THE OZONE SKIP is the first to be completed from an evolving body of work that demonstrates how fundamentalist Christians "preserve the outward form of religion, but are a standing denial of its reality" (2 TM 3.5). Like all my work, it takes the form of a sermon, preached sometime between The Beatles' first coming to America in 64 to Woodstock in 69 by Reverend Harry N. Bail, pastor of the First Church of the Gadarene on Greentree Street in Rockclift -- a small, conservative community nestled into the cleft of an ancient granite face in the Great Smoky Mountains of Eastern Tennessee.

To whom shall I compare Reverend Bail? Reverend Bail is like Dr. Edward Strong, chancellor of the Berkeley campus in 1964, who boldly announces (in the oft-resurrected archival footage) that "this assemblage has developed to such a point that the purpose and the work of the university has been materially impaired," and is eternally baffled by the spontaneous cheers of victory that erupt from the young sit-down strikers gathered before him cross-legged on the floor.

He's also like an actor in one of those black-and-white movies from the 30s and 40s, who gracefully leaps to his feet to announce in heartfelt song to his service buddies that he's "gay," and hasn't a clue that somewhere in the future children are rolling in the aisles -- not at the idea of being gay anymore, but rather, at the realization of just how far we've evolved since this actor lived and worked, and his "spirit body" was immortalized on film.

If this is the Judgement -- if "the One" who sits upon the "great white throne" is the future generations, smacking their gum as they gaze into their monitors, calmly judging us on the record of our deeds at this very moment -- then this actor has a valid excuse. In the age in which he lived, gay meant carefree and in love with a member of the opposite sex. He may well have been gay himself, and were he alive today, singing the same song in the same way to a member of the same sex, to rave reviews. Reverend Bail, on the other hand -- like Dr. Strong -- is not an artist, innocently reflecting his times. He's a card-carrying member of the old creation, warring with all the powers at his command (and some that clearly aren't) against the coming of the new.

By narrowing his horizons against the revelations of the 60s (many of which we now take for granted as essential to our survival), rather than expanding them along with the evolving population, he has sealed himself off in the age in which he lived, forever coming short of "the glory of God," forever warring against those who didn't; who -- it may now be clearly seen looking back with 20/20 media hindsight -- heard the word of God in their own hearts and acted on it, regardless of what Reverend Bail, or "the God of the Bible" said.