As I approached my fifteenth birthday, it was not out of loyalty, or even strong religious belief, but perhaps because all those other churches I passed on my way to the library, to and from school, to the city park, to the local drug store, or to the neighborhood playground, were somehow alien to me, merely architectural specimens neatly sprinkled all over town in an attempt to decorate the city landscape, but rather, inertia that found me attending the same church my mother did. I knew these architectural wonders accommodated the populace; sometimes specific people, as indicated by the signage out front, and further indicated by the teachings taking place inside; tenets, commandments, creeds, codes of conduct, and a plethora of other rules; all designed, supposedly, to enhance its members’ spirituality, in my opinion, created specifically for the control of, and the regulation of, their everyday behavior.

My reason for staying, then, is that it never occurred to me that those other churches were available, specifically available to me, even though at least one of them might possibly have answered the restlessness that was settling over me, informing me that my mother’s church would never be my permanent church home. It was never an “ah-ha” moment. Perhaps in the end it was more like “well, that’s that.” This enlightenment arrived because I had a strong disbelief in the teachings I was receiving.

During Sunday school classes I developed a constant, silent, running commentary, arguing that it’s not their place to tell me what I can or can’t do outside of this building. No matter the bible story, my thoughts were “that’s impossible.” No one, even today, particularly Moses with his fancy stick, can part the Red Sea, water standing up on its haunches a hundred and eighty feet in the air, taking a deep breath, and holding it while thousands of people leisurely walk from one side to the other. Then, after holding its breath all day and maybe even all night, while at rigid attention, did the sea just slowly exhale and replace all that water as gently as spreading soft butter on bread? No. However, if you really wanted to see a red sea turn blue from holding its breath that long…Actually, that would have been an “environmental event”, a flood worthy of Noah’s notice, and truly worthy of an enormous ark, a flood that would have wiped out as many people as Moses had just managed to save, and at great inconvenience to the sea. I was sure it didn’t happen.

My doubts grew stronger with each bible story. Our Sunday school teacher, Frances, taught us, essentially, that with a lack of medical training, proper equipment, or adequate health facilities, Jesus routinely raised the dead as if they had been merely taking a nap, snoozing away the day until the man himself came along and said “Hey, man, rise ye up.” The dissonance, for me, was that I really liked this teacher; I just didn’t believe this stuff. I was deeply disappointed that she apparently did believe it. That dissonance stayed with me for several more decades, and still gives me occasional grief. But I’m working on that. I’m learning to tolerate other’s beliefs.

I already knew the difference between right and wrong, striving always to do right, simply because it was infinitely less stressful than being discovered in the throes of the opposite behavior. I questioned their authority over my behavior. There were too many rules about how to live our lives, and too many people, too happy, to inform you of these rules. Not guidelines, not suggestions, but strict rules posited as the only way to conduct ourselves. These rules, drilled aching holes in my brain. In retrospect, it reminds me of a cartoon I once read, in which one guy says to the other one, “My parents raised us according to only one commandment.” “Really,” the second guy says, “What’s that?” The first one answered, “Thou shalt not, anything.” No movies or non-church events. They told us what kind of clothes to wear, and who to hang out with, implying that we were too stupid to make our own decisions.

That’s not to say there weren’t some interesting moments at this church. During bible class once, the teacher lined us all up on the front pew of the church and instructed us to withdraw something from a brown paper grocery bag; a game I saw replicated later in life in which you are served spaghetti and withdraw a table knife with which to eat it. Here too, the teacher had collected a number of household items. We each chose one and sat there like dorks while she instructed us to each tell the rest of the class how our chosen item reminds us of God. Do what? I had withdrawn a small mirror about the size of a playing card. What a dumb game I thought. Was she trying to embarrass us in front of our peers? She could have given us a few moments to ponder the question, giving me a chance to calm my nerves, now in overdrive.

I did not like speaking to groups of people. The heat rose in my neck. Fortunately, I was right in the middle of that row of kids, with about five other poor schmucks ahead of me; each one stammering something equally as lame as the previous one. It did, however, give me just enough time to think, unlike the first kid who had maybe ten seconds prep time. It wasn’t a good day to be first. But he managed to spew out an answer, as did the girl next to him, putting me to shame already, because my mind was still undeniably, unbelievably, unforgivably blank.

Only three people away. I probed the possibilities: reflection, reflected, reflecting. Two people away. The pressure was suffocating. Oh boy, I’m next. Why hadn’t I been listening to the others for clues? I no longer worried about saying something stupid, I just wanted to say anything that would deliver me from this hell I was in, and where I was certain to go if I couldn’t answer this simple question.

Then, amazingly, a miracle arrived and laid an answer upon my tongue with the briefest of time to spare. “We use a mirror to reflect our image and it reminds us that everything we do should also reflect God’s image. “Take that and put it in your little brown bag,” I thought. Then, while I’m still dripping in my own drama, a second miracle presented itself. The teacher was ecstatic. She highly praised my “well thought out answer.” Shucks, I was just being compliant. I scored that day though; big time, even through all that unnecessary angst.

Still, the miracles they taught didn’t resonate with me. Perhaps I wanted my miracles to be more realistic, closer to my heart, more relevant to my own life; a lot less dramatic in scope. A miracle, I think, is when I put a seed in the ground and several days later something starts growing there. Yeah, yeah, I understand about plant physiology, and the sun, and the rain, and all that stuff. I still view it as a miracle. The larger miracle is that I still get excited about that. A miracle, I think, is when my three year old granddaughter conducts philosophical discussions about unconditional love. No, she didn’t use those exact words, but she certainly articulated the concept. A miracle, to me, is when a woman, or a man, or a child, sees a need in the community and endeavors, with whatever resources they can gather, to ameliorate the situation. It truly is a miracle that the earth still supports us, though we abuse it horribly. These are real miracles.

Sermons were another issue. I had a bad habit of daydreaming through them. One sermon did catch my attention, however, bringing me to full attention. On this Sunday, the minister was admonishing his congregation to invite him and his wife to dinner… or lunch… or breakfast. It was their duty as parishioners, he said, as he commenced discussing several of his favorite foods. He particularly liked eggs. “I like them scrambled, I like them poached, I like them fried or boiled, or tossed in a casserole; you can slice them for a salad, you can bake them in the oven, heck you can serve them any way you like, as long as you invite us over to eat them.” Whether invitations came or not, I can’t tell you, but I do remember that sermon.

Except for that one sermon, I found the church rather boring, stuffy, and preachy. Sooooo, I did what I needed to. I stopped attending. Then my best friend Mary Jo invited me her church. I remember none of those sermons either, though I can confidently say there were none about eggs, something I’d have remembered. And the rules, well, they multiplied at least threefold. I hadn’t understood the difference between mainstream and fundamentalist. That ignorance and Mary Jo’s friendship allowed me to attend this new church for about two years.

Three decades later my four year old grandson offered what might have been a brief synopsis of my time at that church. We were in the car with him in his car seat. I had turned down a one way street against traffic. Out loud I said “Uh oh, am I going the wrong way on a one way street?” Jarrett, observant kid that he was, said, “there was a “don’t” sign back there.” There might as well have been “don’t” signs posted all over this church, inside, outside, on the ceiling, on the floors, hanging from the backs of the pews, in the classrooms, in the hymnals, and on all the doors, lest we forget and do something sinful.

So why did I keep attending? Well, there were moments here too. The most important event ever, was what happened after the Sunday evening services. While everyone else hung out chatting, my best friend Mary Jo and I took walks around the block. We knew we had a good fifteen to twenty minutes before our rides would be ready. It became our ritual. It became our block. More than just a walk, it was our time to be together, to solve many of the world’s problems, and to check in with each other. We discussed boyfriends, other friends, homework, hair, clothing, the future, our parents, and any other subject that wandered across our path. Those were good times. We loved those few precious moments when we could be ourselves and talk without censorship.

Three other things happened at this church. There was Art and Irene, a middle aged couple with two young sons. They were regular attenders, faithful as all get out. Sometimes, as the sermon was rolling along just fine, Art would suddenly jump up from his pew and begin speaking in tongues. Whoa, that other church didn’t offer this. At first I was in awe.” He was passionate, eliciting amens from the crowd. Their excitement was indicative of their approval, and their approval indicative of their excitement. The more amens they hurled forth, the greater his performance became, the more apparent he was in charge, the more apparent that he was “chosen” to utter these words. There was something tangible in the room during those episodes, not a presence exactly, but a feeling that something important was happening.

The words flowed. There was no stumbling, no mistakes, and no vocal pauses. You’d have thought God himself were standing there preaching, even though the message was in a foreign language. It became Art’s trademark. In time, I asked myself the inevitable question. “What’s he saying?” Why this ordinary man? “Why,” I wondered, “is he the only one in the congregation who can do this?” “What is it we’re to get out of it? Why can’t we understand?

Then, I started listening for patterns to see if it was a real language or just a lot of the same words repeated; which I never did determine. Whatever it was, he was dead serious about it and the congregation just as serious. Eventually, I asked the ultimate question “what’s the point?” If no one knows what he’s saying, as eloquent as it is, what’s the point? What is it that gets everyone so excited? I never found answers.

But the best was yet to come. Once, an only once, I attended “Revival” week. They have guest speakers, do lots of preaching, and try to gather souls for God, with a heavy emphasis on the “souls for God” part. And every blessed night there was an altar call, which I had resisted for several nights. I wanted no part of that. They apparently had other ideas, or possibly a quota, because one night, the altar call came to a fevered pitch. The preacher and his three helpers kept looking my way. I knew what they were after. They had already snagged a number of my peers that week, creating a parade of repentant kids, whom I had credited with more resistance skills than that. It soon became clear why they had succumbed.

All four adults were still begging me with their eyes. I answered by lowering my gaze to my lap. That must have disappointed them because I eventually saw a pair of feet enter my personal space, a hand reach out, grab my wrist, and drag me to that altar. Never openly opposing authority, I dutifully knelt on the hard cement floor and waited for this night to end.

I put my left arm on the edge of the altar and rested by head on it; looking straight at the floor with eyes wide open. I figured there was no point in closing my eyes because nothing was going to happen here. Soon a hand placed itself on my head, and two or three more on my shoulders. They didn’t just rest there. They were forceful. I couldn’t daydream if I’d wanted to. The prayers for my soul were astounding. Art’s business may have been serious, but these people were also serious. Still, nothing was happening. God did not speak to me, which was just as well since I wasn’t listening anyway.

After a few minutes, I decided I’d had enough, and started to get to my feet. My captors weren’t having any of that, and the pressure increased. The pressure on my person, and the pressure to hand over my soul. A pressure that suggested they had time on their hands and would spend it, if need be, to bring me and my soul to a higher power, never mind that my knees were hurting, my spine was curving, both literally and figuratively, and I still hadn’t bothered to close my eyes. Their enthusiasm said “we have all night to do this and we’ll do this all night if we have to.”

“So,” I thought, “this is the way it’s going to be.” Are they looking for a sign or what? Then a miracle happened. My heart beat faster, my soul panicked, and my brain said “end this charade.” I made a momentous decision. Finally, my eyes closed themselves, my back stiffened, literally and figuratively, my arms rose slowly toward the ceiling, my head came up to full tilt, and my mouth started speaking in tongues. These people too, were ecstatic. They all thought they had just done a good nights’ work, incredibly proud of themselves, incredibly stupid.

Let – me – be – clear. I am not judging Art’s faith or the way he practiced it, or the way others responded to it. He seemed genuine at the time, as did they, and who am I to judge? I can tell you this. My utterings were pure gibberish, I did repeat words, or rather sounds, and the only point was to get the heck out of there. Passive aggressive, yes – it was also a means to an end. They never knew.

They never understood that I had cheated them of their prize or that they had just provided me with the first step in my eventual departure. Despite those Sunday night walks with Mary Jo, this church also left me wanting something else and I was already mentally leaving. I couldn’t yet articulate it but I knew something needed to happen. What actually did happen was not what I expected. I clearly remember, these many decades later, the reprimand I got one Sunday from the minister’s wife, Jody. In my restlessness, I had visited yet another church the Sunday before. Jody asked to speak to me privately, taking me to the very center of a pew, immediately commencing her sermon. “Under no circumstances,” said she, “are you to attend another church. This is your church. This is where you belong. This is where you will be every Sunday.”

Well! Weren’t my nerves poking out all over the place, hot wired for action, twitching – writhing, – hoping for the opportunity to perforate her soul for all of eternity? But then, I slowly realized that she had just gifted me with the second step in my inevitable departure. Meanwhile, as if she thought I were still listening, she kept talking, explaining how it was permissible to visit another church on a Wednesday evening, if one must, always, however, returning to home base, but never does one stray on a Sunday morning or evening, when people are watching, paying attention, keeping count, taking a tally for God. She might as well have added “Don’t let it happen again.” It was written on her face and detailed in her body language.

Having gone totally mute, I stood up, a solution already taking shape and fully formed by the time I exited the pew. She had just pushed my last button. Sooooo, I did what I needed to. I stopped attending. And yet, months later they sent a letter saying they had noticed my absence and if I didn’t show up more often they would be forced to remove my name from the membership role. As an aside, rumor has it some minister named Mark (Stringer) actually encourages his parishioners to visit other churches and temples. Ironically, having been given permission to do so, I didn’t.

From that reprimand from the minister’s wife, fast forward a couple of decades. In those twenty years, I had, in roughly this order; graduated from high school, married, raised two kids, dumped the starter spouse, gone back to school, and met Ruthanne, my future wife. During all this I remained unchurched, believing there was no church out there whose teachings I could agree with. Ruthanne and I eventually moved to Des Moines where she started attending the First Unitarian Church almost immediately. Week after week, she invited me to accompany her, but week after week I said “no thanks.” The word “church” bothered me. “This one’s different,” she said. It is a church, yes, but it’s different. It’s much better than those others. I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to voluntarily participate in another rules based institution. Still, every week she invited; every week I declined; a pattern that continued for about three months.

Eventually, I came with her. I “visited” for few weeks and found something AWSOME. I met really nice accepting people, and found absolutely no “don’t” signs, figuratively or literally. No one made me do things I didn’t want to do. These people respected the fact that I knew how to conduct my life on my own terms. This church had principles instead of commandments. Now how cool is that? And, about the sign out front; it was just vague enough to be friendly, welcoming, and non-judgmental. I found these people to be involved in more philosophical thinking. That’s not to say there weren’t rules. There were. We encounter those wherever we go. But the rules were few, made sense, and were tempered with realistic rather than idealistic expectations. There was no forced ideology. There didn’t seem to be an abundance of concern with the afterlife, but rather, the emphasis was on the importance of doing good deeds while we still roam this earth, life before death actually. How we live now, or the good we do for others matters most, and that made sense to me.

What a world of difference. The sermons were, and still are reminiscent of all that’s happening in our communities, in the country, in the world. The sermons here made me cry. They made me laugh. They made me think. They made me wonder. They made me remember. They even helped me work on that daydreaming problem. Even though I hadn’t been looking, I had found a church home. Sooooo, I did what I needed to. I started attending.

By Pat Headley
November 28, 2015