For forty mornings the deep-dish tyrant Goliath came down into the valley, nine spans of black iron, rim over rim, and taunted the faithful; and they dipped not their bread, for they mistook, as the fearful ever do, the size of the mould for the strength of it. Then came David of Breadlehem, a thin-crust, slight and honest, carrying loaves to his brothers; and he asked the one question no one had thought to ask: I see the layers. Hath any man smelt the middle?
He refused Saul’s great armour – if I win by wearing his shape, what have I proven but his shape? – and chose five smooth olives from the brine-brook, and slang the fifth; and it smote the tyrant in the one unarmoured span, and he fell; and out of him went up a long sigh, as of a bellows dying. He was hollow. The terror of forty mornings was crust and air.
Beloved, whatever giant blots your morning – the bullying boss, the bellowing demagogue, the fear that has worn armour so long you assume there is something inside it – hear David’s teaching: the mould’s size is its weakness. It must swell, for swelling is its whole argument; and what swelleth without feeding is hollow; for pride rises like bad dough, all air, as it is written in the Resistance, 6:13.
Therefore count its feedings. Ask ever: whom hath it fed? And when the answer comes back, No one – choose thee an honest olive, and feel how little the truth needeth to weigh. Amen – and pass the pizza.