“There’s so many folks out there thinkin’ prayer is only so’s they can tell God exactly what they want. Settin’ around waitin’ for Him to drop it in their lap. ‘I put my faith in Him, so He owes me.’
“Been figger’n on that’n a long time. All things don’t necessarily come to folks who don’t do nothin’ but wait. Even if they’re prayin’ while they’re settin’ there. You can put all the faith in God you want to, but you try crammin’ Him behind the wheel while you nap in the back seat; you’re still gonna drive into a tree.”
–
excerpt from “Entertaining Naked People”
“You said your family’s religious?” I asked. Ours was one of maybe ten rooms in this long, flat motel; each, no doubt, with the same faded interiors. Each a tossed salad of Salvation Army furniture, a bland, mismatched scrapbook of stains, but they did share a porch looking out on the sunset. The two of us sat there on gouged and splintered rockers, their cane backs unraveling. As was I. There were three or four old wrecks parked along the strip, a couple of them thrashing and moaning; occasional screams of, “Yes! Yes! Yes, Honey, Yes!” But we had the porch to ourselves.
“Born again fundamentalist,” he told me. “Daddy was a minister. Seems in my family the earth’s only a few thousand years old. They keep losing track of the exact number. Can’t find the reference in the Bible nowheres, but’d fight to the death that it’s in there and it’s true. Sun and stars orbit the earth. Just cause man’s here, no other reason. Rest of the world should bow down and kiss American butt cause Jesus is coming to save us, and us alone. Somethin’ to do with the flag, it seems.
“Now me,” he said, “Guess I lean more toward being a kind of a pantheist.” He stopped to scratch at the knee of his jeans as I felt the dull thud of the word ‘pantheist’ falling so casually from the mouth of a cowpoke.
“Does that mean you worship a whole bunch of Gods?” I asked.
“Just means everything’s holy; everyone’s got their own layers of how it all fits together; gotta listen to ever’body. All religions play their parts.”
“That must’ve gone over big.”
“Didn’t set so well with Daddy I’m afraid, no.” He shook his head slowly. “He was out there preachin’ some things just didn’t quite fit in with how the world looked to me. When he wasn’t herding cattle, he was herding minds and souls. But you know, it’s kinda hard to keep ’em penned in once the cattle’s learned to think. So one day I just wandered off.”
“To think things through your own way.”
“More like listening. Seems you can figure out a lot by just listening in on the soul of things. Starts to look like there really is some kinda meaning out there and it’s not cutting us all apart; it’s taking us all somewheres together.”
Who was this hippie cowboy?
– Excerpt from “Entertaining Naked People”
“I couldn’t resist questioning encrusted old beliefs, though questioning was the worst of all sins. Adam and Eve had been fine wandering around nude among tigers and snakes until they’d eaten that apple and started thinking things through. We had to bet our souls on stuff that didn’t make sense; on wandering stars, wives turning to salt, and God stopping the sun so his own children, made in his image, could kill each other. Samson hadn’t cut his own hair, someone else had, but rules must be followed, so the hell with him, God said. Then our principal kicked a kid out of school for refusing to cut his. Adults kept changing “eternal truths,” and I couldn’t keep up. Everybody kept hammering away at the world like blacksmiths, each trying to beat it into something different.” – Excerpt from “Entertaining Naked People”
Bob Edward Fahey 
“There’s so many folks out there thinkin’ prayer is only so’s they can tell God exactly what they want. Settin’ around waitin’ for Him to drop it in their lap. ‘I put my faith in Him, so He owes me.’
“Been figger’n on that’n a long time. All things don’t necessarily come to folks who don’t do nothin’ but wait. Even if they’re prayin’ while they’re settin’ there. You can put all the faith in God you want to, but you try crammin’ Him behind the wheel while you nap in the back seat; you’re still gonna drive into a tree.”
–
excerpt from “Entertaining Naked People”
“You said your family’s religious?” I asked. Ours was one of maybe ten rooms in this long, flat motel; each, no doubt, with the same faded interiors. Each a tossed salad of Salvation Army furniture, a bland, mismatched scrapbook of stains, but they did share a porch looking out on the sunset. The two of us sat there on gouged and splintered rockers, their cane backs unraveling. As was I. There were three or four old wrecks parked along the strip, a couple of them thrashing and moaning; occasional screams of, “Yes! Yes! Yes, Honey, Yes!” But we had the porch to ourselves.
“Born again fundamentalist,” he told me. “Daddy was a minister. Seems in my family the earth’s only a few thousand years old. They keep losing track of the exact number. Can’t find the reference in the Bible nowheres, but’d fight to the death that it’s in there and it’s true. Sun and stars orbit the earth. Just cause man’s here, no other reason. Rest of the world should bow down and kiss American butt cause Jesus is coming to save us, and us alone. Somethin’ to do with the flag, it seems.
“Now me,” he said, “Guess I lean more toward being a kind of a pantheist.” He stopped to scratch at the knee of his jeans as I felt the dull thud of the word ‘pantheist’ falling so casually from the mouth of a cowpoke.
“Does that mean you worship a whole bunch of Gods?” I asked.
“Just means everything’s holy; everyone’s got their own layers of how it all fits together; gotta listen to ever’body. All religions play their parts.”
“That must’ve gone over big.”
“Didn’t set so well with Daddy I’m afraid, no.” He shook his head slowly. “He was out there preachin’ some things just didn’t quite fit in with how the world looked to me. When he wasn’t herding cattle, he was herding minds and souls. But you know, it’s kinda hard to keep ’em penned in once the cattle’s learned to think. So one day I just wandered off.”
“To think things through your own way.”
“More like listening. Seems you can figure out a lot by just listening in on the soul of things. Starts to look like there really is some kinda meaning out there and it’s not cutting us all apart; it’s taking us all somewheres together.”
Who was this hippie cowboy?
– Excerpt from “Entertaining Naked People”
“I couldn’t resist questioning encrusted old beliefs, though questioning was the worst of all sins. Adam and Eve had been fine wandering around nude among tigers and snakes until they’d eaten that apple and started thinking things through. We had to bet our souls on stuff that didn’t make sense; on wandering stars, wives turning to salt, and God stopping the sun so his own children, made in his image, could kill each other. Samson hadn’t cut his own hair, someone else had, but rules must be followed, so the hell with him, God said. Then our principal kicked a kid out of school for refusing to cut his. Adults kept changing “eternal truths,” and I couldn’t keep up. Everybody kept hammering away at the world like blacksmiths, each trying to beat it into something different.” – Excerpt from “Entertaining Naked People”