written by Aubrey H Sparks - Vol 2 Issue 14

Brothers and Sisters, I stand here before you on this sad day to tell you that words can be mischievous creatures. From ideas, they can move to their spoken or written form, like water changing to vapor or ice. They have friends that sound like them. Gathering together in phrases, they can bring fear into the heart of even the strongest person. They have silent letters. But, these devils have one evil habit that stands out beyond any other of their wily tricks. I am speaking of words that have taken a second employment. These two-faced words are so common that most decent people never think about their other meanings, their secret rendezvous in a completely different life. They change their meanings like an actor changing costume, moving from definition to definition with no more shame than Jezebel slithering from the arms of one man into the arms of another.

Brothers and Sisters, there are many words among us that have turned away from the singular path and have taken on more than one meaning. And it is my distasteful duty to inform you of a word that has been called to my attention, Frog. Yes, you heard me right, I am speaking of the word Frog. It is a word so traditional that it is spoken in homes like yours and mine, all across this great nation called America.

I tell you, people say it every day. Children in schoolyards use it. It has even been heard from the pulpit without anyone realizing just how many different meanings this one word can have.

Frog. We see in our mind's eye, the creature that our Lord created, hopping from lily pad to lily pad without a care in the world. It is no coincidence that a Frog was chosen in the famous fairy tale: changing its form again for a kiss from the daughter of Eve.

You there, in the third row, coughing. What invisible creature do you have in your throat that causes you to disrupt this gathering? A Frog! Unless you caught the animal as it leapt into the air and swallowed it whole, you must have something else lodged there. But no, you say you 'have a frog in your throat'.

And Mrs. Johnson, sitting there looking so pretty next to her thirteen children, how is it that you keep the front of your jacket closed? That braided collection of loops that bring the left side of your covering to the right half, meeting in the middle, that you sewed on with your very own hands. Mrs. Johnson, would you call that thing on your bosom a Frog! Why, yes you would. Strange as it sounds Brothers and Sisters, there is a Frog on Mrs. Johnson's breasts. Oh Lord, deliver us!

Frog is a card game in Mexico. It is a vulgar name for our friends in France with whom we fought 'The Great War'. It is, and I quote, a device made of rail sections constructed and assembled to permit the wheels on one rail of track to cross another rail of an intersection track. A shallow place for mortar in the upper face of a brick is also called a Frog, as is the frame or block to which a share, moldboard, landslide, or beam of a plow are secured. A Frog is also the nut of a violin bow, the junction of two branches of a flume, a guiding timber at the mouth of a slide, a device for supporting and mutually insulating trolley wires that cross each other, the seat for the plane iron in the stock of a carpenter's plane, a loom device that actuates a stop motion when the shuttle is out of position, and Frog is even an imperfectly ripened prune of inferior quality.

Brothers and Sisters, you might ask: what is the point I am trying to make? Well, as the Deacons are preparing to gather the offering, I would like to draw your attention to what is in the bottom of the flower arrangement that looks so pretty next to Herb's coffin. That, thing, the florists used to secure those flowers stems in place to make such a lovely bouquet, is also called a Frog. They are everywhere! But most importantly, had our dear, departed brother Herb known that Frog also is the name of the hard pad in the center of a horse's hoof, he would have been alive today. But, no! He has been taken over the river Jordan by a Frog. You have been warned! Do I hear an Amen!! Brothers and Sisters, let us pray.