Watching the new monthly safety video at the Big Box last night I realized that December snuck up on me and that I missed celebrating Mark Twain\u2019s birthday on November 30. Let\u2019s fix that by, once again, revisiting one of the greatest conversion scenes ever written.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can a man be born again?\u201d Nicodemus asked, bewildered. \u00a0Like this:<\/p>\n
I about made up my mind to pray; and see if I couldn\u2019t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was, and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn\u2019t come. Why wouldn\u2019t they? It warn\u2019t no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn\u2019t come. It was because my heart warn\u2019t right; it was because I warn\u2019t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger\u2019s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie \u2014 and He knowed it. You can\u2019t pray a lie \u2014 I found that out.<\/p>\n
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn\u2019t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I\u2019ll go and write the letter \u2014 and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather, right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:<\/p>\n
Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. HUCK FINN<\/p>\n
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn\u2019t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking \u2014 thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time; in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn\u2019t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I\u2019d see him standing my watch on top of his\u2019n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him agin in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he\u2019s got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.<\/p>\n
![\"Huck\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2016\/12\/Huck.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I\u2019d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right, then, I\u2019ll go to hell\u201d \u2014 and tore it up.<\/p>\n
It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn\u2019t. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Think some awful thoughts and say some awful words and don\u2019t think no more about reforming. Take up the wickedness of liberation, and if you can think of anything worse, do that, too. As long as you\u2019re in, and in for good, you might as well go the whole hog.<\/p>\n
[Oops. Edited to fix the duplicated graf.<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Think some awful thoughts and say some awful words and don’t think no more about reforming. Take up the wickedness of liberation, and if you can think of anything worse, do that, too. As long as you’re in, and in for good, you might as well go the whole hog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Go whole hog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Think some awful thoughts and say some awful words and don't think no more about reforming. Take up the wickedness of liberation, and if you can think of anything worse, do that, too. As long as you're in, and in for good, you might as well go the whole hog.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2016\/12\/03\/go-whole-hog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Go whole hog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Think some awful thoughts and say some awful words and don't think no more about reforming. Take up the wickedness of liberation, and if you can think of anything worse, do that, too. 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