called a fraudster by those who couldn’t balance a budget if their lives depended on it.

While I ain’t sayin’ she’s a saint—I can say in a nation where the real thieves wear tailored suits and call each other “Senator,” I reckon Michele Fiore might be the wrong kind of outlaw for this newfangled empire.

“Go? I think not. My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid on my command. But I cannot deny them fresh meat when it wanders so willingly into our midst. Good-bye, friend of Hagrid.” — Aragog from “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” (2002)

Cara Linton made her final check-in with the base as the sun dipped below the jagged horizon, casting a fleeting golden glow across the forested valley. Her voice crackled through the radio with the steadiness of routine, promising silence until the dawn chorus stirred the world anew.

The line went quiet–and with it, the last tether to the bustling humanity below was severed for the night. As twilight surrendered to the encroaching dark, she turned the key in the lock of the sturdy door, sealing herself within its wood and steel embrace.

The air inside was cool–tinged with pine and solitude. Cara prepared a modest supper—rice and beans, steaming faintly in a dented pot, pairing it with a crisp salad plucked from her dwindling stores. And a mug of yesterday’s coffee–reheated on the stuttering flame of her camp stove, washed it all down with a bitter warmth.

The small lamps flickered out one by one under her steady hand, and she cast a lingering gaze across the valley, its three visible flanks swallowed by shadow. Then, with the creak of springs, she climbed into the narrow bed that hugged the wall, surrendering to the night.

In the hollow hour, an hour and a half before the sun’s first whisper, her bladder roused her from a fitful sleep. Groggy, she shuffled to the corner where her makeshift privy stood—a handyman’s bucket crowned with a frayed pool noodle, a contraption her grandmother would have dubbed a thunder mug with a cackle.

She tended to her need in the dimness, the chill of the floor biting at her bare feet. But as she finished, a sound pierced the stillness—a faint, tinny clatter rising from the metal steps beyond the door.

She froze, trousers halfway up her thighs, her breath catching as she strained to pierce the gloom. The tower’s single room offered no secrets; its sparse furnishings stood mute under the shroud of night. She saw nothing but the pressing dark.

With a hush of movement, she crept to the desk at the chamber’s heart and retrieved her radio, its weight a cold comfort in her palm. She knew the base would be unstaffed for another hour at least, but she slipped it into her pocket. Her fingers fumbled in her backpack, coaxing free her mobile phone, its screen a weak glow against the shadows.

The tinny echo came again–sharper now, followed by a dull thump shuddering through the flat roof above her. She stood rooted, fear bubbling up from her gut, sour and thick in her throat.

Then came a skittering—like a half-dozen feet scampering in a frantic dance across the rooftop. Cara’s pulse roared in her ears, drowning all but the brief pause in the cacophony.

Her wristwatch lay abandoned on the low table that doubled as a nightstand and dining table. She edged toward it, each step deliberate, her hand outstretched.

But as her fingers brushed the cool metal, a flicker of movement snagged her gaze. She looked up, and there, pressed against the glass beyond the catwalk, was a face—ghastly white, hollow-eyed, staring.

A scream tore from her, raw and unbidden, and the face vanished as if it had never been. The tower trembled with the sound of retreat—feet pounding atop, then racing round the catwalk in a frenzied circuit. Cara stood, chest heaving, as the first rays of dawn crept over the treetops behind her.

The radio crackled to life, a burst of static that jolted her anew.

“Tower 23, Red Mountain Lookout,” a man’s voice intoned, steady and familiar.

“Two-three, here,” she managed, her voice a thread.

“You alright, Cara?” he pressed.

“I am, but I can’t see outside,” she replied, her eyes darting to the windows.

“Say again?”

“I cannot see out of any of the windows,” she said, louder now. “There’s a white film covering everything.”

Her thoughts leaped to the door. She grasped the handle and pushed, but it held fast, the outward swing thwarted by the same clinging shroud.

“I can’t get out of the shack either,” she added. “Whatever this stuff is, it’s not letting me open the door.”

“Roger,” came a second voice, clipped and decisive. “We’ll have a unit already on the way up to you. Sit tight.”

She offered no reply. Her eyes flicked to the escape hatch overhead, a square of salvation in the ceiling.

It yawned open without a sound, and before she could scream again, something—something swift and unseen—seized her.

In an instant, Cara Linton was gone, snatched into the pale unknown, leaving the tower to stand silent under the rising sun.

Never did I believe a fish could have a worse time of it than one chased around a skillet in a Virginia City kitchen—but that was before coming upon the curious chronicle of the Devil’s Hole pupfish. These fellers–if ever there was a tribe of uncommonly unfortunate fish, might be the most put-upon creatures ever to sprout fins and a sorrowful look.

Nestled in a boiling stretch of Nevada’s sand-swept real estate known to the modern map as Death Valley, and to all good sense as a place no man nor beast ought to linger, there exists a limestone burrow—a cavern deep and dark and filled with water so still it resembles the conscience of a tax collector. In that watery oubliette resides the most misanthropic fish to curse the evolutionary ladder–the Devil’s Hole pupfish.

Until recently, the entire census of this fragile folk could fit into a single soup bowl with elbow room to spare. But in the spring of our Lord 2025, disaster struck them in the form of not one but two earthquakes, which rolled in like nature herself had stubbed her toe and hollered through the Earth’s crust in pain.

The tremors, occurring in December and then again in February, jostled the peaceable stillness of Devil’s Hole. It wasn’t just a mild shimmy—these were proper Earth-thumpings, shaking the underground pool until it sloshed like a washbasin on ironing day.

The aquatic upending scraped the vital algae off a shallow shelf where the fish do most of their courting and dining. Worse yet, the tremors swept away their eggs–as if Mother Nature had grown spiteful and flung their nursery to kingdom come.

Biologists from the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and some Nevadans who ought to know better than to fish in Hell’s basement descended on the scene with clipboards and concerned faces. In the spring survey, they counted a paltry 38 pupfish flitting about the cavern’s depths—down from a more respectable 191 the previous spring.

You’d think this might end the fish tale. But nope.

In a feat of bureaucratic bravery and interagency gumption, the good people of science reached into their bag of tricks and brought forth 19 captive pupfish—raised like little nobles in the controlled waters of the Ash Meadows Conservation Facility—and reintroduced them into their wild ancestral tub.

They even consulted data and dietary knowledge to feed the little scamps until the algae could grow back, which is neighborly, considering most folks wouldn’t cross the street to help a fish unless it came with chips.

“There’s hope,” said a feller named Brandon Senger, who supervises fish as if they were schoolchildren. “They’re spawning again, and the algae’s on the upswing.”

Translated from scientific argot–the fish are frisky, and the underwater salad bar is back in business.

Superintendent Mike Reynolds, who oversees Death Valley with the same cautious respect one gives to a rattlesnake in a hammock, hailed the operation as a triumph of teamwork, technology, and tenderness. He might’ve said more, but the heat likely evaporated the rest of his sentiment.

And so, these pint-sized piscine pilgrims, alone in their watery dungeon beneath the desert sun–cling to existence with a stubbornness that’d make a mule proud. And though battered, beset, and bewildered—they endure.

The next count will come in the Fall, and they’ll probably have something to say about it—though likely in bubbles.

Now, friends, if you’ve ever tried to keep a roof over your head and four walls around your supper table, you know the housing market is as unpredictable as a goose in a thunderstorm. The well-meaning folks over at the Sierra Nevada Realtors released their March 2025 ledger on the comings and goings of homes in Carson City and the counties of Churchill, Douglas, Lyon, and Washoe—though Incline Village, with all its lakefront pomposity, was left to fend for itself.

The report offers a glimpse into the real estate shenanigans of the Silver State. And what it shows is something between a boom and a bustle–the median price across all five counties for single-family homes, condominiums, and townhouses now sits pretty at $525,000. That’s a hop, skip, and a 0.8 percent jump from February. Meanwhile, the total number of homes sold is up a hearty 15.3 percent—enough to make a banker grin and a carpenter curse his luck for not charging more.

In Carson City, 61 brave souls traded property deeds in March—a tiny drop of 1.6 percent from February and a 3.2 percent tumble from last year. The median price was $517,000, just a shade lower than February but 4.4 percent higher than last year. The number of homes just sitting there, hoping for a buyer, was down to 107, 13 percent fewer than last month and a full 25.2 percent fewer than last spring, meaning supply is tighter than a miser’s purse.

Churchill County—where the sagebrush outnumbers the people ten to one—had 22 sales in March, which is quite the climb from February’s 29.4 percent but still down 12 percent from last year’s tally. Folks there fetched a median of $400,000 per sale–a respectable gain monthly and annually.

Douglas County, nestled between the mountains and the meadows, 50 homes changed hands—down two percent from February and 7.4 percent from last year. Still, the median price jumped to $730,000, which will buy you a fine view and maybe a marmot in the backyard. That’s up 6.1 percent from the month prior, though down 5.7 percent from the same month in 2024.

Over in Lyon County, including manufactured homes and stick-built dwellings, saw a whopping 111 sales in March—up 54.2 percent from February, though just a tick of 0.9 percent below last year. The median price was $409,000, marking steady climbs month-over-month and year-over-year. Folks there evidently still appreciate a bargain and a good patch of dirt.

Then there’s Washoe County, a sprawling domain that skips over Incline Village but includes Reno and all its ambition. Washoe saw 668 new listings and 465 homes sold in March. The median sale price was $544,900, up 1.9 percent from February and 1.7 percent over last year. The inventory of homes stood at 1,077, which is a touch better than February’s 1.6 percent and a lot better than last March, with 36.3 percent more to choose from.

All in all–prices are inching up, sales are moving briskly, and inventory is playing a curious game of hide and seek, depending on where you hang your hat.

By a Disbelieving Observer of Man’s Gall and His Corporate Appetite

We find ourselves in a fix as fine as molasses in mid-July. The mercury’s climbing in Nevada, and just as sure as the Devil sets his rocking chair out in the Great Basin this time of year, NV Energy is once again rattling the tin cup at our windows.

Only this time, it ain’t just about the heat—it’s about who’s getting burned.

See, while the people of Nevada, sunburned and broke, were busy wringing pennies from dishwater to keep the air conditioning whirring, the utility company was out there admitting—barely—that they overcharged some folk. Not a few, not once, not by accident, but systematically–and for years.

And for their trouble?

A partial refund, no interest, and not a whisper of apology. One poor soul, Miss Carlin Dinola, was stiffed more than a thousand dollars and got a $96 rebate for her trouble. That’s not a refund—that’s dumb money.

And what sayeth NV Energy?

Why, they dusted off some rule from 1980—back when folks still thought disco was the future—and claimed they only had to return six months’ worth of ill-gotten gains. Now, I ain’t no lawyer, but if I borrow your wheelbarrow and use it for six years, then tell you I owe you for just the last six weeks, you’d call me a cheat—and you’d be right.

Enter Assembly Bill 452, now wending its way through the hallowed halls of Carson City, a modest proposal that says, “Hey, if you overcharge somebody, you pay’em back—all of it—and with interest too.”

Revolutionary, I know.

Pastor Marlon Anderson, who spoke before the Assembly Committee, said it plain and simple, “Come on, man!”

And when a preacher pleads like that, you know the devil’s been in the accounting ledgers.

NV Energy, of course, sent their vice president to the hearing—Ms. Janet Wells—who danced around the numbers like they were hornets. She didn’t know how many people got overcharged, how much it added up to, or anything except that everything’s fine and the rules’re workin’ as they should.

Now, there’s a question worth asking–If the rules are working as designed, and folks are still getting fleeced, then who made the rules and whose pockets are gettin’ lined in the process?

But AB 452 wouldn’t just aim to fix refunds—it would stop NV Energy from tossing every spike in fuel costs onto the backs of the very customers trying to survive a desert summer. The way it stands–if war breaks out overseas or a snowstorm clogs the pipelines–customers pay the difference while NV Energy keeps the profits flowing like chilled sangria at a country club picnic.

Again, Ms. Wells testified all’s fair ’cause they “don’t mark up” fuel. And maybe that’s true—but passing 100 percent of the cost to customers while the company’s shareholders remain as safe and snug as a possum in a house don’t sound much like “sharing the burden.”

So here we are, watching the Assembly swing at justice with a bill that says–Pay what you owe, take your fair share of risk, and stop hiding behind century-old rulebooks while folks pawn their air conditioners to cover the light bill.

And I ask again, in the plainest language a still free man can muster–whose pockets are getting lined? ‘Cause it ain’t mine.

By a Citizen Who’s Seen a Mule Pull a Plow Quicker Than This Bunch Can Pass a Law

It appears that Congress—God bless it and save it from itself—is once again proving that when it comes to helping regular folks chase the American dream, it’s all hat and no cattle. A fresh report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) lays bare what every hardworking Nevadan already knows deep in their bones–if those stuffed shirts in Washington don’t make the 20 percent Small Business Tax Deduction permanent, it’ll be small businesses—and the communities they serve—that get left holding the bag.

Nevada ain’t asking for charity. They’re asking for fairness.

Over 333,000 small businesses across the Silver State will get clobbered if this deduction sunsets. Without it, small shops from Reno to Ely will be paying a top tax rate of 39.6 percent, while big corporations—who’ve got lobbyists slicker than a greased weasel—keep sailing along at 21 percent.

That ain’t a level playing field; that’s a rigged game where the deck’s stacked against the little guy.

And yet, what do we hear from Congress? Crickets.

Worse than crickets—we hear a chorus of excuses from RINOs and Democrats alike, who’d sooner hold hands across the aisle to pass a meaningless resolution than lift a finger for the folks who keep our towns humming and our main streets alive.

It ain’t just about taxes. It’s about jobs—12,000 a year, to be exact.

It’s about growing our economy by $659 million yearly for the next decade and a whopping $1.36 billion annually after 2035. It’s about letting small business owners keep hiring, paying decent wages, and the lights on.

Tray Abney, NFIB’s Nevada State Director, put it plain–“If Congress allows the 20 percent Small Business Deduction to expire, a massive tax hike on small businesses will take effect, stifling growth, putting the brakes on hiring, and endangering countless small businesses.”

That’s the rub–ain’t it?

Small businesses don’t have time to wait for the next election or the next partisan squabble. They’ve got payroll due Friday and rent due the first. They’re not asking for the moon—just the chance to work, grow, and pass something better to their kids.

But unless Congress pulls its boot out of its backside and acts now, that dream gets dimmer for bunches of Nevadans. And every RINO and Democrat who let the tax break die ought to be made to explain to every butcher, baker, and candlestick maker why they’re now paying more while Wall Street gets a pass.

So here’s a thought, dear Congressfolk–less talkin’, more doin’–and pass the dang deduction and let Nevada thrive.

300 Acres, No Comment, and a Whole Heap of Dirt to Move

Honest, I don’t pretend to know what sort of cipherin’ they do up there in Redmond, Wash., but it appears that Microsoft, a kingpin in computer contraptions, has quietly bought itself a nice, wide patch of Northern Nevada sagebrush—300.7 acres of it, to be precise—at a place called Victory Logistics District in the humble outpost of Fernley.

They paid a princely sum too–$70.5 million, no buildings, no bricks, not even a painted sign—just dust and promise—to look at it and say, “Ours.”

If you ask’em what they’re fixin’ to do with that great expanse of nothing, you’d best prepare for disappointment. Microsoft ain’t talking. They wagged a finger at their website and made a polite noise about “supporting local business growth” and “working with the community.”

That’s the kind of answer you give when your boots’re in wet cement, and you don’t want to say you’ve got no idea where the sidewalk’s going.

Still, those in the know—namely Evan Slavik, the head honcho of Mark IV Capital, which owns the land—said the purchase means Fernley might soon be home to more humming servers than prairie dogs. Slavik practically popped his suspenders in pride, calling it “a major step toward data center developments,” which, translated from Real Estate Speak, means: “Boys, we’re about to get rich.”

Victory Logistics District—which sounds like a place where Julius Caesar would’ve stored his chariots—already has one tech tenant—Redwood Materials, a battery recycler with more square footage than a small kingdom. But Microsoft’s entry, if they do go the data center route, would make them the first digital titan to break ground there, and that kind of thing tends to stir up a whole mess of attention.

You might recall the “Tesla Effect of 2015″—when Elon Musk rolled into town and triggered a silver rush of tech outfits stampeding toward Storey County like a herd of caffeinated buffalo.

Mark IV is spending $120 million to flatten 600 acres of dirt and lay down roads, pipes, power lines, and other subterranean spaghetti to get ahead of the presumed frenzy. Rick Nelson, Mark IV’s Northern Nevada boss man, says they’ll be laying fiber, building roads, and preparing the land like a hopeful farmer expecting rain. The only difference is that their rain is server racks and server farms, and the crops are billion-dollar tech companies hungry for cheap power and elbow room.

They won’t be touching Microsoft’s land–oh no, that parcel’s sacred now—but they will set up the neighborhood with a road network that connects everything like a spiderweb for high-speed dreams. They’re even planning a new residential community—because what good is a digital utopia without a few humans nearby to plug it in and argue over where to put the coffee machine?

So, what does it mean for Nevada? If history’s any guide, it means more jobs, noise, and folks who say “cloud computing” with a straight face. It also means that Fernley—once a place where the most exciting thing was the wind changing directions—is fixin’ to be a hub of the future, whatever that turns out to be.

As for Microsoft, they may not be talking now—but when you plunk down seventy million for a pile of dirt, you ain’t just buying silence. You’re buying the next chapter.

And I reckon it’s going to be a loud one.

Don’t go gettin’ me wrong, I ain’t one to cast stones at a feller’s faith, but there’s a mighty peculiar thing about some churchgoin’ folks, ‘cludin’ me.

They’ll traipse into the pews every Sunday, singin’ hymns loud enough to wake a hibernatin’ bear and quotin’ Scripture like they’re auditionin’ for St. Peter. They’ve got the prayer book dog-eared, the preacher’s hand shook, and the collection plate polished with their generosity. But deep down, where the soul whispers truths the heart done ignored, there’s a gnawin’ emptiness—a suspicion that all their pious doin’s might be no more’n a well-dressed sham.

In its plainspoken way, the Good Book tells of a day when folks’ll stand before the Almighty, hollerin’, “Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name? Didn’t we cast out demons and work miracles?”

And the Master, with a look that’d pierce a man’s soul like a Pacific coast foghorn’ll say, “I never knew you, you actor.”

That’s the rub–ain’t it? The fear that all your churchly strut and sermonizin’ might’ve been a grand performance for a theater with no audience. It ain’t about religion, mind you, with its starched collars and polished customs.

It’s about repentance, the bone-deep, life-turnin’ repentance that costs a man somethin’. The kind that makes you leave your nets like Peter or climb down from your sycamore like Zacchaeus.

If a man’s soul is worth a plug nickel–he’d do well to ponder this dread before the curtain falls. For what’s worse than a life spent prayin’ to a God you ain’t never met?