Church

There was a preacher in my South­ern Bap­tist Church who, on occa­sion, would men­tion a church-goer who had not given enough money. He called me sev­eral years ago, at the request of a con­cerned cit­i­zen who thought I left the church because I could not get over the mis­deeds of the one guy. I was shocked and weirded out to hear from him and it did not help. That church hurt me and even in the midst of my uncon­scious­ness I had enough of me to get out of there. I don’t know where G(g)od lives. Hope­fully in our hearts. Hope­fully churches are places where peo­ple go to open their hearts and feel the god in their neigh­bors hearts as well as their own. I don’t know though.
Even though I had some tragic and dam­ag­ing moments, I also had some tran­scen­dent moments in church. Some were truly beau­ti­ful, usu­ally in involv­ing music. Choirs swelling the front of the altar and rolling the spirit through the knave like a tidal wave; a sin­gle per­son open­ing her heart and singing god in to me; or a con­nec­tion when some­thing in this part of the Bible links up to that part and it feels like hyper­links on the inter­net, before that existed, but some­thing in me knew that was com­ing because of how this and that linked up. Other tran­scen­dent moments involved grop­ing under hym­nals with my girl­friend dur­ing the ser­mon. Etc. Those were quite amaz­ing and I know I am not alone with those memories…

Here is another mem­ory that has never left me and is as authen­tic as make believe can be, which is super authen­tic and more real that real can be.
I was at a church camp in which a role play game was acted out. Half of the youth group was the mili­tia sent to stamp out the church and the other half was the church, deter­mined to remain. I was in the church part. Some­thing in me clicked and I believed I was truly fight­ing for this church. Some­how I had been tar­geted for early arrest (what I told myself – Truth: wrong place at the wrong time, dude). Any­way, I was arrested and tied up in a dark base­ment room. It was the mid­dle of the night. I started singing Amaz­ing Grace. I sang as loud as I could to com­mu­ni­cate with my other church mem­bers. I made up verses. I wept. I believed. It was beau­ti­ful and real to me and I am still moved when I think about it.