Carl was beginning to sweat. His hands were trembling and his yellow eyes darted back and forth from the heavens above – blocked from view by his ceiling – and the flickering images of his old television. Carl was nearly seventy and though his heritage often provided him with the appearance of a youth that was rapidly fading from within, his heart seemed to be having greater difficulty keeping up with him these days.

The volume was turned up all the way and carried throughout the entire four-unit tenement building, but the neighbors had given up asking him to turn down the volume on Sunday mornings. He was such a good neighbor and offered no trouble the rest of the time that Linda and John across the hall had resigned to taking in their Sunday mornings at the coffee shop around the corner. And the two sets of neighbors up the stairs were adequately removed enough to ignore the sounds for the two and a half hours each Sunday morning.

“Hallelujah!” Carl shouted and hopped into the air, catching his right leg up high and throwing his right fist towards the ceiling. The massive choir in gilded robes shouted with Carl as the music worked to a frenetic pace. The images on the screen returned from the dancing choir and the images of crying worshipers, nearly twenty-thousand strong, to a stunningly beautiful woman draped in elegant purple satin holding a black microphone and singing powerfully, yet without showing the least amount of strain.

“Give me back my honor!” she sang out.

“Give it back!” sang the choir and the thousands in attendance.

“Give it back!” shouted Carl.

“Give me back my faith!” she sang out.

“Give it back!” sang the choir.

“Give it back!” shouted Carl with another hop on his left foot.

“Give me back everything, Devil, that my Good Lord gave to me!” sang the woman.

“Give me back everything, Devil, that my Good Lord gave to me!” sang the choir and the thousands on the television.

“Give me back everything, Devil, that my Good Lord gave to me!” sang Carl as he collapsed in tears to the dusty wooden floor of his apartment.

As the music and choir held their final note in an impassioned finale, the television pictures switched to close-ups of various members – indeed, entire sections – of the audience, also in tears, sharing in Carl’s grief and an overwhelming outpouring of personal loss. But Carl couldn’t see his fellow mourners. His face was buried deep into his arms and he was momentarily oblivious to the erupting sounds from his television, as his body was racked with sobs.

“Give them back to me,” sobbed Carl over and over through his tears. “Give them back,” he pleaded.

The sounds on the television faded to a long slow pitch from an organ and the beautiful woman in purple spoke in softer, gentle tones of compassion, comfort and understanding.

“The Devil, he is mighty powerful – mighty powerful! – and he can do his best to scare you, to shame you, to steal from you – yes he will! – but he cannot – I repeat! – he cannot control you! He can-not take from you your love! He can-not take from you your faith! He can lie to you – he will! – he can tempt you – oh yes he will! – he can steal from you – yes he will steal from you! – he may steal your money, he may steal your job, he may even steal your babies –”

The television switched quickly to an image of an old black woman as she collapsed to the floor in grief, being clutched at by those around her. Carl didn’t see this though. His face was still buried deep into his arms as he was collapsed on his floor. But he heard the woman’s words and he cried out in pain:

“My babies! He stole my babies, Lord!” and his body shook with sobs.

The television returned to the beautiful woman.

“But he cannot take your soul!” the woman said with almost appeared to be a sneer. “He cannot take your love for God! He cannot take your faith in Heaven! Oh, he will try. He will try! He will lie to you! He will make promises to you! He will promise you anything you want! You want money?” she asked with a smile.

“You got it!” she said holding out a handful of imaginary money.

“You want fame? You got it! You want respect?” she paused on this one for a moment.

“He’ll promise you that too!” she cautioned. “And he’ll deliver! Oh yes he will! He will deliver! But you won’t find any of that respect coming from yourself! You’ll have all that money he promised you, every penny of it! But you won’t have that love for yourself! You’ll have your fame, but you won’t have your honor!”

The television screen flashed to members of the crowd shaking their heads and mouthing things like, “No honor,” and “No love.”

“When that Devil comes to you – and he’ll come to you when you are most desperate, when you feel you’re losing faith in God, when you feel you are alone in this world! – when that Devil comes to you, he will prey on your sorrow, he’ll prey on your lack of faith, he’ll prey on your desperation and your solitude. And he will promise you anything you want to hear.