On the Edge

by Parker Hudson

  The four of them swapped information from their day, as families do around the dinner table. In answer to Janet's question, Richard explained in more detail about the prayer breakfast in the morning, as he understood it. Then he asked, “Susan, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm not sure what Bobbie's father does for a living. Do you know?”

  “Yes, I think he has a company that makes loans to people. I believe he's a mortgage banker, or mortgage broker, or something like that.”

  “OK, good. Thanks.”

  Tommy cleared the table, which was his chore for the week, and as Janet prepared some ice cream from the freezer, she asked, “Now I've got a question for the two of you kids. I know this is going to seem a little off the wall, but help me if you can. Late this afternoon at the station I saw a video about sex education in our schools. Frankly, I couldn't believe some of it. You may not have exactly the same program in your school, but Susan, in the eleventh grade have they had you actually putting condoms on bananas?”

  Susan immediately turned crimson and averted her eyes. Her family had always been pretty open about any topic, including sex, which she appreciated. But as she and Tommy had grown older, she found that it became a little more difficult to talk about such things with her father and her brother around. Particularly since her brother was now leering from the kitchen sink. But what was really turning her crimson was remembering how embarrassed she had been a month ago in Mr. Burton's biology class, where the sex education section was taught, when she had, in fact, done as her mother described.

  “Yes, ah, yes…we did. We had to do it as part of the AIDS awareness section.” Both her mother and father stopped to listen. “We teamed up in pairs.…” Susan did not tell them that her partner had been Drew, which had completely mortified her. “And each of us had to open a condom and put it, or roll it, or whatever, onto a banana. I can't say that I particularly enjoyed it, but Mr. Burton said it was something we had to know how to do in order to protect ourselves someday.”

  “Richard,” said Janet, “don't you think that's a bit much for the eleventh grade? Boys and girls putting condoms on bananas together?”

  “Yes, well, it does seem a bit strange to me, dear,” said Richard. “But this program is supposedly all researched and organized by the state board of education. It can't be too crazy, can it?”

  “And what about in the ninth grade, Tommy,” Janet asked. “What have they got you doing in sex education?” She paused as she placed the bowls of ice cream in front of her family, who were now all back at the breakfast room table.

  “Well, I guess we haven't quite started on-the-job training, like they do in the eleventh grade,” Tommy smiled at Susan and looked quickly to both ends of the table, where frowns greeted him. He tried to recover and said with more seriousness, “I don't know, we've just had drawings and charts. Only now we're into ‘relationships.’ Today we had a marriage counselor speak to us, and tomorrow we're having some people come in to talk about ‘alternative lifestyles.’”

  “What does that mean?” Richard raised his eyebrows.

  “I'm not exactly sure. But Mrs. Duncan said we're going to have a lesbian businesswoman and a gay school teacher come and tell us about their lifestyles.”

  “You mean they're teaching you about homosexuality as part of your sex education class?” Richard asked, his voice rising in concern.

  Sensing an opening to make his father squirm a bit, Tommy paused for a second and then answered “Well, I won't really know until tomorrow. But Mrs. Duncan said they're real nice people and we'll enjoy hearing what they have to say.”

  “You may be right, Janet. This does sound like it's a little bit too much. I wonder who actually put together this program? And I wonder why we haven't heard anything about it? How did you say you became aware of it?”

  “One of our reporters is doing a story about it. Isn't it ironic,” she said to all three of them, “that we find out about what's happening in our own children's schools by watching television!”

  Maybe Bill Shaw is right, after all! she thought. Maybe we do need television to tell it all, since it seems to be the only way we find out these days…

  The rendezvous over the city that night was a black, menacing storm. Demons were arriving late from their many assignments, as the city finally went to sleep. Balzor had asked for reinforcements from other sectors of the city, and even from other nearby cities, to help combat tomorrow morning's prayer breakfast. So far their strategies seemed to be working extremely well.

  “Lieutenant Tymor,” ordered Balzor, “give us a report on where we stand.”

  Tymor rose to address the unholy black hole of hatred. “Our early suspicions have been confirmed that this group is headed by Edwards, Burnett, and Andrews. Luckily they have not been well enough organized with their prayer support. Other than a few scattered individuals, they have only started praying in earnest tonight. We've been able to keep all of our voices speaking reliably in our own sector for the past ten days, without any interference from angels, because the prayers have been so few. In fact, the first angel has only just showed up outside the Palace Hotel.” The demons could look down and see the powerful light darting back and forth around the hotel complex. “But certainly there are too many of us to be bothered by just one angel.

  “The three ministers have delegated most of the work for inviting the businessmen and for following up after the breakfast to their lay leadership. In some cases, unfortunately, these men are quite good and quite dedicated. But Fear and Discouragement have been doing some particularly effective work on most of them, and I believe there will be many no shows in the morning, and only sporadic follow-up afterwards. If we can get through the first few days after the breakfast, we should never have to worry about one of these again.”

  “Good work, good work,” added Balzor. “I think we have risen to the challenge magnificently, and some of them will actually be more confused than ever after this is over!” He cackled, and the others all followed him. “We'll dispense with the regular reports tonight. We still have a lot of work to do. All of you street leaders keep working tonight with Busyness and Discouragement, to have those voices playing as loudly as possible in the morning, when all these men wake up early. Maybe we can sidetrack a few more. And the rest of you, who have come here to help us, head down and flood the Palace Hotel with your wonderful stench! One lonely angel will be no match for all of you, and we should entrench ourselves completely in that building by the morning. We want all of the souls in that place, and particularly Ben Fuller's, to feel the power of our presence, despite the subject of their talk.”

  With that dismissal, all of the demons left to complete their appointed tasks. Nepravel descended through a wide arc back to his neighborhood, detouring over into the vicinity of the Palace Hotel. There he watched as the one mighty angel, irridescent but alone—there really had not been much prayer support for this breakfast. Nepravel could remember years ago when revivals would be protected by ten, perhaps even twenty, such angels—flew back and forth at the entrance, grasping futilely with his talons at the hundreds of demons who were entering the building from all sides and through the roof. Oops! One demon had strayed too close to the angel, on a dare from another demon, and paid the price. Well, Nepravel had learned to keep a safe distance, and he cruised back over to Devon Drive, where it was almost completely dark.

  “What's that?” he snarled, as individual bolts of light appeared from the suburbs and landed at two of his houses. “Blast! What is that Meredith girl doing up at this time of night, praying for these two families? Now she's apparently added Amy Bryant to her prayer list. And tonight she's even praying for Richard Sullivan and the prayer breakfast! Her prayers have damaged our voices a bit. After the prayer breakfast, I'll have to build them up again. And Zloy has to do something about that girl, and her whole family. They're getting to be such a pain. I'm just glad there are not many like them.”

  5

  THURSDAY, MAY 4 – Ri
chard's alarm went off that morning a little before 6:00, and for an instant he could not remember why it was set so early. Then he remembered the prayer breakfast and lay there in bed thinking. Did he really have to go? Did he really want to go? It was so early. He had told Robert Meredith that he would be there, and wasn't his word important? People had probably spent money on his breakfast. What to do? The voices of Confusion and Defeat tried to dissuade Richard from going, but they were not as loud in his mind as they could have been, thanks to the prayers for Richard from both Robert Meredith and his daughter. So Richard finally slid out of bed and began to get dressed.

  When Richard arrived at the Palace Hotel's main ballroom, he was surprised to see that several hundred men were already there. Many of them he knew well. He also noted that it was an interracial group, with whites, African-Americans, and Hispanics. Either Ben Fuller was quite a draw, or a lot more men attended prayer breakfasts than he had ever suspected.

  A kindly lady at one of the tables in the atrium gave Richard a name tag and directed him inside to Table 15, where he found Robert Meredith and several other men already waiting. “Hi, Richard, Bob Meredith. I'm so glad you could make it this morning. Here, let me introduce you to the other guys.”

  After the introductions, Richard thanked Bob for inviting him. Then he asked about the sponsors for the breakfast, since the invitation had only said “Spring Prayer Breakfast,” with a list of individual hosts.

  “Oh, it's the pastors and laymen from several of the churches in our area. We decided to work together so that a larger audience could hear a national speaker like Ben Fuller.”

  As breakfast was served to the several hundred men and the conversation continued at their table, unseen to their eyes a spiritual battle of large proportions was being waged all around them.

  There were now two angels, which were all that the late prayer cover could provide, and they were doing their best to grab and to destroy the demons who were still trying to get inside. But unfortunately, two angels were no match for the hundreds of demons who had already flooded the hall under Balzor's orders. Although individual demons were no match for one of God's angels, in large numbers the advantage was turned, and in tight quarters a swarm of demons could drive away an angel with thousands of sharp bites. So the two angels had to remain outside, and the grand ballroom where Fuller would soon speak was sadly almost as dark as midnight. Only the flames burning inside the many Christian men seated at the tables illuminated any of the eternal players in the ballroom.

  Balzor himself, once he knew that the area was safe, had entered the hall surrounded by a horde of his lesser demons for protection. He had taken up his position directly across from the podium. The darkness, the terror, and the stench in that place would have completely overwhelmed any human spirit, should it have been unlucky enough to have passed during those ninety minutes!

  Ben Fuller was seated at a table just below the podium with Stephen Edwards, James Burnett, Michael Andrews, and several of the prayer breakfast leaders. When he had arrived the previous evening and found that the leaders had only begun to pray sporadically for the prayer breakfast that night, Fuller had stayed in his room an hour before dinner, on his face before God, praying for all those who would attend the breakfast and for God's Word on his lips in the morning. It was as a result of his prayers, and those of the other leaders who began praying as well, that the second angel had been empowered to descend and to fight the demons.

  The Reverend James Burnett gave the welcome and invocation, and Reverend Stephen Edwards introduced Benjamin Fuller.

  As Fuller rose to speak, Balzor urged on his demons, like a coach on the sidelines of the Super Bowl. They had not seen a challenge like this, projecting the Truth into the business community, in many years. Balzor knew that his own future depended on his demons counteracting Fuller's words, and then destroying any follow-up which might try to save these men. Every streetleader, like Nepravel, had been called in from his sector. Each one knew where his men were sitting, and they darted from table to table, snarling and cursing, coaxing up the voices of hate and deception, which could be diminished by Fuller's words and by the few targeted prayers which were even now landing in the ballroom.

  Benjamin Fuller, who had surrendered his life to God eighteen years before, began his Christian walk at that time. He knew the Truth which could free these men and their families from the lies and the pain which the world and Satan had laid on them. He personally knew the power which could overcome any problem, change any relationship, bring any result. But even as he began speaking, as he looked out at the hundreds of faces in front of him, his spirit was troubled. Perhaps he could sense the awful presence which had filled the room and which was battling against his single voice. But he nevertheless prayed a silent prayer, asked for God's help, and began.

  Richard listened intently as Fuller recounted his more than thirty years as a Wall Street attorney. He mentioned several of his firm's merger and acquisition successes, stretching back several decades to a time before M&A work became the darling of the securities and legal industries. He then said an extraordinary thing, which certainly got the attention of Richard and most of the other businessmen in the room: Fuller claimed that he had turned away potential fees, amounting to millions of dollars, because he believed that some particular work his firm was asked to do, while certainly legal, was neither right nor moral. Richard simply could not believe these words coming from a hard-nosed New York M&A attorney. He started to become curious about this man, but then a voice inside him said that any attorney who would turn away that kind of business must not be “morarl”—he must be crazy!

  And so went the debate in Richard's mind throughout the rest of the prayer breakfast, as Fuller described his own submission to the will of God, and how it had changed his life and work forever. The demons, moving around with impunity, turned up the voices in each listener to discredit Fuller's testimony and Fuller himself.

  A few words did manage to hit home with Richard. At one point Fuller implied that he had been doing something of which his wife would not have been proud. Although he did not come right out and say it directly, Richard imagined that Fuller must have had another woman at one point. When Fuller said that his actions were ruining his marriage and killing his wife, the words pierced Richard's heart. And especially since today, being Thursday, he was supposed to see Kristen in just a few hours.

  But Nepravel and the other demons fought back. Several times during the talk, Richard actually daydreamed, or thought about problems and contracts at his office.

  When Fuller said, “We borrow money we don't have, to buy things we don't need, to impress people we really don't like,” Richard chuckled with the other businessmen, but as that thought started to sink in, a voice replied, “Sure, that's easy for him to say. He's already got it all, and doesn't have to impress anybody. But what about all the rest of us who haven't quite made it yet? Are we just supposed to chuck it all and move off to the top of a mountain? How would our families survive?”

  As Fuller concluded, Richard found himself awakened from more thoughts about his office schedule that morning to hear Fuller saying, “It's this simple, men. You have to choose either to be on God's side, or on the other side. You cannot be on both. You will not get another chance after you die. And your soul is eternal. You don't have the choice of simply stopping at death and saying ‘Thanks, that's enough for me.’ Your soul will live in one of two places, forever. Forever. Think about that. And if you choose God's side, you can begin to walk with Him now and to build a relationship with Him like no other relationship you will ever know.

  “As you walk with Him, His Holy Spirit will fill you each day, as I pray that He will do each day in my life, and you can begin to glimpse what eternity with Him will be like, right here on earth, right now. Starting today. I hope you will repent of all that you have done, choose God, and ask His Son, Jesus Christ, to come into your life this morning. To submit to Him and to ask Him to be the L
ord of your life from this day forward. Let us pray.”

  Richard was astonished. Fuller must have said something important while Richard was daydreaming, he thought, because he could not imagine anyone making such a “hard sell” to this group of tough businessmen so early in the morning! Did he really expect men in thousand-dollar suits with Oxford button-down shirts to buy his story and make this choice after a forty-five-minute talk? As Fuller began to pray, encouraging the men in the audience to pray silently along with him, there was certainly no silence in Richard's mind. The voices were turned up to full volume, virtually laughing that Fuller would expect anyone here to change his life over a breakfast!

  Fuller's prayer was basically an opportunity for each man in the audience to make the choice that morning and to submit himself to Jesus Christ at that time. In the prayer, he promised not immediate happiness, but immediate peace, which would grow if the men began seeking God's face in all that they did. Richard bowed politely, but Pride was running rampant inside him, and he wasn't about to submit to anyone or to anything, particularly in front of hundreds of men.

  At the end of the prayer, Richard looked up and was astonished to see the face of the mechanical contractor to whom he had been introduced at the start of the breakfast. There were streaks of tears running down his cheeks! This big man, who must have weighed over 250 pounds, was crying like a baby, right across the table from him! And, as he looked around the room, there were other men wiping their eyes and several who still had their heads bowed in prayer. Richard was flabbergasted. These visual images affected him as much as, or more than, any of Fuller's words, and the volume of the deceptive voices was dimmed by what Richard suddenly realized had happened across the table from him. This man had apparently done as Fuller had suggested, and now he was crying and laughing at the same time, and holding onto Bob Meredith's shoulder, telling him that he felt freer than he had been in twenty years. Richard found himself staring, and wondering how this could possibly have happened. The man even looked different in his face. He really had changed!