Goin' a Churchin' Pt.2: Stranger in a Strange Land

Sorry it took me so long to get back to the story but here I am. So, I've set up WHY religion makes me both gut-twistingly anxious and new-movie trailer excited, so now you just sit back and relax as I spin a comedy of errors known as Labor Day Service at my mother-in-law's new church. It's sacrilicious!

There's a scene in the 1970s version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (the end really, so stop reading if you're still a "body" virgin) where we follow our hero Donald Sutherland as he seemingly sneaks through the mindless masses of the now alien-invaded American population around him. He's walking through a park or something, looking as vacant-eyed and robotic as the next alien when a still-human friend of his sneaks up to him and says "hey, it's me." At that moment, Donald's eyes go wide, he points an accusatory finger and out of his stretched mouth comes a ghastly howl -- an exterrestrial "intruder alert" siren letting all the other body snatchers that this woman is not one of them. Every moment at church feels like the second before that awful howl -- like I'm about to be exposed as a fake, as someone who doesn't belong. And I kind of like it that way.

The first howl-worthy moment came in the parking lot where four surly older men were directing those eager for church into their appropriate spaces. In what I think is just fucking poetic, I go and park in the exact opposite way as everyone else. Apparently, when coming to God's house you park facing out -- "thou shall not showest God the backside of your SUV." After a stern look from a man who looked remarkably like Louis Gosset Jr in a bright orange saftey vest, I followed the flock and parked accordingly.

After entering church (and NOT bursting into flames, thank you very much) we bumped into my wife's older cousin who did a double-take (complete with Looney Tunes sound effects) when he saw us. "Wow, it's so nice to see the whole family here. What brings you to church today?" He asked. "Obligation," I said (ok, I thought it). But the truth behind the question, at least as I see it, is "how did you convince HIM to come?"

The family narrative is that my wife has married a heathen -- one who has a job and loves his kids -- but a godless, heathen nonetheless. So figuring out a way to get me to church is viewed as no less a feat than dressing a lion in a tuxedo and taking it to the opera. I'm sure her relatives would give her a medal if they could. Honestly, all my wife has to do is ask.

Once seated and began the never-ending dance of "last things" which include two or three trips to the car for must-haves like bottles, coloring books and such. On my last trip back to the pew (coloring books in hand), the very nice man whose job it is to open the doors, joked "You going back anytime soon?"

Now, I didn't quite hear what he said (my mind reconstructed the phrase two seconds too late) but it was uttered in the same tone as strangers on the elevator complain about Mondays or the weather for which I have an array of absent-minded replies like "I feel you" or "I know what that's like." For some reason, I reached into my mental grab bag and pulled out "I wish" as in "I wish I was going back out that door." Technically a Freudian slip, I was still mortified that the kernel of truth had slipped out so early in the game, I had not even taken my seat and already the jig was up. Fortunately, for me I don't think he heard me because the church police (the Christables maybe?) didn't escort me out.

Service began with a really nice song and then the Pastor began by discussing how a recent spate of deaths had humbled him and, in a gesture of humility, he said he would preach on his knees. Now this SOUNDS good when you picture it in a book or hear about such a thing, but to watch it in person was . . . . well, it was at the very least chuckle-funny. And after about 45 seconds of him stumping around on his knees I let out a discernable giggle which I quickly metamorphasized into a cough to cover up -- it worked.

Also worth laughing about were the church brown-nosers. Apparently a fixture at most Black services, the brown-nosers are the folks who are either paid or want to be paid to respond to every.single.word.the.pastor.utters. In this case it was a very tall, manicured-man and his equally well-groomed wife who sat center pew providing a steady stream of "uh-huh" or "tell it" all the while holding rapt looks on their faces as if they were witnessing an actual miracle. They stood and clapped whenever the pastor got on a roll and loudly said "that's right" to ensure the pastor (and everyone else) that they both understood and agreeed with his statements. Needless to say, this exhibit had me just fueled my heathenistic rage.

Why, you ask. Because the brown-noser lays bare one of my biggest complaints about organized religion -- the performance. Though I have no religion, I still want it to be pure to the people who do. I want it to be a very meaningful experience free of social vices but as I have seen, it is quite the opposite. What I mostly see at church is a group exercise -- a well-rehearsed, but highly improvised show without nuance and questionable honesty.

I mean, it's a given that the pastor is a performer -- he literally gets a stage and is announced like boxer ("in this corner, wearing the pinstriped Eduardian suit and several oversized rings, is your pastor . . . ) before coming out to walk, talk, sweat and dance. The audience, much like the Apollo crowd during children's amateur night, has its role as well -- to clap and approve. I use the Apollo crowd analogy for a reason. Only the very mean would boo a child, so while in ALL other cases the Apollo audience is told to speak their mind, they are instructed only to praise the children.

I'm not advocating that we start winging tomatoes at little Quanisha during her screeching rendition of "His Eye is on the Sparrow." But I AM saying that church is not set up to have any meaningful discourse on the fate of your eternal soul. It IS a place to join a performance on how you think you should feel about the fate of your eternal soul. That's not to say that the brown-nosers are complete fakes or that everyone sitting and listening is in complete agreement with lead actor, but from where I'm sitting it's hard to tell.

One last note: I took communion for the first time -- a perverse thrill I might add having seen it in movies so many times. Though I must admit I thought only Catholics did such a thing, so imagine my surprise when they started handing out the crackers and grape juice. They were a little bland, but after 90 minutes of coveting my childrens juice boxes, that splash of Welch's hit the spot.

The best part was that my mother-in-law got to see her grandchildren in church and got to show off her daughter and her dutiful husband to her friends. The entire visit was, after all a show, but in this case, one worth dressing up for.

Ok, I know that sounds all maudlin, but I'm serious so fuck off if you can't stomach geniune, sappy sentiment.

NEXT TIME: "Knock-knock." "Who's there?" "The Jehovah's witnesses."

Goin' a Churchin' Pt.1: A Brief History

About a week before the Labor Day weekend, my wife informed me that we would be attending her mother's church. She said this in the same tone that one might say "I want you to know that I've been screwing the mailman" or any other life-shattering phrase that is usually prefaced by asking someone to sit down.

Going to church is not a life-shattering event for me nor is it entirely pleasant either -- it's like a trip to the dentist for a deep cleaning. Yes, it will be uncomfortable (and there will be a co-pay) but hopefully its all over in an hour or so and you go back to what you were doing (in my case, NOT going to church). But my wife is not stupid, she knows that going to church signals deap-seated and dueling feelings of inadequacy and just-above-a-whisper sense of superiority. As best as I can recall, this all stems from a religion course I took in college (cue the wavy memory lines).

I don't remember having any alternative motives for taking the class other than pure, academic curiosity. I found the idea a book handed down by God an exciting one, even if only from an intellectual view point. However, the teacher (who, in my memory, is played by Cedric the Entertainer with a pronouced lisp) did not exercise the same sense of educational detachment as I did. He was a Baptist minister who wore his collar to class -- a fashion choice that signaled to me that the chapters on Christianity may count a little more toward my final grade than the one on Islam.

On the first day, Rev. Entertainer was taking attendance and was not only asking for everyone's names but their religious affiliations as well (something my parents always told me to mark as Christian as not to call undue attention to myself -- naturally, I didn't listen). As the question wound its way around the room (and 99% of my classmates claiming themselves Christians), I battled with the phrasing of my answer. "Athiest" was too strong a word and not entirely accurate while "Agnostic" had an unpleasent cultish-ring to it. Still, I wanted to have a tidy answer like everyone else without launching into a discussion about my philosoph-loving parents.

Truthfully, I was both proud and ambivalent about my religious stature. At that point, my non-believer status had almost zero impact on my daily life. I still celebrated Christmas and Easter (a lame holiday made even more lame when you don't buy the whole savior bit) but didn't have to wake up early on Sundays. All the fun, none of the existential guilt.

Finally, my turn came I finally spoke the rehearsed words in my head, "I don't practice any religion." I might as well have said "I eat live babies and shit R. Kelly CDs" as Rev. Entertatiner did a cartoonish-double take and stuttered "Well what duth that mean?" (he lisps, remember). So I clarified, "I was raised without any religious affiliation."

I would find the good reverend's reaction repeated on the faces of many others as I grew older. Aside from basic confusion, the underlying tone of his response was of revulsion and pity -- neither of which I appreciated and fortified myself against by announcing my belief system with confidence. It's not a secret or a point of shame. But it's hard to convince a teacher, a classroom or anyone really, that NOT believing is neither the result or poor parenting or conscious rebellion. No one believes that you can just go without and therefore assumes that my lack is orchestrated.

What no one is prepared for is that fact that life is still sweet, still mysterious and good without believing in heaven or hell. The simple truth I have discovered is that, unless you are raised to believe as a child -- when your brain is hardwiring language, sight and beliefs -- it is next to impossible and almost unneccessary to practice any religion. The stories are too wild, the rules too strict for any real conformity. Instead, I believe most people glean the truths they see from it and continue to pay bills, go to Disneyland and buy flat-screen TVs.

But these are not welcomed thoughts, especially not in a Black church where the word of the day is "Jesus" and everyone feels they are two steps from hell despite their good deeds. Nevertheless, I can't help but think them and almost say them out loud everytime I step foot in a church. But more on that in part two.

Heathen

This all started because of Mel Gibson.

No doubt you remember the release of "The Passion of the Christ" -- Gibson's blood-soaked valentine to his personal savior. Like everyone else, I was intrigued (if not slightly enraged) to see about Jesus' last excruiating hours on earth spoken in a dead language and using White actors. Unlike most folks, I was a film critic at the time so it was actually part of my job to see "Passion." Despite the spectacular cinematography (note to Mel: cut the slow-mo by half and you are golden), the film left me underwhelmed. Not to mention, Mel could go through the trouble of making a film in fucking Aramaic but not hire someone from at least the same continent as the J-man? Talk about holy shit. But I digress.

My real issue with the film is that in telling the story of perhaps the most well-known man on earth (next to David Beckham -- which is sad, by the way), Mel made no attempt to make the audience invest in Jesus as a man or character. Instead he was literally a whipping boy, an avatar for religious fervor, guilt or whatever. Quick insight into my movie review method: I tried to come into each film as if I was an alien with no pre-judgments. In that respect, Mel failed to make me care about this Jewish carpetner who literally got the shaft.

My initial review was met by my editor with its usual amount of redline edits and an unusual amount of hair pulling. "Black people will kill us if we publish," she said. I'm no idiot, I know how touchy religion is -- you can't live in a society that considers the phrase "Happy Holidays" an attack on religious freedom without knowing that even a lukewarm review might be met with a few letters to the editor. But fuck it, the beauty of writing reviews (or blogs) is you get to legitimize all your navel gazing, right?

But, as it was impressed upon me, EVERYONE knows the story of Jesus and that our sympathy is assumed. Hmm, really? If Mel had directed the "Passion of the Allah" would American audiences be expected to bone up the Koran before plunking down $20 at the multiplex or would we lambast Mel "I Love Jews" Gibson for not giving enough background? Since that's a rhetorical question, the answer is B. But that's not acceptable when writing for Black folks, who we assume are all card-carrying Baptists (or should be).

That's where I and this blog come in. I'm not a Baptist or a Christian for that matter. I'm not religious at all. And not in that I-grew-up-in-the-church-but-am-currently-disenchanted-enough-to-restate-myself-as-"spiritual" kind of way, either. No, I was raised without any real concept of God, the devil or hell. Jesus, as it were, was something for other folks like garden gnomes or velvet paintings. My parents, in all their early-70's free thinking decided (no shit -- this is a quote from my father) "we would raise you like the French philosophs." Basically, instead of indoctrinating me at birth with a religion I would have no real chance of analyzing objectively, they raised me with no religion and left the choice to me. I imagine they had lofty dreams of weekend trips to mosques, synagouges, temples and whatever buildings buddhists praise in as I soaked up the good and bad like a sponge. But, you know, life gets in the way and you never really get around to it. Besides, I was a pretty good kid so they figured, what they hell.

Anyway, figuring I should find out what is it about Jesus everyone already knows, I ended up reading the bible ("reading" is defined as half of the old testament and all of the new testament -- with a highlighter no less), something that I found incredibly enlightening and, to a large degree, self-affirming. But more on that later.

As for now, sit back and enjoy as I bring you regular dispatches from the Third Kingdom (that's the lower-income heaven that Black Mormons go to -- at least until 1970-something when they got all "equal rights"). You'll meet lovable characters like my Deacon-in-the-making mother-in-law, my God-fearing boss, my religiously-ambigous wife, my death-obsessed daughter and my overwhelming fear/desire of exposing my heathenistic ways to all that would be offended.

Remember you can't spell blasphemy without "me."