Let's Get Stoned Man!

(circa 1983)
It’s  Sunday morning at the
Hamilton Park C&MA Church
in Allentown Pennsylvania and
Pastor Walborn  is preaching about
the “stoning of Stephen.”
 
Saul,  a Pharisee, witnessed the stoning of Stephen.  
At Saul’s conversion to Christianity,
his named was changed to Paul.
 
In the Old Testament times, the time of Moses, 
according to accounts in 
Exodus,  Deuteronomy and Leviticus,
one could be stoned to death for
homosexuality,
blaspheming God or for
working on the Sabbath Day of rest.
 
In the book of John,
Jewish Scribes brought
the woman caught in adultery to Jesus
for the ancient form of a lynching.
Jesus responded,
 “Let him who is without sin
cast the first stone.”
 
The persecutors ALL walked away and the woman lived.
 
In a karmic twist of fate,
Acts tells Paul and Barnabas
went to the city of  Derbe to preach, 
and Paul was taken outside the city and
stoned by the Jews,
and left for dead.

Miraculously,  Paul survives the mob rule.
 
My younger sister leans over to me
in the middle of the sermon and says,
 “Does the pastor mean the Pharisees
made Stephen smoke marijuana to kill him?
 
The cannabis smoker’s objective is to get high,
to get a “buzz”  that can be
uplifting,
energetic and
evoke an overactive imagination.
 
The second phase of the cannabis smoking
is the “stoned” phase where
the body relaxes to an almost a lethargic state.
 
Stoned connotes a
lazy,
calm or
lack of feelings on the part of the person.
 
For me,  I support legalizing and taxing both cannabis
and prostitution.  They are not going away.  At least
this way it can be regulated, and sex workers can
organize and become Teamsters.  I do not partake in
the smoking of cannabis,  BUT  think of all the tax
money raised could be used to lower our national debt
-  the Libertarian dream.
 
If a judgement were given to me to be stoned to death
and I was given a choice by way of the rock or the joint, 
I think the answer would be quite obvious.
 
“No sister Jody,  the stoning in the times of Jesus were
of rocks (Igneous,  Sedimentary,  and Metamorphic) 
not cannibis cigarettes.”