preacher punch

"But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become." 
-Anne Rice

"Your lips touched every hand but mine
If you choose me, I’m waiting for you
Always waiting..."
-Flyleaf, Tiny Heart 

Living in the deep-fried South, I'm surrounded by a lot of religion.  And a lot of hypocrisy.

Working with the public, I encounter a lot of religious people.  And a lot of them are obnoxious.

It's astonishing to see someone's sweet Christian demeanor diminish as soon as there is a problem with their purchase.  Por example, a lady called me one day and inquired about the status of her order and when I couldn't find it in the computer system, she proceeded to freak out on me and told me I'd better find out what happened to her order.  I told her I would call her back after I got off the phone with another department and that it wouldn't take more than a few minutes.

After I sorted out the situation, which took about three minutes, I called her back and got her voicemail.  That irritated me.  If she was so adamant about finding out what happened to her order, why wasn't she waiting by the phone to hear from me?

But the part that really got me was when she left a Bible verse on her voicemail, followed by a sweet as pie "God bless."

I had to laugh.

She finally called back an hour or two later (because she was really concerned about her order).  I told her that her order was found and was actually supposed to be placed on her doorstep the next day.  She calmed down then and said, "Thank you, sugar."

"No problem, ma'am.  God bless!"  Bitch.  

I've had a few other run-ins with the religious.

A couple of months ago, the store hired a lady and I think she came straight from the convent.  She's older with thin white hair that parts in the middle of her head and fans out over her bespectacled face.  She never wears makeup and her cheeks are ruddy with broken capillaries and Rosacea and age spots.  Her voice is soft and low like a female Lurch talking through a cell phone in a tunnel.  She's plain and grandmotherly but quite nice.

When I introduced myself to her, the first thing she asked me was, "Brannon, do you know Jesus?"

Yeah, I've heard good things, I thought to myself.

At the time, I was a mess spiritually.  My faith had been waning for a while and I was just beginning to come to terms with it.  Essentially, I had given up.  But how was I supposed to explain that to her?  If I were to say no, I didn't want her to think I was some atheist heathen.  I didn't want her to instantly dislike me or think low of me or give me a sermon right there at the checkout counter.

So, I simply said yes, I did know Jesus.  It wasn't entirely a lie.  I knew him.  We just weren't on speaking terms at the time.

And with that, she smiled and said, "Good."

I haven't had any trouble with her, which I'm thankful for, but most of the Christians I encounter are not as amiable.  If there's one thing I dislike more than a close-minded religious person, it's a nosy neighbor.  I had the misfortune of encountering a lady who encompassed both of those qualities.

She was a short lady with bottle brown hair that curled around her face like a wreath.  Her red lips danced over her wide, yellow teeth as she spoke.  She stood there and looked me up and down, trying to figure out how she knew me.

"You look so familiar," she said.  "What church do you go to?"

"I don't attend church," I told her.

By the look on her face, you would have thought I dropped a turd right on the counter.  She literally took a step back and put her hand over her sagging chest. 

Then she reached out her hand and put it on mine.  "You need to go to church."

I can't stand when people think church is a big Band-Aid for the boo boo that is my life.  Church is not a cure for the common criminal.  Church is supposed to be a house of worship, not an indicator of spiritual cleanliness.  People in this town are quick to say they go to church because it makes them feel like good people but they aren't as quick to point out what they were doing the night before.  But you can usually smell it on their breath during Sunday service.

I went to several churches when I was younger but none of them were beneficial.  The preachers were always too boring or too over the top with the yelling and screaming and focus on flames.  Obey the Bible or you'll go to hell.  Obey your parents or you'll go to hell.  Listen to Marilyn Manson and you'll go to hell.  If y'all don't win that football game on Friday, y'all are going to hell!

I had a fear of screaming thanks to my parents constant fighting when I was small child so the screaming sermons scared me and the boring ones knocked me out like NyQuil.  I couldn't seem to find a good balance.

But one day, I thought I had.  During middle school or early high school, I started attending a church a few of my classmates went to and I actually enjoyed it.  That is, until they installed a new Sunday school teacher.  During the first class, he told us to rejoin the rest of the congregation when the class was over and get up and tell everyone how God had blessed our lives and if we didn't, that showed we were ashamed of God.

I immediately began to sweat.

I knew I was blessed and I definitely wasn't ashamed of God.  In fact, I was in a good place spiritually.  But I was incredibly shy.  I was scared to death to get up in front of all of those people.  I only sat with my schoolmates.  The other churchgoers were virtual strangers to me.  I didn't want them looking at me, judging me.

Throughout the rest of the service, I battled myself, wanting to tell them that God had blessed my life but not wanting to get up due to my social phobia.  Among the feelings of fear and an attempt to muster up some bravery, I felt angry at the man for putting me in such a difficult position.  Maybe he didn't take into account my fear of crowds and strangers but it still ticked me right off.

All the while, my Sunday school peers got up and talked about how God had blessed them.  They were met with "hallelujahs" and "amens" and I just sat there.

My face grew hot.  My chest tightened.  I wanted to get up but my knees were wobbly and I thought for sure I'd topple over if I did manage to stand.  I fought against my feelings of anger over not just being able to talk in front of these people and fought my feelings of anger toward this man, this guy who barged in and messed up my comfortable churchgoing experience.

I never got up.

I wasn't ashamed of God.  I was ashamed of myself.  And that's why I couldn't stand.

I hoped God understood.

After that experience, I never went back to that church.  I never went back to any church, except for a few times in college.  I realized church just wasn't for me.  Church just isn't always great.  It's not always bad, either.  It's a great concept but just like most of Christianity, people have poisoned it and twisted it into something that turns most people off.  I even grew up with a girl who church hopped for years because she experienced more turmoil than testimony at each house of God she attended.

Even before my downfall of faith, I thought I got along with God just fine without having to designate one day to show the world I was a follower of Jesus.  Unlike some, I didn't need to go to church to validate my spirituality.

And if that wasn't rich enough, I had a pastor from a local church come into work one day and as he checked out, he talked to me about his church.  He had a smarmy cadence to his voice, like a newscaster or host of a spiritual television show, something like Your Soul's in Jeopardy or Wheel of Misfortune.

"Is there anything I can pray for you about?" he asked.

"Yeah.  Everything.  Everything stinks."

He came in about a month later and asked if I remembered him.  I said I did and he asked again if he could pray for me.  Seeing as how things were just as sucky as they were during our first interaction, I assumed my name must have gotten lost in the shuffle of other prayer requests so I said, "Yeah.  Still everything."

"Do you like your job?" he asked.

"No, sir."

And then he looked at me deeply and said, "Well, at least you have a job.  A lot of people don't these days."

That made me angry.  It wasn't a reassuring response, the kind of rebuttal someone would give to try to cheer you up.  There was a smidgen of chastisement in his game show voice, like I should be grateful to have a job.  Of course I was grateful to have a job.  If I wasn't grateful or if I thought I was too good for the job or thought I didn't need it, I would have quit a long time ago.

What was I supposed to say?  That I loved putting up with customers' entitled crap on a daily basis, that I enjoyed getting screamed at and having money and credit cards thrown at me, that I felt grateful to have my greetings ignored, that it was my pleasure to serve these people with poor attitudes and poorer hygiene?  I couldn't lie to a preacher.  That wouldn't have been very Christian of me.

He said he would continue to pray for me and handed me his business card.  As soon as he was out of sight, I crumpled it up and threw it in the trash.

I was already in a foul mood and didn't need this man of God giving me grief and making me feel guilty.  Although it wasn't the first time I felt discontent with a holy man (thinking back to the Sunday school teacher with the cruel faith ultimatum), it was the first time I felt ready to throw my fist back and give that preacher a punch in his pious pout.

Days later, I was driving to work and flipping through the radio when I stopped on a Christian station and this woman was giving a testimony.  She said she was a drug addict prostitute teen mom and one day she went to commit suicide but Jesus saved her.  Although I should have been happy for her, I found myself annoyed.

I realized I was jealous of that crack whore and her barbiturate addicted baby.  She lived her life without Jesus and as soon as she wanted to end it, Jesus suddenly swoops in and makes her whole?  Even though she never asked for it?  That didn't seem fair and almost contradictory to what I've always been taught about Jesus, that you have to ask for Jesus to come to you instead of just waiting around for it to happen.

What about me? I thought to myself.  I asked for Jesus to come into my heart every night for years and years and the only thing that ever filled my chest was despair.  What did it take to garner God's attention?  Heroin in my veins and a gun in my mouth?  Maybe living a good, clean life wasn't cutting it with Christ?  Maybe I needed some depravity in my life to drum up a deity?

It felt a lot like high school.  All the good kids who did their homework and stayed quiet in class never got any attention.  I was one of those good kids.  Teachers never remember me when I see them these days.  There's a twinkle of recognition when they see my face but they know nothing of the person behind the pale skin and crooked nose.  But I can assure you they know all the bad kids they had to constantly correct.

Did God know my name?  Did I have to crack a few commandments to get some attention?  Was he still upset about the church incident in middle school?  Did God hold grudges?  The whole idea angered me.  What was it going to take?  No, I took the question back.  I had already asked that too many times before and never received an answer.  I was tired of seeking, searching, casting my net of faith out into the emptiness and coming back with nothing.  I was exhausted.  I had no more strength to chase after this evasive energy.

I turned off the radio.

And in that moment, I turned off a lot more.