The man looked at it and said, “Non, merci.” He thought Mom wanted him to eat it, and like she didn’t want to smoke, he didn’t want to eat a large walnut just then. Then Mom did something with the nut that made him jump a little. She began to pull a tiny ribbon out of the nut. The man saw this was no ordinary nut, the walnut that is. Mom first pulled out a little piece of black ribbon about three inches long and a quarter of an inch wide. She said to the man that the black ribbon represented his sin. She asked him if he agreed or not. He nodded his head, fascinated, and Mom took this as a yes, so she pulled the ribbon out a little more, and the next part that came after the black was a section of red ribbon.

Mom said to the man, “The red ribbon represents our Savior’s blood.” The man started to lick his lips. And Mom took this to mean he didn’t understand, so she said, “Jésus! Jésus!” pretty loud. The man forgot to smoke his Gauloise anymore, and it went out because Gauloise cigarettes are all natural and don’t have saltpeter in them to keep them burning if you didn’t suck on them.

“Jesus died to wash your sins clean, so the ribbon in your heart is washed red and the black is washed away and replaced by white.” Mom said this part as she tugged on the red section of ribbon and pulled out the white section. At least it was supposed to be “white as snow,” but it was really a little yellow because the American Missionary Alliance, which sent out the Gospel Walnut Witnessing Kit, had used cheap satin ribbon in this batch of nuts. If you were going to be literal about it, you’d have to say that your heart would get “white as not-so-fresh egg yolk.” But the Frenchman was not a fundamentalist, so he let it pass and accepted Mom’s word for it that the yellow ribbon was really white and his heart would be the same color when he had agreed to believe what Mom was telling him with the assistance of “the miraculous little nut that helps you plant the seed of life in desperate human hearts,” like the instruction booklet said that came with each Gospel Walnut.