Rebel Dharma–A Dharma Punx Subsidiary

At a party a couple of months ago, I was discussing some of the churches I’d been to when a friend mentioned a cool Buddhist service in town. They’re called the Dharma Punx, and they’re a bunch of ex-drug addicts who figured they were either going to die or get clean. Turns out, Buddhism is a good alternative. I did a little bit of research online (mostly just trying to figure out when they met), but I kept it to a minimum. I don’t like to go into these things with any preconceived notions (other than my obvious atheism), so I found the meeting time and went on my way.

The first week I tried to get into the meeting, I arrived late. Well, actually, I was twenty minutes early according to the information I had found online, but it was out of date. The Dharma Punx meeting is actually at 6pm, not 6:30, and so, I sat there in the foyer, trying to figure out whether I should go in or not. On the door, there was a flier that talked about the run of the program: 30 minutes of guided meditation, then a brief discussion. Given how silent the converted warehouse space was at the time, I figured I had arrived right in the middle of the meditations. I decided to follow my own rule of not imposing on the believers and walked out—it’d be rude to wander in while people are meditating.

A couple of weeks passed where I had too much to do to get over to the meeting again. I had a wedding to go to (I’ll write about that later), and dinner dates with my in-laws, but the Dharma Punx were never far from my thoughts. The idea of using religion to overcome adversity isn’t anything new, but Buddhism strikes me as a nobler pursuit, one where the theology isn’t hand fed to you and where the inherent structure of the system isn’t one of any particular comfort. After all, sitting still for half an hour while thinking about your breathing is a lot less relaxing than hearing about your eternal reward in the hereafter. That eternal reward, and how people do many things only to achieve it, only cheapens my view of a religion. Buddhism, on the other hand, is rather hard work.

When the time finally arrived that I could make it back to the west side of Santa Cruz, I finally did make it through the doors, and here it is.

Quick note: maybe it’s the meditation, or maybe it’s the fact that I couldn’t take notes in that environment (it would have really, really stood out), but the entire meeting has completely run together in my mind. Everything is out of order, the anecdotes and speeches, the questions and answers—it was an entirely out-of-mind experience for me, and thus, I make no claims as to the order of events I present below. It’s all true, and the quotes are as close as my memory can approximate, but as I said, I didn’t have the chance to overdo my notes the way I have in the past.

**

I hate being late, but due to some unforeseen circumstances (like a doggy hand-off to keep a certain chihuahua from being neurotic the rest of the day), I am late. The Dharma Punx meet on the other side of town, nowhere near my house or anything else I’m really familiar with. The Vipassana Center, where they meet, is over by the new New Leaf market, a bigger, badder version of what most people are used to seeing at WholeFoods. There has been a lot of development on this side of town, just past the university, and many of the buildings still have that freshly stuccoed prickle to them.

Still, there’s a certain roughness around the edges. This part of town used to be more industrial and run down, and there are old gas stations fenced off along the main drag, but somehow, it doesn’t feel as foreboding as it once did. Before the new shopping centers were installed and the warehouse spaces renovated, it was a pretty scary place to wander about. Nowadays, there’s a new theater, bicycle shops and other oddities hiding around every corner. Just when you think you know what a business should look like, you wander in past the old corrugated aluminum siding to find a coffee shop (instead of a metal shop).

On the way, I count the landmarks. I made the trip once before, which means I should be able to make it again without any clear directions. On the left, I pass the Safeway, and on my right, the Jamba Juice. As the New Leaf market rolls by, I start to wonder if I really should be passing it.

I shouldn’t. I take a deep breath. It’s only six just now. I’ll only be a couple of minutes late. With any luck, they’ll be starting a couple of minutes late and I’ll slide right in at the buzzer, just how I like it.

I turn left and run along the backside of the market on a street that spits me out facing the warehouse complex. Inside, there are artist’s galleries and workshops, and on the front there’s a coffee shop next to a place that sells and fixes shiny new bikes. This place used to be something entirely different, probably a manufacturing hub of some sort, but they’ve built it up and made it something entirely new. There’s a fresh coat of paint and everything shines in the late afternoon sun, but I have no time to admire it. My goal is down the right side of the building, in an unassuming side door.

I swerve into the parking lot and find a space right next to another late arrival. Turns out, she had missed the same turn I did, and I followed her here. I must seem a tad creepy, but she and her teenage companion (her son, maybe?) hop out of the car and briskly walk their way into the building.

I follow suit and stand by the side while they remove their shoes, patiently waiting my turn. While there, I admire the photographs that have been clasped to the walls—beautiful, large portrait prints of children taken around town. In this foyer, there are restrooms and other necessary accoutrements, but what interests me more is the skilled renovation. Above us, there is pure warehouse madness: exposed pipes, ductwork, and the black-painted ceilings that you’d expect in a Costco, but down at eye level, there are polished office-space walls and a beautiful wood floor. This type of renaissance has been going on in Santa Cruz for a while now (see the Tannery Row complex for another example), but this place is simply inspirational.

As the other late-comers tuck their shoes into the cubby-holed benches, I find a spot to lean and undo my own laces. I tuck my keys into my shoe and tip it forward so they’re hidden in the toe—I don’t want to tempt anyone—then slowly slip into the Vipassana center.

Inside, everyone is already silent. Twelve or so people sit on mats on the floor or in stiff metal chairs behind, each in a different position. It’s all very relaxed, and there’s a sense of to-each-his-own, though they face the leader of the group. He looks up at me without turning his head with a facial expression that’s hard to read. I take it to be one of slight reproach given my tardiness, a punishment I willingly admit I deserve.

The man, listed on the fliers as Jason Murphy (I missed the introduction, if there was one), is a little intimidating. I had expected as much, given the foundations of the Dharma Punx, but being late makes me immediately feel like an outsider. This, of course, makes him all the more imposing. He has full sleeves of tattoos with old style ink, but I don’t have time to stare. It’s times like these when I wish I had my notes, but we’re meditating and I”m supposed to have my eyes closed. I force a half-smile and enter the sanctum.

Quickly, I take a seat at the back of the room, quietly sliding down into one of the upright metal chairs. It has padding, but I can instantly tell I’ve made a bad decision. I take a deep breath and listen as Jason guides the group.

“Relax, observe, and allow,” he tells us, explaining that the key to meditation is not to fight with our instincts, but rather to control them gently. “There are noises around,” he continues, “just let them in, and then bring your attention back to your breathing.”

With my eyes closed, I listen to the noises and repeat to myself: relax, observe, allow.

This isn’t easy. When I hear a bird, I try to figure out what kind it is, what it might look like. When I close my eyes in silence, I see patterns in the flesh of my eyelids, lightning streaks of veins and waves of light passing across my vision. It must be some sort of malfunction stemming from the refocusing of my eyes. They’re wondering why they’re closed, why I’m not paying attention. Maybe I should pay better attention. After all, I don’t have my notes right now. I wish I had my notes. There are so many things I should write down. Don’t forget what he said, you’re going to need to write it down. What did he say again?

“Relax, observe, and allow, bring it back to your breathing,” his guidance snaps me out of it. I’m no good at shutting off my brain. I often lose sleep thinking about things, worrying about tomorrow. I analyze everything—it’s how I get by.

But for now, I focus on my breathing. In, and out. My lungs have never really quite filled to capacity. I once had a physical therapist tell me that I was barely using half of my lung capacity because I suck in my stomach when I breathe—the exact opposite of what I should do. I relax my stomach now, sit up straight (the metal chair digging into my spine) and slowly suck in my breath. When you think too much about your breathing, it’s almost as if you’re doing it incorrectly, like you’re holding it too long. I start to worry if I’m making too much noise, impacting the experience of the others.

Jason butts in a few more times, his voice soft and helpful. He snaps me out of several other funks of focus, reminding us all to bring our thoughts back to our bodies. He tells us to think of our breathing starting at our noses, or to feel it in our lungs. We’re connecting with what we are instead of who we are, and it’s really rather relaxing. After a long day on the frisbee field, followed by the stress of being late and in a hurry, I finally feel a little more centered, a little less freaked out. I may have broken a couple of toes today—who knows, really—but I gradually begin to feel a lot better about it.

“The brain never stops thinking,” he says at one point. “That’s it’s job. What meditation is supposed to do is help us to recognize those thoughts and bring them back to the breathing. There are sounds, let them happen, but bring it back to the breathing.”

Thirty minutes of meditation somehow doesn’t seem as long as the five minutes of silence in the Taize service. Here, there’s something real to focus on—breathing, being, existing—rather than the listless contemplation of an omnipotent god. Here, we focus on controlling the things we can, instead of hoping for divine intervention. There’s no priest in the background, only a man on a black cushion, doing his best to meditate while guiding us to do the same.

When the meditation ends, he uses a small, seemingly plastic, tool to thump a golden bell. It looks like a vase or a bowl, open side up, and makes a prolonged humming sound. It’s a soft noise, one that doesn’t jar the brain too much as it wakes back up to the world around it. I open my eyes on the first ring and watch as others awaken on the second and third thumps of the golden bell.

Now I can take in the full picture of the room unburdened by thoughts of propriety. Behind Jason, there’s a statue of the buddha, flanked by two glass vases of flowers. The Buddha has a patina reminiscent of aging copper and sits in the classic Buddha pose, one hand down to the earth, the other palm up.

Around me, there are a dozen practitioners. Some of them exude confidence and appear to be regulars, while others are obvious newbies. Many of them have tattoos, including one woman who has a spectacular rendition of the Buddha on her upper arm. If ever there were a place for me to get advice on the best tattoos in town, this would be it.

As for Jason, he’s as physically intimidating as I had first thought, though he still oozes the type of inner peace that puts me at ease. His head is shaved, and his ears are gauged with black plugs so that you can see right through them. His tattoos are dominated by shades of red and black, faded with age and ending tactfully just beneath his wrists. When he turns his head I catch a glimpse of one more, a small heart, tattooed behind his right ear.

“Feel free to move around, stretch, stand up at the back of the room, whatever,” he says, watching us blink the meditations from our eyes. I feel groggy, though not in an unpleasant way. After frisbee this morning, I passed out for two hours on the couch, apparently in the grips of some sort of cold, but when I awoke, I didn’t feel half as good as I do now. There’s definitely something to this centering business, and I rather like it.

“Now I’d like to offer some time for questions,” Jason says, reaching for his water bottle. He takes a swig and looks around the room with an eyebrow raised, waiting for someone to venture forth, but nobody does. Rather than press the issue, he sits and waits until something comes up naturally.

Meekly, a young woman raises her hand and offers her experience to the group. It’s her first time, and she was having trouble shutting her brain off. Jason reassures her that it shouldn’t shut off entirely—it never does—but that she should just accept it for what it is and use her thoughts as a chance to remind herself to focus on her breathing. I’m struck by how wrong many peoples’ conceptions are of Buddhism compared to the tradition that Jason is espousing. In this room, we’re all about our reactions to the details, not about controlling them. (Funny enough, this runs parallel with what Rene was saying at the TLC, though I like this version better—it’s more instructive.)

Other practitioners offer their two cents, including one woman who has finally found a position that keeps her feet from falling asleep during meditation. Sitting still, in one position for thirty minutes can do that to a person, and it can be very distracting. Jason smiles. “I’m happy you figured it out,” he looks back to the center of the room and smiles, “but I still think having your feet fall asleep can be a good thing.” Classic. At times like these, he’s sarcastic and brooding. He has a wry smile when he responds to questions, but he doesn’t pretend to be an all knowing pastor. Rather, he’s here simply to guide us on our way and offer the things that he has learned, a much healthier position than that of the infallible Christian leaders. (Don’t over interpret that sentence: I don’t mean that all pastors claim to be all-knowing, but there are those that do, and I’m calling them out for it. Jason likes the Japanese word “sensei,” which translates to “one who has gone before.” It’s not that they’re perfect, it’s just that they set out ahead of you. I’m pretty sure that that’s how he sees himself.)

When the questions dry up, Jason gathers his notes to lead a new train of thought. Today, we’re going to talk about our reactions to life, but also about the subtle differences between pain and suffering.

“Pain is that first moment,” he explains. “When something bad happens, and it hurts—that’s pain. What happens afterward, when the pain lingers, that’s suffering.” The distinction is simple, but poignant. Pain is something that happens, something that we can’t change. But suffering, both our own and that of others, is something we can change. We can help others through difficult moments and ease their suffering, and we can make strides in the face of our own suffering as well.

Throughout his speech, he shows his bona fides at every turn. He discusses his own experiences on Buddhist retreats (both good and bad), and his outreach work with troubled children. He tells us about his own backstory, how he came from an abusive and alcoholic household, and how he overcame that suffering through centering himself and choosing how he interpreted the bad things that have happened to him.

More than all of these humanizing aspects, I relate to him on another level: that of language. When pastors set out to be the moral authority, they handle every subject with kid gloves, using toned down language. Even Dan Kimball, when leading a gathering of teens, stays away from words any harsher than “crap.”

But Jason is down to earth, and he tells it to us straight. He doesn’t say, “stuff” when “shit” is more appropriate. Sitting there, still in his Buddhist pose, in a tight, faded Bruce Lee t-shirt and a pair of well-worn cargo pants, he’s the embodiment of the down-to-earth master that you’d see in an old kung-fu movie, and he refuses to pull his punches.

“Sometimes, when I’m working with kids,” he says, “they’re so mean.” The honesty in his voice is touching, “and it’s hard to deal with them. But then you stop and think that this is someone who’s in pain,” he smiles, “and it makes it easier to deal with them.” He pauses, “even if they’re assholes, you can bring it back to the pain that they’re going through, and it makes it easier to relate. Not too easy, but easier.”

As he talks, he makes eye contact with many of the people in the audience, though he spends an inordinate amount of time looking into my eyes. I don’t know what it is about me, maybe just that I’m constantly staring at the speaker, but I seem to get this treatment everywhere I go lately.

When he suddenly throws a question out to us, it’s actually the one moment I’m not paying attention. Staring out the old factory windows, I had started to watch the shadows work their way down the sides of the buildings, but the question swings my eyes back to the center of the room. I am immensely relieved to find that he didn’t ask me the question, as I find him making eye contact with the teenager beside me. “What can you control?” he repeats the question, and the young man shrugs.

“Yourself,” says the young man with as much confidence as he can muster.

“Close,” Jason replies. “Close.” He repeats himself like this a lot, a deeper thought bubbling up just behind the redundant word. “We can’t really control ourselves completely,” he continues, “but we can control our responses to what happens in our lives.” This is the lesson, the same one he briefly mentioned in the question and answer period, and it builds into his next point: compassion.

Jason’s notes sit behind the golden bowl, three typed pages that he addresses whenever he takes a drink of water. It’s such a simple set up—a bowl on a pink and gold checker-patterned pillow, his water, and his notes. There are no projections on the wall, no hymns or themes. No games, no gimmicks, just self-improvement in the form of an age-old religion. I won’t claim that I don’t occasionally take exception to some Buddhist forms (like Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama’s ultimate goal of being a theocratic king of his own country), but this one, I like.

Compassion, that is, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, is a big part of his speech. Though you might expect it to be a fairly cut and dry subject—either you should do it, or you shouldn’t—his approach is characteristically nuanced. “You can be compassionate,” he reminds us, “without having to fix problems.” It’s so simple, it almost needs no refinement, but he goes on: “You can see your own shortcomings, without having to fix them.” Balance is what we’re after here, and though he never says the word itself, I catch his meaning.

It’s an extension of “relax, observe, allow,” but with the added step of interpretation. What he wants us to recognize, and what will ultimately lead to a greater proportion of inner-peace in our lives, is that we can be helpful, without actually fighting the tide. Sometimes, just listening to someone is enough to help, and those of us who only seek to fix things, can get in the way, or worse, get overly empathetic and lose sight of ourselves. Once again, its our ability to choose our reactions that will make life more manageable.

I’ve never considered how obsessively fixing things could ruin my life, but it does on a regular basis. Though I’ve learned something from every place I’ve visited up until this point, I don’t think any of it has really improved my life until now. I really need to help people without putting myself out there so much, to get things done without running myself into the ground.

Jason’s third and final dichotomy is that of compassion versus wisdom. They’re both important, and they’re both major parts of Buddhism, but they are separate. Meditating is the key to gaining wisdom, centering yourself and understanding, but what’s the good in being so smart if you don’t have the compassion to use it? He tells us a brief story about the Buddha, how when he was asked by a man on the street what exactly he was teaching to his pupils, he replied that he taught compassion. Jason smiled as he told this story, in a way that he didn’t during the others. Recollecting stories about the Buddha seems to give him a buzz, a quiet, soft appreciation that stands in stark contrast to the ravings of some of the Christians I’ve seen before. (Remember High Street Community’s “joyful boiling!”)

As Jason’s speech winds down, he prepares us for another bout of guided meditation. This one is different, though: instead of focusing on our breathing, he asks us to focus one of three different questions that we should ask ourselves. It’s akin to a prayer, asking Jesus if you can have something, but instead of talking to an imaginary force, we talk to ourselves. I can only remember one of the questions: “Can we be free of pain?” It’s designed to help us think of compassion, and the one that I chose to contemplate was the selfish one, though the other two were less self-centered.

We all closed our eyes and considered the idea: can we be free of pain? The short answer, at least as my brain broke it down, is no. Then again, as we had discussed it, we can choose to lessen our suffering by either fixing our problems or simply letting them go. As taught here, Buddhism isn’t necessarily about taking control, but more about realizing when it’s beyond your power to do so. It’s a lessening of frustration, and I think that, in the end, that’s what a lot of people crave these days.

Before we leave, Jason reads off some announcements about events happening in the area. There are retreats (like the ones he told us stories about) and different approaches that we might want to check out. He outlines the driving forces behind each of the events and makes sure that he tells us when something is appropriate for beginners. I get the impression that this service is a bit like a gateway drug for Buddhists, not that that’s a bad thing.

As we file out, I grab a flier about the service so I can get the names right. There’s a pile of things on the table there, everything from free services to full on pay to pray seminars. I want to shake Jason’s hand and thank him, but unfortunately, he is engrossed in conversation with a young woman as I make my way to the door.

I shuffle my feet into my boots in the hall, tie up my laces and step outside. The sun is setting and the skies are faded shades of Easter pastel. I haven’t felt this calm in a long time. There just might be something to this Buddhism thing, but I won’t be holding my breath to find out.

As a final note, I’d like to mention that I’m not converting to anything, and I still haven’t found any sort of god. I do, however, see the efficacy of meditations, especially when one is considering life and all it has to offer. If there were ever a service that I would recommend, it would be this one. Buddhism puts the onus on those who practice it, though, so don’t come in there expecting a free lunch—thinking is hard work.

Without Further Ado: Twin Lakes Church

Okay, a little bit of ado: I apologize for not having this “early in the week” as I had hoped. I got sick, and when I get sick, my writing becomes something out of a bad LSD trip–it simply isn’t readable, and I had to wait until the fog of fatigue faded before I could make this happen. (You see that alliteration? It only happens when my brain is at 100%, I assure you.)

A quick warning: this post is long. When all is said and done, the full entry on TLC (which is posted below in its entirety) would span 33 double spaced pages. Yes, 33. Hopefully, you’ll stay with me, as I think it’s worth the effort. Here it is, and don’t forget to leave me a comment if you feel so inclined.

(For those of you who don’t want to start from the beginning, I’ve bolded the first line of the new entry so you don’t have to wonder how far along you are.)
**

Sitting in the parking lot out in front of Twin Lakes Church, I am struck by an uncharacteristic fear. It simply doesn’t feel right. This church isn’t the same as the others, where I showed up, went in, and was surrounded by a meager handful of believers. Here in the lot half an hour early, I’m already surrounded by cars, the kind with those despicable little Jesus fish decals. Who comes early to church? Worse, what kind of church inspires this magnitude of early attendance? This is most definitely a big one, and it’s not even Sunday morning—this is a service that people flock to, half an hour early, on a Saturday night at 6PM.

Philip Larkin and I have our differences. Whereas he took solace in a visit to a place of worship even if he wasn’t in a mood for prayer, I always feel a little ill. It’s a nagging feeling in my stomach right before I bite the bullet and walk through those doors. I feel like it’s the first day of school, or as if I’m visiting an old friend I haven’t seen for a while: it’s familiar in that I’ve done it all before, but I really don’t know what to expect. It’s the same, but different. Unfortunately, this church is too different. It’s a new school in a different part of town where I don’t know anyone. It’s that friend who fell into drugs after I saw him last. This is dangerous. This is the type of church that made me an Atheist. In some sense, I feel like I do know what to expect, and that’s what’s churning my stomach.

TLC (as they prefer to abbreviate) is a megachurch. There are others by the same name online, though I haven’t researched them enough to know if it’s a chain. All I know is that this place is huge. It’s the kind of church that journalists refer to as having a “campus,” and for good reason. There is collegiate green space, shrubs, grass, low trees, everywhere in amongst their large, academic-looking buildings. When I took a class at Cabrillo Community College, conveniently located on the same lot as this churchs, it was in a room that looked like a shabbier version of what sits before me.

The easiest way to give you an idea of how big this place is, without simply giving you a google map satellite view, is this: the parking lot requires four lanes—two in, two out—just to accommodate the traffic this place sees. It occurs to me that what I thought was big in reference to other churches was downright puny. This is the veritable ocean of blacktop, not what I saw back at the Lutheran church.

“What am I doing here?”

Rather than ask myself the question aloud (don’t wanna look crazy in front of the Christians) I get Gina on the phone in a last-ditch attempt to bolster my spirits.

“You’re going to church?” she says, with a hopeful upward inflection.

“Well, yes,” I groan, “but why this one? It’s huge. And scary.”

“Because it meets on a Saturday night, and because it’s the right thing to do.” She’s reasonable, which means I have to do it. I guess eight years of figuring me out has put her in a position to reason with me. It’s a terrible thing.

“Fine. But I’m not going to like it.”

My mind is on the phone, and my eyes glaze over as I watch as the people stream by. Though I’ve used the term “stream” before, it was really more of a “trickle” compared to this. There are a lot of people, some milling about, others standing in clumps like high schoolers on a cold winter day, and even more making a beeline straight into the large glass doors. From here, I can see several entrances into the grand cathedral—I have no idea what they actually call it—that towers in front of me, all of which have double doors to allow easy entry into the massive structure. Unlike the brick and mortar construction of the old churches around town or the adobe of the mission, this one is made of crystal clear glass and metal struts open for all the world to see. From here, I can’t make out anything of the inside, and I prefer it that way.

“So are you going to go?” she prods.

“I still have fifteen minutes.” I’m getting defensive now. What is it about this place that puts me in such a mood? Rather than dwell on it, I decide that now would be a good time to clean the inside of the car. I tidy up the trash and fiddle with the radio. “I’m not going in there early. When I’m early, people want to talk to me. When people want to talk to me, I want to leave.” I’m doing this project as a reminder that these are indeed people, that I do have something in common with them, and that we can all be friends, but, and this is a problem, I don’t like people. I especially don’t like talking to people. I barely like talking to my real friends, let alone preachers and zealots.

“You always want to leave.”

“Well, moreso.”

As the minutes tick by, I gather my things into my black briefcase. I have a water bottle, my new church notepad, and a new pen. After the squeaking of my cheapy Bic pencil at Taize, I have taken pains to make sure that I have a silent instrument with me from here on out. Nothing draws attention like a squeaky pencil at work during a prayer. My new notepad is a gaudy, black-leather number with gold-edged pages. It looks like a bible, as a matter of fact, just a lot skinnier. It has a cross pressed into the front with a Christian saying beneath it, something about “quiet moments” and how God speaks to you. My wife thinks it’s terrible, or at least sacrilegious, but it was on sale at Ross. What writer passes up a $4 notebook? Or an irony of this caliber for that matter?

I say goodbye to Gina and step out of the car, slinging the briefcase over my shoulder. I’ve watched people wander by, most of them in jeans and t-shirts, and I’m overdressed as always. I remember when “Sunday best” meant good clothes. Then again, it is Saturday.

Outside, the clouds have parted but linger near the hills on the horizon. A sleepy sort of twilight has settled in, and I can feel the weight of the humidity that still clings to the air.

I realize I’d rather take in the scenery: I’m still in no hurry to get inside. I take my time stretch, my legs, and wander away from the believers. There are crowds the size of other church’s entire congregations dawdling in front of the building. I watch them from the edge of the parking lot and look around for other points of interest. There has to be an excuse not to walk into the gauntlet. They’re just standing there chatting, but there are so many of them that it’s intimidating. It reminds me of high school, when people had nothing better to do than clump into groups and talk. Or harass the lesser clumps. Or the people who walked around by themselves, like me.

The largest group of them is right next to the door I had hoped to enter, hovering around a table-clothed catering cart. They’re sipping at paper cups of coffee and enjoying each other’s company. Often, when I measure the size of an operation like this, I peek at what level of catering they have. For instance: had the coffee come from one of those metallic cylinders, the small kind with the black plastic spigot, it might’ve given me hope that this place simply looks big; that in fact I wasn’t about to be in room with multiple hundreds of people. Instead, they have a row of large, industrial, brown plastic containers that hold more than five gallons each. Their mere presence intimidates me.

I’m not ready to go in there. Some days, I don’t even know why I do this at all, it just seems like such an uphill battle. I set out toward the chapel, but instead of taking the straight and narrow, I take a hard right and continue down the sidewalk. There’s a smaller building here with a large graphical map screwed to its façade. It’s a bird’s eye view of the area, showing which buildings are which. They’re all numbered in the hundreds—like the seven hundred building, or the 500’s where I should be headed. Some of the buildings are named after people, but mostly they’re utilitarian spaces. There’s a preschool and a gymnasium. There are buildings labeled “High School Room” and “Junior High Room” as well. Apparently the indoctrination continues beyond those years, too: there’s even a room marked “Intern House.” It’s more than a little creepy, though from a community-based perspective, it’s rather charming. If it were a secular community, I’d probably champion such attention to the differing needs of the visitors, but this way, I can’t help but worry.

As people continue to breeze past me, some smiling, some solemn, I take a deep breath and join the ranks. I follow them, adopting their brisk pace, and walk past the coffee cart and right into the building. An older woman smiles, welcomes me and hands me the necessary pamphlets and I find myself in a foyer bigger than the house I grew up in. The windows shoot into the sky several stories above me, letting in what’s left of the sunlight. The construction is otherwise sparse and reminds me of the massive office buildings my mom worked in when I was little, even as it dwarfs some of them in scale.

I breathe a small sigh of relief. Being inside is calming, but more than that, it’s intriguing. When I was outside, these were just buildings, but inside, they’re treasure troves of information. There are pamphlets and blown up images of men and women on global missions lining the walls with all the details of their ministries beneath: what they’re doing, and who they’re helping. There’s a dentist in some south American hovel, and others in poor Asian countries bringing aid (and more than a little religion, I’m sure) to those who need it most. I’m characteristically conflicted: the smiling faces are doing genuine good, yet I can’t help but worry about the potential backlash of proselytizing worldwide. I grab some brochures from the twelve-foot table of pamphlets and move on, exploring the rest of the foyer.

This room is massive, a stretching L shape that reaches around the auditorium. There’s a hallway here that leads back toward the stage entrance, and a crying baby room. All along the walls, there are closed-circuit televisions displaying the welcome message that is currently being projected onto the walls in the main hall. There are chairs here, too, lining the walls and facing those TVs for the overflow worshippers or those who don’t want to make a scene when entering late—they really have thought of everything here.

There are also stairs that lead up to a balcony high above the ground floor. I briefly consider climbing them, but think better of it when I remember how many times I’ve felt like making a hasty exit from these kinds of places. Truth be told, whenever there are more than 100 people in a single place, I want to be near the exit just in case. I don’t trust the intelligence of any crowd, but I’m deep in enemy territory as far as I’m concerned.

That nagging feeling, the one that tells me to go home and enjoy the evening with my wife and dog, still pulls at me as I step into the auditorium. I’ve glanced in before now, as I made my way around the foyer, but now I’ve decided to take the plunge. I step inside the last door—the one closest to the crying baby room—and eye a seat at the end of the second-to-last pew. I’d take the last one, but there’s a teenager there dressed in his gangsta best—saggy jeans, immaculately clean t-shirt—and I have no desire to bother him. I’ve volunteered at the schools around here enough to know from his clothes and his posture that he doesn’t want to be addressed by anyone, and it’s simply easier just to sit in front of him. Better make it third from the back, just in case he ends up reading over my shoulder.

The pews here are quite comfortable, though old fashioned. There are cubbies in the back of each seat for the various books needed for the service, though the only one I pay any attention to is the bible. There are simply too many other things to look at now, and I start taking inventory. Concert-sized speakers hang from the ceiling high above, their 12 inch subwoofers pointed strategically down at the audience. I can see twelve of them from here, but I suspect there are more pointed toward the other side as well. I really should throw some earplugs in my kit the next time I go out.

On the stage, there’s a piano and a setup fit for several more musicians. There’s a full drum kit and four guitars, but I give up counting the microphones when the tangle of stands become too much to focus on. Three separate projectors cast their images on the massive back walls of the stage, with lighting carefully chosen to extend the images into a color palate of calming hues. Throughout the service, they’ll change from yellows, to pinks, to blues, all depending on the overall mood.

I had been told by my father-in-law that I should come to this church because he knew the guy who ran the projections. At first, I thought it was a little strange that he should mention a job like that because it’s usually such a menial affair, but here, it’s entirely different. Along the ceiling there are massive lines of lighting instruments, the likes of which any local theater would kill to have. There are gels of every color, and I’m awestruck by how intensive the multimedia budget of the place actually is.

While I take stock of the details, people are streaming in through every orifice the building has. Each door sees more believers enter and take their seats, and I watch as even the balcony box is relieved of its empty space. The pews behind me have filled in, as have those in front of me, and I get characteristically claustrophobic. I escape into my notes, marking down even more details about things like “the slight backward slope of the pews.” They’re actually pretty comfortable, now that I think about it.

Glancing around, I take note of the different people, most seemingly delighted to be here, that have filled in the seats in front of me. There are families, older people and younger, though most of them appear to be middle-aged. What surprises me is the diversity of the place—not necessarily the racial diversity, but the differences in clothing. Many are Classic Christian Casual—jeans and modest t-shirt style tops—but there are others in dresses or suit jackets, and at least a couple people wearing clothing that would be at home at a hip-hop concert.

Just as I begin to get bored with my notes, the band takes the stage. A chaste young man and woman wander slowly out from stage left, smiling from ear to ear, as older musicians take up the instruments behind them. The drummer is ready, and the guitarists check their levels while the audience continues to chat quietly. Finally, the music starts, the audience rising to its feet to join in, and the service has officially begun.

The music is impeccable, as always. I’ve come to expect good playing (and even better singing) from these types of things, given how important this ritual is to contemporary services. The words flash on the prompters behind the singers as they stand statically before the microphones. From the sound of it, you’d almost think we were at a concert, but from the look of it, you’d think we were at a wax museum, or watching the Bear Jamboree at Disneyland. At one point, the singers do ask encourage the audience to clap to the beat, but the excitement is short-lived.

I give the lyrics an honest shot, but quickly end up tuning them out when I realize the refrain of the song is “Remember your promise, oh God.” How forgetful is He?

While tuning out, I realize that the singers are both staring at the same spot and follow their gaze to a teleprompter—a small television displaying the lyrics to the song—bolted to the wall that marks the front of the balcony. I guess I don’t blame them for needing some help—I mean, if God needs reminding, how they hell are they going to get through this thing?

As the first song winds down, I sigh with relief. If I never see another middle-aged women raise the holy roof (you know, the palms up, swaying side-to-side gesture), it’ll be too soon. There aren’t a ton of them here, thankfully, but it’s that sort of exuberance that worries me about these places. First it’s swaying, then it’s a shaking of the head, and then who knows—Linda Blair can’t be far behind.

The audience claps as the first song comes to an end, but my relief is short-lived. There’s another song coming—a part of these services that frustrates me to no end. You’d think that one song would serve to punctuate a moment, or give a brief prelude to what’s about to happen, but they layer song upon song in a mishmash that ends up making each individual sentiment into little more than a pop-refrain. Some churches use the songs to illustrate a point, or to reiterate important tenets, but the “contemporary service” seems bent on singing for singing’s sake. I know that this is a self-serving part of the service (though they would call it serving God, as they do many other things), so I let it go, sit back down, and sip my water. Luckily for me, an older woman a few pews ahead has already reclaimed her seat, so I don’t stand out too badly as I await the beginning of the real show.

Eventually, the guitarists have strummed their last and a man in brown stripes, jeans, and leather loafers takes the stage. He makes a few small announcements, then calls the main man to the stage. Rene (I’m not even going to attempt to spell his last name) bounds up to the stage from somewhere in the pews and gladly takes his place beside a man that my notes simply list as “the voice.” It seems that churches have these sorts of positions—announcers who just bring up the little things, then get out of the way—a lot lately, so I’ve taken to ignoring most everything about them.

Rene, however, is noteworthy. He looks comfortable, maybe even tropical, in his polo-style Henley shirt, his jeans, and black sneakers. He has his sleeves rolled up—both literally and physically—and has adopted a radio announcer personality for his first event of the day.

The voice, having already announced him as Rene, begins calling him Johnny, channeling a past-life wherein Rene was actually an announcer on the radio. He has the voice for it, methodically changing his tone from the deep baritone of the guy who declares, “that was Pearl Jam with their smash-hit Jeremy,” to the higher pitches of Glenn Beck’s pre-tear squeals. Surprisingly, it’s not annoying, but rather a well-metered speaking voice that en-trances the audience the way any public speaker should.

What is annoying, however, is the game they’re about to play. It’s the reason for Rene’s radio alter-ego: a Valentine’s themed game of “name that tune.” They explain the rules (you have to name the song and the artist), and then play short clips of the songs until someone in the audience leaps to their feat and attracts either the voice’s or Rene’s attention, who then runs to her (it’s always a girl, somehow) and verifies the answer. They play Chicago, Celine Dion, and Jason Mraz, all sappy stuff fit for the occasion, and hand out prizes of Ghirardelli Chocolate (a very good choice) to the winners. By the end of the game, the audience is charged and excited, ready for whatever may come.

Next is a familiar trope: the introduction. Rene instructs us all to shake hands with our neighbors, to say hi and meet a few people. While taking notes during the songs, I had been a little worried about this part—the guy behind me had been casting a long shadow, and I had been writing all through the songs. I hoped he wasn’t suspicious, or worse, upset with me for it—he was tall enough to see my pages. They’re illegible as far as most are concerned, but still, I worry.

Upon turning, however, I realize that my fear was entirely misplaced. He’s a gangly older teen, dressed in layered shirts with long sleeves peeking out beneath shorter ones, and his facial hair is the kind that screams inattention. He smiles, I smile, we shake hands, and I chuckle to myself as I fall back into my seat. This is going to be easier than I thought.

**

You’d think that we could start with the show now, but you’d be wrong. Instead, the piano strikes up again, leads the audience in a scripture reading, and then plays into a more solemn song to set the mood. Only now does Rene retake the stage, and it is a relief.

I can’t say that he’s the most dynamic preacher I’ve ever seen, but I do have to give him credit. On top of the announcer-ly voice he has already perfected, he has good stage-side manner, gesturing and embracing his speech. He sports a rather down to earth look, unlike that of many of the pastors who run these big churches. No suit, no sheen of unnecessary perspiration—just a man in Christian casual clothes, simply dressed and with a short haircut accentuated by the kind of gray you’d imagine on a college professor rather than a preacher man.

Today’s lesson, as he tells us and as is projected on the back wall, will be about Handling Tough Times. It’s part of their new lecturing series entitled “Authentic,” for which they have prepared a logo that is reminiscent of the pale leather label that used to be sewn to the back of Levi’s jeans. It’s a seared on look in a simple font: Authentic, Real Faith that Fits Real Life. Though I’ve been a major detractor from the commodification of religion—as in the terrible Christian T-shirts that declare their beliefs boiled down into ridiculous slogans—this one doesn’t bother me quite as much. Hell, it’s no “Three nails plus one man equals 4given.”

After that brief introduction, Rene comes out swinging with the bible, telling us all to reach for our own personal bibles—or if we don’t have them, the ones that have been delightfully installed in the back of the pews—so we can follow along. He’s leading with James, the guy who wrote a lot of this “dealing with life” stuff in the bible. There are bible verses, page turning, and people listening intently. James, like Rene, wastes no time in getting to the point: “Consider it pure joy…whenever you encounter trials of many times.”

In classic Christian fashion, Rene then takes to interpreting the scripture, pulling it apart and reconstituting it in terms that his congregation can understand. “James isn’t saying that we should all just pretend everything is okay,” he says, “like the guys in this Super Bowl commercial.”

He then steps aside from the central microphone, the lights dim, and a Pepsi commercial plays on the big screen. Really? A Pepsi commercial? The audience laughs along as they watch macho men fall from ladders, receive bowling balls to the head, and get launched through the air by a misplaced electrical current, only to claim that, “I’m good.” At the end, the commercial declares that, “Men can take anything, except the taste of Diet Cola.” It’s a funny commercial, and it makes the point that Rene is trying to make.

I’m getting used to this sort of thing—especially after the douchey musical number at High Street Community—but I’m still not a big fan. It seems to me that illustrating a religious point, something that most take to be of supreme seriousness in such a silly way demeans the point it’s trying to make. Worse than the silliness is what so many atheists don’t understand about modern churches: they’re trying to be fun, and, in some cases, not take themselves so seriously. Inside, when only believers are listening in, they have a lot of fun. It’s only when challenged in the public sphere that things heat up, when ideologies clash on a public stage. There’s a lot to be said for having fun and getting through to people, and it’s a tactical move that works to Rene’s obvious favor.

By the time the clip is over, Rene has reclaimed the stage and quickly makes his point: sometimes, it isn’t okay. In fact, a lot of the time, the troubles we have to go through simply aren’t okay—they’re devastating. But he’s not digging himself into the dirt just yet. He keeps the mood light, slipping into another slide projection. On the screen, the words “My attitude is affected by my knowledge,” light up as he reads them from the teleprompter, emphasizing both of the “my’s.”

From here, he launches into a personal example from his recent life. He was having back pain and numbness, and his brain immediately imagined the worst. “I have bone cancer,” he says, his voice deepening on the word cancer. “I have a Siamese twin named Dana,” the audience laughs, “it has to have a girls name to go with Rene.” He’s self-depricating in the same way that makes standup comedians likeable even as they’re pompous, and it’s working. That isn’t to say that Rene is pompous, necessarily—but he is the man holding all the cards, and the story brings him down to our level.

From here, he offers us a story about his doctor, how he was shown notes and allowed to play with a model spine—how the doctor educated him, and how good it felt to really know. Then, his MRI photos blip onto the screen. With his hand, he mimes what we’re seeing—“this area, from my chin down to here”—and points out the exact culprit that is causing his current pain.

“Right there,” he says, as a small circle highlights a dark bump. “That’s my pain. I have a picture of my pain.” It’s a slightly bulging disk in his neck, just enough to throw everything out of equilibrium—and he’s happy to know exactly what it is. You see, not knowing had allowed him to make his pain worse by imagining the terrible consequence it might bring, but now, knowing about it has changed his attitude, and made it easier to deal with his pain. He’s not falling apart at the seams, and now he can relax, plan out the future, and make steps toward alleviating his pain.

Rene then turns our attention to the handouts we received at the front door—white sheets of 8.5 x 11 paper, folded once (hamburger style, as my teacher friends would say). On these sheets is a basic outline of his sermon, though more in depth than what I’ve come to expect from these places—this one has fill in the blanks, and, just to be careful, the verses we fill in will be projected on the screen so we can even get the spelling right.

“People don’t know God’s goal for them,” Rene says, preparing his next James reference. “You see, the number one priority is to make you like Jesus, not to make you happy.” That’s a lovely thought—I know I’m looking forward to being whipped, abused, and then nailed to a cross. Come to think of it, I was just thinking about getting some new tattoos on my wrists—just to make sure they hammer the nails in the right place.

“Think about Jesus,” he continues. “He was lonely, fatigued, frightened at times.” All of these things, “build character.” On this point, Rene is completely right: terrible times do build character. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without the loss of my brother, or growing up in a certain degree of poverty, but that doesn’t make it okay.

1. Problems are inevitable.

We all fill in our blanks. Next:

2. Problems are unpredictable.

Here, Rene gives us a quick lesson on the Greek “peripto,” a featured word in this part of James. It means “to fall into unexpectedly,” we write, reinforcing the idea that problems are unpredictable. We never plan on having a flat tire, or some other inconvenience.

Just as the sermon starts to drag down to heavier issues (cancer, divorce), Rene brings it back to humor. “You know, I hate that part of the Christian life,” he says, referring to the daily difficulties of being a good person. “It seems no matter which line I pick at the grocery store, it inevitably becomes the slowest one!” The audience laughs again, but I’m a little less entertained. The false dichotomy that this represents—the “Christian life” versus some “other life”—is representative of the in-group thinking that separates Christians from others. This week, I pulled over and offered to help someone whose car had broken down—no gods attached. Waiting in line at the grocery store is not part of “Christian life,” it’s part of American life. Or Western life. Basically, all human life has some degree of line-waiting. People who take cuts aren’t acting “un-Christianly,” they’re being assholes.

This separation isn’t Rene’s intent, but it’s indicative of the deeper issue—the us versus them that places Christianity continually at odds with the world around it. It’s like when my grandparents accidentally slip racial prejudices into a conversation: it’s an unintentional act, but one that’s indicative of an upbringing at odds with my own. The potential for damage is more subconscious than outward, but that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous—especially with the frequency churches talk about “The Christian Way of Life.”

But this is all beside the point. It’s not about being a good person or facing the slings and arrows of daily life because we all have to face them at some point. What’s important is how we deal with them, and the attitude we bring to life.

He quotes a book, something written by a Christian author I haven’t heard of, then leads into a discussion of our “broken world.” “James doesn’t even say where these problems come from. We shouldn’t ask why, we should ask what.”

His references are coming fast and furious now: modern authors, the bible, Greek urns and holocaust victim Victor Frankl. It’s a dazzling display of scholarship, one that I honestly can’t take notes on quickly enough. This kind of scholarship is reminiscent of the apologists who lay out piles of information without much point—or the slighted internet-arguer who lays every issue he has on the table when faced with a single thread of counterevidence. So many stories from so many walks of life—it’s really a good teaching strategy. I should know, I use it.

Two more blanks see their filler words, thanks to the verses of James, before Rene digs back into interpretations:

3. Problems are diverse.
4. Problems can have value.

Now he returns our attention to the list—all four bullet points are up on the screen at once, the underlined words in all caps and highlighted with yellow. “What don’t you see up there?” he says, turning his head to the screen behind him, making sure we follow his gaze. “You don’t see why we have problems. Why?” Rene asks, anticipating the search for meaning that Christians bring to these proceedings. “Well, James isn’t concerned with why.”

But the “why” is exactly why people come here. They want to know purpose and God’s divine plan, and Rene knows it. “Thank you Rene,” he says, assuming the persona of a bewildered congregant, “I’m totally depressed right now.” Depression hasn’t even entered into the equation yet, though. For that, there’s a clip.

“Pain can cause a growth spurt,” Rene declares. “We have a clip here. Drew Brees,” he says the name as if it’s a statement in and of itself, though it flies right over my head. He exlains: Drew is the Superbowl MVP—a guy who injured himself, then got transferred to the “lowly New Orlean Saints,” just before Hurrican Katrina. Someone in his family committed suicide when he was already in desperate straights. Basically, Drew here is the modern example of just how bad things can get.

Rather than simply listing the good and the bad, or making a checklist of the things that Drew has achieved since his darker days, Rene lets the man do the talking for him.

The lights dim and the projector kicks up, casting the image of Drew Brees’ giant head on the wall. The clip is, not surprisingly, from some sort of interview with a Christian TV network, and the production values are a little lacking. There’s an odd border around it—a cobalt fuzz—that makes it look like something out of the nineties, but that’s not what’s important. What matters here is the message that Drew has for all of us: life was hard, but he persevered, and look at him now. I’m reminded of weight watchers commercials—the “I used to wear these pants,” kind, but the message is still uplifting. In all honesty, if it weren’t for the invocation of Jesus at the end, I’d admire Drew a lot more. From my perspective, saying Jesus saw you through is a form of false humility, where you’re saying, “I couldn’t have done it without him,” but still rubbing our noses in the fact that he’s so there for you. I honestly can’t argue that the man hasn’t overcome some major hurdles to get to where he is today, and it’s really nice to see someone who faced real struggles succeed. The reason for the clip, however, is simple: he didn’t stop believin’ in Jesus, and that’s what pulled him through.

“You know what, that’s the very thing James is talking about here.” Rene says as the video cuts back out and the lights rise in the auditorium. “Now, let’s have some quick participation,” he says. “Looking back, who would say that they grew during some of the darker times in their lives? Raise your hands, it’s okay, and keep them up.” The audience complies, and more than half the room raises a hand. “Those of you who are having tough times right now, I want you to take note of these hands.” His basic premise is, again, a good one: if you live through your woes, that which didn’t kill you could only have made you stronger—and maybe, a better person.

Back on the personal edge, Rene declares that almost all of his spiritual growth came from those tough times in his life, when he thought he just couldn’t handle any more. “The testing that they refer to in the bible isn’t like a test at school,” he says. “The bible’s testing is more like smelting—or refining metal. A tempering of sorts.” Our problems, Rene claims, are like the fires that heat the impure metals in a smelting pot, and just like that terrible heat, our problems boil our imperfections to the surface. “In smelting, you heat up your ingredients, then skim off the impurities—the dross—from the surface. Like cream skimmed off the top of milk. When the heat is turned up, the dross is exposed. The character flaws, your impatience, your anger, your lack of trust or faith,” he’s emphasizing his words now with grander gestures as images of smelting metals appear on the screen behind him. “When the heat is on, you can skim it off or stir it back in, that’s up to you, and that’s what James is talking about.” It’s an apt metaphor, and one that works with or without religion. I can imagine a psychotherapist saying those words just as easily as Rene does, but perhaps in a more solemn tone of voice, and to far fewer people.

Continuing on, we fill in some more blanks, then flip the notes over at Rene’s request. Here, there’s a section labeled “Further Reading on Handling Life’s Troubles,” that list lots of “great books” that go into depth on what the bible has to say about getting through tough times. Rene implores us, if we’re willing, to look into the “Daily Meditations,” or to download the discussion questions from the TLC website. This little study guide is only the beginning, and he’s not even done with it yet. It strikes me that this church isn’t just a Sunday church unless you want it to be so. The attention to detail is staggering.

While we fiddle with our pages, the screen changes behind Rene. From the standard, placeholder “Authentic” slide, we swap to an unyielding Arial font that reads: How can I grow through PROBLEMS? Surely this is a prelude to the answers we all seek, and Rene is finally ready to let us have it.

“Firstly, we all need to,” he pauses while we find the correct blank on our sheets, “rejoice.” The congregation scribbles the lonely word even though it doesn’t make much sense given the context. Rejoicing in our problems? Even Rene grasps the irony of such a stupid idea, but he has an explanation: James doesn’t mean the “I’m good,” rejoicing of the Pepsi commercial. No, James is talking about “considering” our problems to be pure joy—using the Greek of “consider” to mean, “add it up, do the math.” We write it down in our notes—the words “add” and “math” fill in their lonely blanks in a subsequent sentence, then sit there, awaiting an explanation that could provide some sense. I know that when I add up all of my problems, I feel more than a little despondent. Maybe I’m missing out on some biblical math?

“What James means here,” Rene continues, “is that we need to think about what we’re going to get out of our troubles. To see the bottom line of how we’ll improve, and what we gain from them.” This makes sense when we’re talking about growing our ability to be patient, or when we have an injury that eventually heals, but I can’t help but feel that paraplegics might have a slightly different view of that particular brand of nonsense. There’s no time for me to consider it, though—“Read along with me, if you will,” Rene declares, and the audience whisks their collective attention to their bibles (James verse 12), their notes (where it’s printed), or the omnipresent screen.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

The flock reads along, and then Rene asks them to circle “crown of life,” a phrase that has already been conveniently bolded on the handouts themselves. Whoever prepared this handout did a thorough job. Maybe they think their congregation to be complete idiots, incapable of being trusted even to circle the important words of a verse, but that would be complete speculation on my part. (It’s also meant to be sarcastic, if you want to get right down to it: but honestly, can you not circle the words yourself? Especially if you have to fill in the blanks already? Really?)

“This is a sports reference,” he declares, discussing Grecian urns and the history of a particular wrestler that they feature—of course, those urns featuring that wrestler are conveniently projected on the wall. My goodness, if I could scrounge 1/10th of that effort for California schools… I space out and lose track of the point behind the crown of life. I would’ve thought it to be something more biblical, like eternal life, but a sports trophy is good, too. Wish Jesus would give me a gold medal—at least I could hock it for rent money.

Back on topic, Rene continues: “James is saying that we can choose our responses to dark times in our lives.” On the screen, a new face photographed in black and white splashes onto a black background. Apparently, he’s a holocaust survivor by the name of Frankl. Beside his face, quotes cycle through, including this one:

“They could take everything away from me, my wife, my family, my possessions, but they couldn’t take away the freedom to choose how I was going to respond.”

“And that’s what James is saying: we get to choose how we deal with our problems.” But here, he sees fit to make a caveat. “Now, this isn’t New Agey,” he says. You don’t choose your reality, just your response to your reality.” At this point, I will offer that some science supports this idea (especially the basic fact that the hormones that cause all emotions run their course through the human body in a matter of minutes, and that any extra emotional trouble you have beyond that is a product of your own cerebral submission to that emotion), but I also have to point out that there are some scientists who study the chemistry of the brain who are on the verge of stating that free-will is nothing but a specific coalescence of our genetic material—simply put, we don’t really have a say in the way we respond to certain stimuli. It’s a question that can’t honestly be answered, but in this case, I want to go with Rene. We can change the way we respond to something terrible—laughing instead of crying, walking away instead of fighting—and it should be these trying times that define a man (or woman).

In the weeks leading up to this speech, Rene ran this idea—the self-determination thing—by a depressive friend of his. He didn’t want to be trite or upsetting, and he needed to “get a reality check” on his sermon. The friend responded honestly about how he saw the situation, and told him (agreeing with the first bit of brain science in the previous paragraph) that, “you can choose not to indulge in [troublesome] sentiments.” After all, you can choose to believe god has a plan.

“Rejoice doesn’t mean be happy—you can’t command those emotions,” Rene continues. “They come and go at their whim: rejoicing is an approach.”

The other way to deal with problems is to, “request.” We fill in the blank, and Rene explains: “God gives generously to all without finding fault.” Though this church seems largely free of the faultfinding that bothers me about many other Christian groups, I don’t really believe him on this point. It’s a pleasant notion, but the bible (and all Christianity) is based on finding fault—sending people to hell if they’re bad, or sending them to heaven if they’re without fault. Then again, all are redeemed through Jesus Christ, but, you’re only cured of those faults if you happen to find him.

The congregation is on the same page, though, so Rene happily carries on, putting his statement in the historical context of the first century world. Pagan gods, Jupiter, Zeus, all of their ilk—those were judgmental gods, the kind who did whatever they wanted, tricked people and treated them poorly. If something bad happened, to a 1st Century man, it was ascribed to an angry god, one who either found fault with something you did, or, well, let’s be honest, was just being a dick.

But not the Christian God. He gives generously, even if you don’t deserve it. That’s grace right there. He’s good, he’s a giver, and you ask him for wisdom specifically, you’ll get it.

“Too infrequently do we pray for wisdom,” Rene says, setting up another story. This time, he’s going on about his wife’s ex-pastor, someone who obviously led her before he himself stepped up to the plate. Well, one of his congregants—a little old lady—was going through a really troubling time. She’d had a stroke, her husband went blind and was hospitalized. They thought he wasn’t going to make it, and her world was in tumult. This pastor goes up to her, and in all earnest love says that he’s praying for her (you can hear it in Rene’s voice—he’s acting it out quite well now).

Much to his shock, the woman asks him, “what’re you praying for me? at do you want god to do for me

The pastor replies that he’s, “praying for strength,” to see her through her problems, to get her to the other side unscathed.

“That’s good,” she returns, “but pray for one more thing: pray that I’ll have the wisdom not to waste all this.” It’s a profound story, and Rene pauses, smiling to let it sit in. The old woman had the right approach to problems—one that made her troubles worth dealing with, because they weren’t simply something to endure, they were something to learn from.

“Wisdom is seeing life from God’s perspective,” Rene adds, then sets up next week’s sermon—Finding God’s Will. Apparently, it’s a companion piece to all of this wisdom stuff, divining God’s will from the bible and all of that. It all seems rather harmless, though I can’t help but wonder what God’s will is in this church’s opinion. Make no bones about it—every Christian sect has its own interpretation of God’s will, some scarier than others. I want to trust that this one is on the level, that nothing bad is going to come of their interpretations, but I can’t be sure of that.

Our third and final way to deal with problems is to release them to God. “Trust God to know what’s best for your life—that’s called faith,” Rene goes on. “That’s called surrender. Even Jesus had questions while going through suffering, and James is saying we should just relax and trust that God is with us.” God or not, relaxing while going through pain and suffering is often the best medicine. I know I’ve lowered my blood pressure (a lot) by simply relaxing instead of letting people get me angry. Just for the record: you don’t have to trust in God to get that done, though it is still good advice to go with the flow.

“Before we close,” Rene’s voice has dropped now. He’s being far more serious, and the smile has faded. “I want to mention that I don’t’ want to sound trite up here. There are a lot of problems in the world, and, statistically speaking, there are people in here who are dealing with some major problems. Statistically speaking,” he goes on, relying on a solid science to lend credence to the rest of his speech, “ someone in here is battling cancer. Statistically speaking,” just repeat the mantra, “ someone in here is considering a divorce.” He lists other maladies that, statistically speaking, are sure to be affecting someone in this very room. There are a lot of people here, and he’s right, some of them are surely facing problems, and they came here for answers. “We’ve had a lot of fun today, but I don’t want you to feel like we’re making light of your problems, and I hope something you heard today will help.”

“Some of you may be asking, ‘does this really work’ in my situation?” he pushes on. He wants people to know that he’s sincere, and more than that, he wants to prove his case. “Now, I could introduce you to a lot of different Christians this has worked for,” his voice is deep now, and he takes longer pauses between the words. He’s solemn, “but I just want to introduce you to one person, via video.”

“Steve Chapman is a Christian recording artist,” he starts, and then describes the terrors of his life. Two years ago, Chapman’s youngest daughter was run over by an SUV driven by his son. He was backing out of the driveway, didn’t see her, and ended up killing her. The loss of a child is a terrible thing—something I’ve seen firsthand—and the situation is one of incredible desperation. But, as we shall see, Chapman made it through.

The clip is from Good morning America, and Rene wants to make sure we know it’s not some Christian TV station. For me, this pronouncement demeans his earlier clip—featuring Drew Brees—but for someone less critical, it probably only speaks to the universality, the impressiveness of this particular story. In the clip, Chapman is having a conversation with Diane Sawyer as she slowly pokes daggers into his personal life. It’s one of those tearjerker stories that’s supposed to evoke poignant feelings, and that’s exactly what it does.

Sawyer, in her most motherly tone, asks, “how would you describe your view of life right now?”

Chapman responds, “Desperately hopeful.” It’s obvious that he’s not over the death of his child, and I can tell you already, he’ll never fully be over it. He nods, but his scruffy beard and graying hair tell the full story—he’s pretty torn up, even two years later.

Sawyer presses on, asking how he makes it through the holidays and Chapman leads the conversation to his music. As expected, he deals with the heartbreak by pouring his heart and soul into the music. After his kid “went to heaven” (of course she didn’t die—euphemisms are key here) someone said he should write a song about it—but he couldn’t then. In the immediate aftermath, there was simply no way to condense his sorrow into a 4 minute song, but now, years after her death, he’s managed to write a song that expresses his woes. More than that, and more to Rene’s point, the song is a loving tale about the future, and can even be misconstrued to be about his remaining daughter who is still alive. It’s called, “Heaven is the face of a little girl.”

He, of course, plays the song and we all watch a touching montage of photos and short videos play behind his acoustic sounds. The clips include Chapman in his pajamas playing with a smiling little girl (she’s always smiling, in every photo), and bouncing on the bed with her. All of the silly little things that make parents cry when they remember their children who are gone, or even just the ones who have grown up and don’t fit on their laps anymore. She’s a beautiful child, but she’s dead now. It doesn’t get much more somber than that, but we’re supposed to look at Chapman now—he’s on morning television, and not just the church channel, either. He has arrived, and more than that, he’s taken his tragedy and learned from it. Or, at least, learned to make money off of it. I have trouble falling completely in line here, not because I don’t feel his pain (I do), but because I feel that this sort of thing is more trite than the fun Rene was having with the rest of the service. These types of emotional moments, the ones that are designed to break you down before your Lord Thy God seem like the cheapest trick of religion. Sure, it’s not an over-produced video about a kid who “loved trains,” but it serves the same purpose: at the same time that this video bolsters the spirits of those who give themselves to Christ, it robs them of their power inherent in the rest of their lives, their own resilience and the help of their communities.

The song is touching, but I tune it out. I deal with death by not forcing myself to relive it, by not celebrating the holidays of my darkest moments. I don’t remember the date of my Grandmother’s death, or the exact day that they pulled the plug on my brother after his accident. Instead, I focus on the good things, remember the good days and look forward to a future of my own creation, one where I can hopefully pass down some of the love that they showed me in their short time on earth. I don’t focus on my own selfish need to see them again. I don’t worry about where they’ve gone or what’s become of them—they were a part of my life, they gave things to me, and now they’re gone. It’s my job to live for them, and to carry on. That isn’t just what they would’ve wanted, it’s what has to be. That’s why I have the word Viva tattooed on my arm—it’s not a choice for me: I have to live.

The final line of Chapman’s song is, “God I’ll trust in you until I see heaven in the face of my little girl.” It represents the most hope that the man can scrounge for his future, and it strikes me more as sad than hopeful. We all have our ways of coping, I suppose, and this seems to work for him.

As the video fades to a close, the lights rise on Rene. He assures us once again that he doesn’t want to minimize anyone’s pain here today, that coping is a process. He goes on, “But some people have a persistent pain or a tragedy.” Rene has a request now: he would “love to do something for you if you’d let him. I would love to pray for wisdom for you. Would you let me do that for you? Let me pray that God will give you wisdom? Let’s bow our heads and pray.”

Rene bows his head and prays in line with his speech, asking God to help us see through our problems and gain wisdom from them. He does a good thing here by staying on message—something that a lot of other Christians don’t do when “moved by the spirit” to start talking about whatever tangential idea pops into their heads during prayer. He does say something that lead me to chuckle, however, mentioning something about the Lord helping us turn our problems into assets: basically turning “lead into gold.” I guess its’ only funny to those of us who use alchemy as a way of showing believers how ardently things used to be believed that are now totally debunked, but still, I suppress the urge to laugh during a prayer. They don’t call them the “church giggles” for just any reason.

Rene goes on in this vein for a few minutes before stopping himself. Even as the congregation remains reverent, their heads still bowed, the pianist sneaks back onto the stage, accompanied by the other musicians. Quietly, he tickles the keys, that twinkling ethereal sound, softly playing behind the next portion of the prayer. Rene continues, “with our heads still bowed, I want to address some of you. I bet there are some people in this room who don’t quite believe in Jesus, but you came today because you want to invite Jesus into your life.” I watch out of the corner of my eye, trying to bow my head, as Rene consults his notes on a small music stand at center stage. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while, and today you want to make your faith personal. We’re not talking about religion, we’re talking about a relationship. If you want to invite Jesus into your life, pray something like this in your heart.”

“Jesus Christ, I don’t understand it all, but I want to invite you into my heart. Thanks for dying for me, and then rising again,” it’s an earnest prayer, one that simply seeks to get Jesus back into your life. I doubt that this is their only ritual for initiation into the church, but it’s a lot more soft-sell than the things I’ve seen from others. There are no missionaries visiting your home or address cards to be filled out—just a soft little prayer spoken in your heart. It’s a rather touching little thought, one that’s sure to be followed by personal conversations with other churchgoers, and maybe even a visit with the pastor himself.

Returning to the message, Rene closes up shop: “and lord we all thank you for your word through James today. Though we suffer in this life, there is benefit that you can bring through all of it. Encourage us to think about it as we pray on this concept throughout the week, and we pray this in Jesus’ name amen.”

It amazes me how he managed to slip a little homework mention into his prayer—what a classic teacher trick, although a little more religious than the way I use it. Rene’s last comment is the one that I find most insidious, even though I’ve heard it before: “if you’re just visiting for the first time today, feel free not to donate anything. This is how our congregation, the people who call Twin Lakes Church their home, worship God.” There’s no other way to phrase it: that’s just slimy. Praise the lord and give me money.

With that, Rene takes his leave of the stage, and the singers return. This time, however, it’s not a sing along. Instead, it’s a touching rendition of some other Christian rock song, and I’m ready to leave. All around me, small groups of people are rising from their seats and heading for the exit, hoping not to get caught in the traffic jam that will surely occur upon the mass exodus of the congregation. The woman’s voice is indeed beautiful, but there isn’t a siren song on this earth that could keep me here for one more minute—I beat a hasty retreat to the car, and return home to my support system. On the drive home, I remind myself of how good my life is, the bounty that no god has given me.

Rather, I appreciate all the more the resilience that my parents taught me as a child–the strength that they showed–and the love of my families (both the one I was born into and the one that has adopted me through marriage). I’ve learned from all of the tragedies that have befallen me, and I’ve done so without Jesus: I guess some of us just need one more teacher to help us get out of bed everyday.

The War In Heaven

Unfortunately, I can’t finish the entry on the TLC right now. I’m a little too… flustered. You see, this week, I went someplace that I knew I shouldn’t go, and I am driven to write about it. Without further ado, I present to you my visit to a Seventh Day Adventist seminar called “The War in Heaven.”
**

The format of this entry is going to be in stark contrast to that of the others. I apologize to those of you who enjoy my usual meandering voice, but I simply can’t do it this time. You see, this was not a church that I should have visited. I began this project in an attempt to build rapport with believers, to remember that we’re all just people trying to live the best lives we can in a world that has, in many respects, gone to hell. But these aren’t those kinds of people—these are the separatists, the ones who go to bat for religious causes, who count themselves amongst those who fight people like me. I shouldn’t have gone, but I did, and now, the gloves are off.

Unfortunately, there’s no way for me to be gentle about this: the church I visited was crazy, though there is one redeeming caveat: the service I visited was not the usual prayer service, nor an average Sunday session. Instead, I came to see a sermon delivered by a visiting preacher. I heard about this service from a flier that arrived at my home, and offer you the chance to see the multimedia presentation of that flier at this website here. When I first saw the flier, I thought, “well, this looks crazy and counterproductive.” But I warmed to the idea as everyone around me insisted it would be good for me to go, to get out of my comfort zone as it were. Everyone had seen the flier—copies arrived at my friends’ houses as well—and immediately thought of me. Here I was, the intrepid explorer: I had to go check in on the crazies.
**

I knew it was a bad idea. Like I said, it didn’t fit my mission of reconciliation, and I knew I would feel ever-more the outsider in a violent world, but the draw was irresistible. This is the real-world equivalent of AnswersinGenesis.com (go and be afraid, dear skeptics). This was a side of the fundamentalist spectrum that I had never seen in person—not even in my Mormon days. It was going to be harsh, but interesting, and if nothing else, I knew I would come out with a good story, and that I did. Unfortunately, that story made me feel dirty for days, and no amount of whiskey was enough to make me stop feeling creeeped out to my very core. Even now, I get shudders of awkwardness, anger, and something akin to Tourette’s syndrome where I relive all of the things I should have stood and shouted. This entry is more of an exorcism than a travelogue–for better or worse.
**

I missed the first few sessions of the seminar on purpose: I didn’t want to go, and I was procrastinating. Sometime in the middle of my busy weekend, I misplaced the flier and I didn’t care to find it. When Wednesday rolled around, I decided I was going to bite the bullet and go. Gina was out of town and I had nothing better to do, so why not? It took me an hour of googling, trying various terms and phrases I remembered from the flier to find any information. I knew that the seminar was hosted by a man named Otavio, so I searched his name. No luck. I knew it was titled “The War in Heaven,” so I used that. No luck. Finally, I dredged up every little detail I had—every word I could remember from the glossy mailer—and it worked. I’ve forgotten the exact words, but it was something along the lines of, “god on trial jury church war in heaven otavio february church santa cruz.” Finally, I arrived at the website, found the address, and steeled myself for the coming storm.

At the website, I watched the video and literally laughed out loud. These tactics, the fiery damnation, the end of the world, the coming savior—it’s all too familiar, simplistic, and beneath me. There are people who worry about these kinds of things, but I’ve seen it all before. Beyond being a former Mormon, I studied hip-hop’s intersection with Islam for four years, and there’s nobody more doom and gloom than rappers with an axe to grind. Oddly enough, in researching the information I found on the website, I found out that the book War in Heaven on which the sermons are based was written by a former rapper. This was thoroughly unsurprising, and only made me laugh more.

As night fell, I gathered my usual bag of goodies, but also my camera. If possible, I wanted to get some pictures of what was going on, but it wasn’t to be. From the outside, the church was dark and uninviting in a way that made me feel sick to my stomach. I texted Gina, “If I disappear, I was last at the Seventh Day Adventist Church near Tony’s old house.” I decided it was best to stuff the camera way down in my pocket and forget I even had it.

The building was forbidding and dark. Though there were lights on in various places throughout the complex, the street-side view was bleak without so much as a streetlight to comfort me. I wandered slowly around the building, looking for any sort of sign as to where I should be, when I saw a large vinyl sign—a recreation of the flier—swaying in the breeze above a large iron gate. A hundred feet behind, there was a tarped over tent guarding the doorway to a small cinderblock building.

I put on a happy face and approached the tarp. From the street, I couldn’t see anything, but when I arrived, I was met with a makeshift greeting table. A pair of believers, possibly a husband and wife team, sat behind a folding table and offered me the usual platitudes before getting down to business: “Is this your first time at the seminar? Fill this out, and write your name on this little slip of paper—we’re having a drawing at the end.” She handed me a clipboard with an information sheet asking for my name, address, phone number, and other identifying information. I nodded, and hesitated with the pen in my hand. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I didn’t want them to know where I live, but I didn’t have a contingency plan either. How do I fill this out incorrectly without drawing attention to myself? I wrote down my name as Cj H. and gave them an address that was an amalgamation of several places I had actually lived—a zip code from here, a street from there, but nothing that would actually get them to any of my former doorsteps—and handed over the form. Quickly, I shuffled my way inside and found a seat near the exit, but not conspicuously so. I wanted the last seat, the one right by the door, but I had already been acting suspicious and I didn’t want to alarm anyone for any reason. I hate confrontations.

Safely in my seat, I realized that the room wasn’t full and that the sermon wasn’t starting. I had arrived right on time, as always, but given that we weren’t going to begin, I needed to find something to do. There were no bibles around, or hymnals or anything of the sort, so I pulled out my ipod and opened an app called 10 Books That Changed the World. It has the bible in it, and I figured that if I looked engrossed, people wouldn’t bother me. If they did bother me, I could just tell them I was reading the bible, and that’d be that. It worked and I was left in peace.

Fifteen minutes later, a man in a suede leather jacket took to the lectern to begin the proceedings. He offered a brief introduction and then a prayer before ceding the floor to a musician who played us a song on an acoustic guitar. It was all the usual faire: Jesus, bless us; I’m singing to you Jesus, change my heart so I can be like you because you’re so awesome. Then, finally, Otavio took the stage.

I knew it was him even without the introduction because I’d seen his picture on the flier. In fact, upon seeing that picture Gina remarked that he looked slimy. Something about him seemed downright creepy, like the sweaty, suited preachers of megachurches who remind you that you worship God best when you put money in their coffers. In person, he seemed a lot cleaner, a little less shiny, and a little less creepy. Well, at least he seemed that way until he opened his mouth.

After another brief prayer, one that exalted Jesus more than any other I’ve ever heard, he showed us a short, well-produced video clip. It was one where the actors didn’t talk, but let their action speak for them. In between scenes, there were silent-film-era text pages that played out the plot.

Once, there was a man who had a child, declared the first one.

Then:

The child loved everything, but he especially loved trains.

At this point, I know exactly where this story is going. They’re making a play on the old thought experiment where they will ultimately ask: do you divert the train and kill one man or let it continue on to kill some larger number? Their particular scene is set thusly: there’s a train full of wicked, depressed, terrible people, but “the man’s son” is knocked unconscious and left lying on the tracks. He can allow the train to fall into an icy river (killing the passengers) and save his boy, or divert the train, kill the boy (whom he loves ever-so-much), and save the train. But that train is full of sinners! They’re all evil, and bad, and who would do that? Who would sacrifice his own child?

This experiment, in its classical representation, is designed to fuck your brain. It’s supposed to make your higher thought processes fight with your lower ones, to get you to fight logic with emotion, and to see whether or not you, as a human being, are an animal or a man. In this representation, it’s designed to make you feel guilty. Really guilty. It’s designed to remind you that Jesus Christ (the child on the tracks) died for your sins while his father was tormented. Let’s just ignore that God set those rules, making him the supreme asshole in the land for now.

As we watch the scene, we see the man who threw the switch, the one who sacrificed his son, sobbing as the train rolls by. He’s tormented and angry. The message is simple: when you deny Jesus, you’re making God feel like this guy, the one who sacrificed everything for you, you despicable sinner. By contrast, the final scene shows the distraught man bumping into one of the train’s passengers years later, walking hand in hand with a small boy that can (and should) be assumed to be her child. He smiles, cries again, and throws himself back to look up at the sky, his arms raised to the heavens. The camera quickly pans to the clouds, and you’re left with a swelling of Christian pride.

Unless you realize that this is rank manipulation. In which case, you’re me, and you want to punch Otavio in the face. I knew that this was going to be in-group bullshit, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad. In rhetoric, we’d call this the logical fallacy of poisoning the well—if you don’t believe in Jesus, if you don’t follow his every word, you’re kicking God in the balls every minute of every day. You are a terrible person, now let’s have a conversation about the merits of evidence on the subject.

Otavio delivers his address: “Today, we’re discussing the topic Jesus: Fact or Fiction?”

Hm, I wonder which way he’s going to go on this question? I laugh under my breath, choosing I smile and nod at his every assertion. I’m one step away from calling out “AMEN!” like the rest of the audience in order to keep myself occupied. If I didn’t play it off this way, I would burst a blood vessel or bite through my tongue. I’m already breaking my jaw chewing on a stale piece of gum, grinding my teeth through the rubbery mass. I can feel the coming root canals already. I’m angry, and breathing deeply to keep my self-control. This is the kind of back-room speaking that preachers are so fond of, where they know nobody is going to stand up and take a position against them. This is how a group, without any intervention of real logic, builds upon its flawed ideology in dangerous ways, where they amass the nerve to step out onto the streets and accost those of us who live with a modicum of respect for the way things really are.

Today, Otavio is going to prove to us that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.

To begin, Otavio starts with questions. This is the preacher/teacher dichotomy in action—he’s giving us a lesson. Behind him, there is a projector with short, cheesy, fifteen second-looped, computer-generated animations running through the words, images, and other assorted paraphernalia of Christian belief: a bible opening, clouds parting to reveal a divine light. It’d all be laughable if these people didn’t take their beliefs to the streets, but sitting there, in old-fashioned metal chairs uncomfortably upholstered with gray vinyl, my jaw aches from the incessant clenching.

At first, I’m afraid to take notes. I’ve been suspicious, offered them a faulty address, and refused to give my last name. I feel like there’s someone looking over my shoulder or standing nearby, but when I look, nobody is there. I realize that I’m uneasy unto paranoia, nauseous from anxiety. Many of the men here are dressed in their gangster attire—the fancy, oddly colored suits or baggy tracksuits—and I feel intimidated. They remind me of Shug Knight if he were to give up rap and go to Jesus, and I have no desire to deal with them. It was too dark to take notes during the film clip, but now that the lights are up, my notebook is open. I need to get all of this down.

He already began with a fallacy—poisoning the well—and now he dives headlong into another. Otavio has already shown us how selfish we are (and how great God is), but now he sets up a straw man. “Now, Dan Brown wrote this book called the DaVinci Code and he claims that it is historical fiction. That is, that it’s fiction, but that all of the details about the bible, Jesus, and all of that can be proven.”

I start to write “Are you fucking kidding me?” in my notebook, but scratch it out. Dan Brown? He’s the Godless heathen you’re going to focus your rage on? I scrawl a quick abbreviation: D.B.?

“Now,” he loves this interjection, “Dan Brown says that the bible wasn’t compiled,” he points emphatically at the screen, bobbing up and down, his hip hop roots jiggling with his plump cheeks, “until 325 AD.” He shakes his head, “But that’s wrong, and I’ll show you how.”

He lists books, philosophers, and other thinkers from history who mention the Old Testament long before Dan Brown’s given date. “You see, the bible was around,” he says. “How else would all of these people know about it?” He’s cherry-picked his information well, offering only the authors who support his limited worldview and omitting the fact that there were hundreds of versions of the gospels, all competing with one another before the official Council of Nicea (the people Dan Brown was referring to with his date) decided what did and didn’t make the cut. Literally, our current idea of what “the bible” is didn’t exist back then—this is why the Gospel of Judas isn’t in the Saint James version, and it’s also the reason why Otavio doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But the audience doesn’t care—they’re sucking down his every word.

“Now, Dan Brown also mentions that the council had a vote as to whether Jesus was divine or not, and that it was quote ‘a close vote.’” When he smiles, he oozes something akin to charm. It’s working on the audience, but it’s making me ill. “Now, let’s talk about that vote. It was 316 to 2 in favor of Jesus’ divinity.” He waits a beat to let it sink in, “Now, I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem like a close vote to me.” They chuckle. He then reads the rest of his slide, damning himself and his own evidence: those two people who said no, they were, according to his own reference, exiled from the empire. I wonder if there was any other sort of coercion from a dictatorial theocracy? Oh well, testimony derived from torture, threats, and physical violence is always admitted in respectable circles of conversation. Oh, and these Christian scholars are surely the people to listen to 325 years after Jesus died. They know exactly how divine he was, right? It makes perfect sense to me.

Even if we don’t go with that explanation, however, he has another one. It’s in flowchart form (note: the corporate world called, they want their shitty convention back). At the top, your two options: Jesus is God, or he’s not. From that flow the age-old options, establishing a false tautology of such staggering nonsensicality that it literally boggles my mind. On the no side: he was either a lunatic, or a liar (note: the tautology comes from the fact that he could have 1: not existed, 2: had his image perverted over thousands of years, 3: been a mixture of both, 4: been coerced into doing the things he did 5: etc). “Now, even an Atheist would agree that Jesus was a good man.” I cringe. Having seen Otavio and his ilk, I don’t have much respect left for Jesus anymore: based on his teachings, more people have been caused to suffer and die than all of the victims of the holocaust. But yeah, according to Mister O’s definition, Jesus was a pretty good man. The assumption is that if you believe otherwise, you’re obviously insane yourself—worse than even an atheist. Thus the one-two punch of well-poisoning and false tautology delivers us to his next question:

“Now, would a good man lie?” The audience is quiet, except for a few voices who call out, “no,” from the back of the room. “Now would a good man lie?” he repeats, and the audience chimes in with a slightly healthier: “no.” “So that only leaves us with two options: he was crazy, or he was the Son of God.”

From here, he digs in for the long haul and addresses the best evidence he has: the bible. The audience, ever the happy in-group, eats it up. When he offers a bible verse, he makes sure that everyone has turned to the page, asking, “are we all there?” repeatedly before he reads the words on the page. Accordingly, they diligently turn to the page and read along as best they can as Otavio slows and quickens his pace to fit the timbre of his current. Methodical. Reading. So that, he can, emphasize. THIS. Particular. Phrase. Sometimes, Otavio cuts his own reading short in the middle of the verse and asks the congregation to finish the phrase. “Jesus came to earth for what? That’s right, for your sins.” He sure knows how to move a crowd, even one as predominantly white, aged, and boring as this one.

Insanity is no laughing matter. When people talk to God nowadays, we call them crazy (unless they’re the President, in which case we let them start a war in the Middle East. Or, I suppose, if they’re the governor of Alaska, we let them get on the fast track toward the presidency. Or we give them money even as they tell us that Haiti deserves the devastation that the recent earthquake wreaked upon them. Or…) But Otavio dismisses it out of hand. Jesus wasn’t crazy, this I know, for the bible tells me so. His argument boils down to this: with how many people speak so well of Jesus, how could he have been crazy? The audience has no answer, though I do: it’s called being a psychopath. I grind that answer into my gum and continue to furiously scribble my notes.

He moves on, using the bible to prove the bible, which is a special type of rhetorical failure known as circular logic. He has the audience flip all through their bibles, back to the Old Testament, then ahead to the New, in search of all of the different prophecies that came true. His list goes thusly:

1) His Birth—in the OLD TESTAMENT, it says he’ll be born in Bethlehem. And lo and behold, it happens!
2) His Miraculous Birth—he’s not being redundant, now we’re talking about a woman who never had sex having a baby! Let’s ignore the fact that the idea of a virgin birth was stolen from hundreds of other traditions that had existed for hundreds of years—the Old Testament said she would have a baby without having sex and that happened. Who needs more proof than that? (Let’s just say that I’ve met a lot of sluts who’d like to claim their pregnancy was the result of a miracle rather than reveal their indiscretions on Maury Povich.)
3) His Betrayal—in Psalms, it said he’d be betrayed by his friend, and in Mark, Judas plays the role! Wow.
4) Betrayal Price—in the Old Testament, it says he’ll be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, and in the New Testament, it happens! How could it that be if he weren’t the Messiah? Well, maybe the people who paid the price read the Old Testament—Otavio just proved it existed—or more logically, maybe someone fudged the numbers. Welcome to humanity, we fix things that are inconsistent with our worldview, especially when it helps us to feel entitled. But no, really, that’s some good proof.
5) Beating and Abuse—he faced some terrible things, and it was all for us. He said he’d be beaten, and lo, Jesus was thoroughly flogged.
6) His Pierced Hands and Feet—crucifixion didn’t even exist when the Old Testament was written, and yet, God told them way back then that he would die with his hands and feet pierced, which totally happened! Skipping the obvious ex-post-facto corrections that were undoubtedly made to the various texts, this one is still my favorite. It’s physically impossible to crucify someone through their hands—they rip apart, the victim falls off the cross, then you try again, this time putting the nail through their wrists. The Romans had been at this crucifixion game for a while, and there’s no way in hell they put nails in his hands. Don’t tell me the shepherds who wrote the Old Testament didn’t have a word for wrist…
7) He Was Numbered with his Transgressors—holy crap, Jesus was on a cross between a pair of thieves! How could they have predicted that Jesus would be killed like a common criminal? I’m not even going to get into how many good people died like common criminals (and amongst them) throughout history. Besides, when you acted out against an ancient government, be it through violence, rabble-rousing, theft, or subterfuge, you died. Period. That was hard to predict.
8 ) They Cast lots for his Garments—aren’t we scraping the bottom of the barrel now? The people who killed Jesus cast lots for his garments—they drew straws to see who got to keep them—and this was predicted in the Old Testament. “Now, how could those men have known to do that? They didn’t know they were fulfilling prophecy,” Otavio declares. Well, they sure as hell knew the Old Testament when they wrote the New Testament, and the simplest answer is often the best—they wrote the new one to reflect the old one.
9) Words on the Cross—God said that he’d say “Why have you forsaken me?” and lookie there, he did. On a personal note: I’ve been quoting Otavio a lot haven’t I? Do you think those are all direct quotes? Do you think I remember every word he spat out? That was two days ago and I had paper to take notes on. Yeah, how well do the people wrote the New Testament hundreds of years after his death know what Jesus really said?

He ends the list on a somber note: “and why do you think he went through that much pain?” His voice is low, and he’s making eye contact with everyone he can, including me. I narrow my brow and nod understandingly, all but bumping my fist on my chest in solidarity. Preach on, I declare with my body language, even as my teeth crack in my head. “He went through it for us.”

A-fucking-men.

The list was long and tedious, and my eyes are scanning the walls for an easy exit. This is worse than nonsense, it’s backwards, illogical, and weak. Before he even began, he fatally undermined his case by stating that the Old Testament had been around, leading to the assumption that any of the details he listed could have been adapted from reality to fit the bill of what had already been prophesied. More than that, he brought up a professor of statistics from a university in Florida who said that the probability of Jesus fulfilling the prophesies was some astronomical number—something like one in 1-with-forty zeroes-behind-it. “Does anybody know what to call that number? I don’t.” No, I wouldn’t assume that you did, Mister O.

Though he failed to address any of his personal contradictions as he went, he moves on to talk about another list—one for the skeptics. The slide pulls up, a stark, brownish dust color with crosses casting long shadows at the bottom. Words appear at the top: Events Beyond Human Control.

1) Place of his birth
2) Manner of his birth
3) His Betrayal
4) Events surrounding his death

There’s no sense in undermining each of these: his proof was flimsier than a corrugated Pogrum shack in a hurricane. Each of these things was caused by human control: he was born in Bethlehem because his parents went to pay their taxes. He was born to a virgin because she was a liar—she slept with someone, and Joseph (the only real hero here) kept her from getting stoned to death for her indiscretion. Jesus was betrayed, obviously enough, by a human. Fancy that—it wasn’t a donkey or a dog or a horse or a camel or a chicken or even a talkative shrub—it was a human being!

When he gets to his final bullet point, it’s obvious that he’s winding down. His tone has changed, he’s quieter and more deliberate. He stops halting his speech to let his brain catch up with the words shooting out of his mouth and takes deeper, more thoughtful breaths. “Jesus was the Son of God,” he says, jettisoning the last remnants of his false impartiality. “He coulda called down 10,000 angels to save him off of that cross,” he narrows his gaze, tearfully introspective, “but he couldn’t have saved himself and saved us, too.”

“Amen,” the crowd reverently returns.

After briefly gathering himself, he continues: “But none of this matters without the resurrection.” On the screen, a cheesy (but not terribly done) computer generated animation shows a round rock rolling out of the way of a tomb, as a blinding light blasts out of the hole. “Now, how do we know this was true? Well, in the bible,” he names a verse and instructs them to turn to it, “they say that Mary Magdalene saw him rise. Now, why does that matter?”

He swaggers to the other side of the podium and continues: “Well, to understand that, you need to know a little something about the way society worked back then. You see, a woman’s testimony didn’t count back then.” He takes a breath, “now, I’ma repeat that: a woman’s testimony, didn’t count.” As with every repetition, someone makes a soft “mhm” from the back of the room. “Now, why would the people who wrote the bible rely on the testimony of a woman?” he implores. “The stuff they were saying could get them killed, and they were willing to give their lives based on the testimony of a woman. Why would they do that?” The audience swallows it down with fervor—they’ve learned something about history that proves their biases, how glorious for them. But I consider the question thoroughly begged, and am compelled to offer a very simple answer: why would the Heaven’s Gate cult members have swilled poison and laid down to die with plastic bags over their heads? Crazy people are crazy people, Otavio. You, of all people, should understand this: whether it’s a comet drifting by or the word of grief-crazy ex-whore, you’ll take whatever you want to be a sign if you’re a true believer. My heart wants out of my chest, but it’s almost over.

He goes on: “We still haven’t found Jesus’ body. Why not?” he glances around again. “Because he’s still alive.” Then he gets offensive: “Go to Muhammad’s tomb—what will you find? Muhammad. Buddha’s tomb? Yep, you’ll find Buddha. Same with Confucius—these were all great thinkers, but none of them were the Son of God. Jesus’ tomb is empty because he is still alive.” Or his tomb was looted by grave robbers. Or he wasn’t buried there at all, and it’s as farcical to believe so as to believe in the shroud of Turin or any of the millions of splinters supposedly taken from the cross on which Jesus supposedly died. Supposedly.

At this point, ushers are milling about the aisles, handing out little cards. They have little statements beside checkmark ready boxes and a place for the adherent to write down all of their information once again. You know you’re visiting a cult when they try to mine your personal info twice in one night. Otavio wraps things up with what we in corporate America call a hard sell:

“Tonight, maybe someone here isn’t sure how to pay their bills. Maybe someone here has no job security. Now, I can’t help you with that, but I know someone who can. Maybe someone here tonight is struggling with addiction,” have you grasped the pattern yet? “Now, I can’t help you with that, but I know someone who can.”

Helpful or not, Otavio is still in charge, and he feels compelled to review the card with us, lest we be too dense to decipher it ourselves:

“Jesus came to help us when we don’t have hope or security. Now, if you have any questions, I want you to check this little box on the card and give us your information so we can get in touch with you.” He goes through each box one at a time. “If you gave your heart to Jesus tonight or you want help doing that, I want you to check that box right there.” I tune him out now because I just can’t take it. I’m staring at the card in my hand, wondering what I should do. I want to write, “leave me alone, forget I was ever here,” but I don’t. Instead, I tuck it in my book and gather my things to leave. I can’t take another minute of this.

“Let us pray.” I never stand when they’re praying—that’s just rude—so I remain seated and listen as Otavio begs God to help us in the world outside, to help us in our struggles to see his son for what he truly is. As the congregation echoes his faint “amen,” I stand to leave. I know where I entered, and I know where I’m going out, but as I make it to the door, I realize that there’s a bouncer in front it. He’s huge—half a foot taller and quite a few inches broader at the shoulder than I am—and he’s blocking my path. There are two doors here, one of which he is guarding and the other of which has that happy little greeting table behind it. Though the service is over, they’ve begun the prize drawing and I am the only person attempting to leave. There is no trickle of people hoping to beat the rush to the parking lot—it’s just me, the bouncer, and a table.

Smiling, I push through the door with the table behind it, slamming the metal door into the plastic table and shoving it out of the way. It makes a terrible noise, but I’m over it—did they seriously stand a guy in front of the door to keep people from leaving early? I hustle to my car (intentionally parked half a block away from the church) and drive home. I need a shower, a stiff drink, and someone to vent to.
**

I’ve tried to be nice, and I’ve tried to meet believers halfway, but sometimes, I have to take the kiddy gloves off and treat adults like adults. If Christians want to bring rational thought into the debate—a proof-based system of why they believe what they believe—they need to go for it full-force. Don’t just read the bible, read history. Don’t just read history, seek out answers, and not just the easy ones. Fight your prejudices, learn from your mistakes: science is only science, proof is only proof, if you attempt to disprove yourself as well. That’s how we progress as a species.

Though these people were only discussing whether or not Jesus was the Son of God, this is only the beginning. From here, they will build their theories of the apocalypse (this Friday, when they discuss The Time of the End), and expand their various bigotries and irrational responses. If it’s in the bible, it’s true—fags are sinners, we can kill the infidels, burn witches at the stake, oppress and enslave if it fits our whim. Don’t believe me? Here’s a tip for the Christians who might be reading this: we godless heathens, the Atheists, the Humanists, the Secularists, the “Socialists,” the Agnostics, the infidels, the unbelievers—whatever you want to call us—we don’t have a book that condones any of these atrocious behaviors. You do. Many of us also go out of our way to interact with people who hold opposing viewpoints, to learn from what’s going on around us rather than stew in our own in-group ideology.

Who’s really the big bad wolf here?

Christmas Eve Mass

Christmas Eve is a time for togetherness. Normally, I spend the evening with my family, open a single gift, and enjoy a fairly standard dinner before we all head off to wrap our last minute gifts. This year, however, was different. This past Christmas was the first time I went to a Midnight Mass.

…

Outside the night is crisp and cold. My wife and I, dressed in our Sunday best, watch our breath rise before us as we climb into the car. All gods aside, there’s something magical about Christmas Eve. Outside the house, there’s an unparalleled silence on the streets, though many of the windows glow with light. Inside, families are reuniting to reenact the traditions of years gone by as we set out to break with all of ours.

My wife, Gina, is apprehensive about our excursion, and has tried more than once to talk me out of it. It’s getting late, and she doesn’t feel well. It’s cold outside, and it’d be nicer to just spend the evening watching a DVD. Her cheeks are pink and her nose a tad rosy, but we’ve already made our decision. Yesterday, we picked a church and a time. Today, we’re going.

The thought does cross my mind, that I should let her stay home with the dog, to sleep and prepare herself for the family onslaught tomorrow, but I can’t. This is something I can’t do alone, and I need her with me. This time, it’s more than misery needing company: we’re going to a Catholic Mass, and I have no idea what I’m doing.

Unlike the Lutherans who offer a handy guide, or the High Street Community church whose services required no rehearsal, the Catholics have been training for this moment since birth. Gina, the granddaughter of Catholics and a former Catholic schoolgirl, has what I need to remain inconspicuous—a reflexive knowledge of the ins and outs, or rather, the ups and downs, of a Catholic service. She wasn’t raised in the church, but she went on occasion (to appease Gramma or the Nuns) and has just enough experience to get me through.

Our resolution thoroughly made, we drive our way through the coastal streets. St. Joseph’s is only a few blocks from our new house, though I’ve never driven past it. It’s toward the upscale part of town, where Christmas lights illuminate the small homes along the seashore, and where the businesses—also dangerously close to the beach—are awash with the holiday spirit, even as they are deserted. We’ve only recently moved here, to a trailer park on the other side of the shops, but we’ve visited rather often. Still, the beauty of the clear cold night is astonishing. By the time midnight strikes, we’re usually tucked in bed happily half-asleep, the way the rest of the town seems to be at this very moment.

“I wonder where it is,” I say, slowly turning through the more rural corners.

“I think that might be it,” my Gina replies half-sarcastically as the church comes into view.

Just across the train-tracks and past the park, the empty streets have suddenly become full. Cars line the road here, as the church lot has been filled to capacity. Across the street, the middle school parking lot has adopted the overflow, and people are carefully traversing the crosswalk that spans the gap.

We pull in between a pair of Subaru station wagons and squeeze out of the car. From here, the church is bright and shiny, a well-lit beacon in the dark night sky. There are the typical signs and shrubbery, and the architecture is stark and imposing, even as it is warm and inviting. It’s an angular building with large wooden doors that whisper of antiquity even in the presence of a fresh paint job. People mill about, just outside and in the foyer, some alone in quiet repose, others hugging and greeting each other before recoiling into jittery, wintry hand-rubbing. By non-Californian standards, it’s not cold at all, but to us, this is almost as bad as it gets.

We walk arm in arm to the door, and exchange pleasantries with the greeter. She’s a cute 30-something, well-dressed in a scarf and hat. I get the impression that Gina has a thing for her leather boots, but the observation goes unspoken.

As we pass her by, Gina leans across me to ask, “aren’t you cold?”

“Oh no,” she assures us, her hands still clenched together, “I’m doing just fine, thanks!” Her smile is warm in a way that the other churchgoers don’t match, and my other visits—on random summer Sundays—are already put to shame. This is someone who feels the occasion.

We smile back as we brush past her and into the foyer. For some reason, it feels as if we’ve breezed in too easily, too quickly for the hallowed ground before us. Once again, I feel like I’m in a foreign land, though that impression quickly fades.

Here, just out of the reach of the cold, families are straightening each other’s ties and chatting before the service. There are decorations, too: evergreen sprigs, wreaths and garlands, even the occasional glass globe ornament. It’s festive, but we don’t hang around, anxious as we are to find a seat before they’re all gone.

I nudge Gina, my veteran, and tell her to take the lead. She’s been here before, once or twice a long time ago, back before her grandmother had dementia, when she held real sway in the family. Gina’s face is suddenly stern as she wrestles with her past, but she leads on. “It’s been a while, Hon.”

She drags me through a tight passage between two groups, where one conversation circle has backed itself up against another, deeper into the building. There’s a small, low and suffocating hallway before us that opens up into the vaulted chapel, and we walk briskly toward the first available seat.

One of my personal rules is not to take the good seats from the true believers, and this night we end up in a seat that’s usually reserved for the ushers. Of course, they’ve been displaced to folding chairs behind us because of the influx of holiday Christians, but I still can’t help but feel a little guilty. Maybe I am a good Catholic after all.

The room slopes gently downward to make room for the ten or so rows of pews, and stretches out in a semicircle to accommodate six or so columns. With so much to see, I forget about my penchant for obsessively counting and simply stare. Toward the front, there is an altar with tall, towering candles, behind which there is what appears to be a house: a structure whose roof can be clearly seen, and whose open adobe structure is reminiscent of old New Mexican architecture. It has windows and plant life inside and curtains hanging from the front.

Rising up above the roof of the house is a stained glass window of Jesus Christ, triumphant and shining in a clear blue sky. It’s a massive construction that towers three stories above us and whose panels are big enough to drive a small car through. A weak light illuminates it from behind, causing his presence to dwarf all that is before him. I imagine what it must look like in direct sunlight, though I’m not sure it ever receives it, and remember why these places make such grand impressions.

The light fixtures above us are in the shape of crosses and they dangle twenty feet beneath the vaulted ceilings to project a pale light down upon the faithful. The pews are standard upholstered wood, complete with the little cubbies for hymnbooks and bibles and there are leather wrapped kneelers waiting in their full and upright position until their time arrives. All in all, the room is designed to present an old world feel—even the air conditioning ducts have been painted the same milk chocolate brown as the ceiling to hide them.

Toward the front of the room, there is a small band (guitars, violin, piano) and a caroling-sized choir harmoniously singing their way through the hymnal. The arrangement reminds me of Peter, Paul, and Mary, so soft and relaxed. They sing the usual Christmas faire, including all of the songs I’ve ever heard that refer to babies being born in Bethlehem. They look like they’ve been there a while, and more than one set of eyelids look a little heavy.

At midnight, the service begins in earnest. All of the singing and brotherhood has been but a prelude to this, the parade-laden, smoke-filled lineup of the usual suspects. But still, there’s a different feel to the place that I can’t quite put my finger on.

The first parade, four people large, is quick and painless. There is a woman with a large, smoking censer, and an African-American altar boy in white robes carrying a massive crucifix, as well as a few others. I lose track between this and the several other mini-marches which objects are brought down, but my list includes a pair of candles, and another censer during the trip that delivers Eucharist. It really is something to watch, and, though I know it’s old hat to everyone else in the room, my eyes light up at the pageantry of it all. The priest isn’t quite as well dressed as Pastor Rick, but he’s clean cut and cheerful in a way that’s almost perky as he takes the stage for the first time.

“This is my favorite time of year,” he begins, “because I get to be the first person to wish you a Merry Christmas.” His long white sleeves dangle from his wrists and he nods a knowing smile. His hand movements seem something straight from a Broadway production—open palm, sweeping gestures that accentuate the flow of his robes. He’s well-kept in a Hollywood sort of way, and from the back of the room, he looks as if he could pass for 30, though my best estimation puts him somewhere nearer his forties. More than any other religious leader I’ve met yet, he seems in control. This isn’t a loose congregation of people who like to sing songs on Sunday morning—this is a Catholic priest, and he speaks for god.

The clock has struck midnight, and I feel happily transported, if a bit stuck, on the other side of the rabbit hole. For the first time, I feel strange taking notes, and, five minutes past the introductory prayer, I’ve put them away for good. This church isn’t about the particulars, it’s about the sense of it—the way the shadows fall on the corners of the room, the way people raise their voices or whisper their platitudes. Tonight is a special night.

The priest, a man whose name I do not know (and who never introduces himself), leads the congregation in prayer as the pianist twinkles the keys behind him. He thanks god for his love and the like, then punctuates it all with a signal phrase that sets the audience to retort with a prepared response. I look to Gina for guidance, but despite her whispered promptings, I still can’t remember what I’m supposed to say. Standing with the other members, their hands outstretched with their palms facing up, I simply cross my hands and watch the dance.

Following the prayer, there is another hymn—one of the few I still remember from my days in church. Noel, Noel, the angels did say… mumble mumble mumble. Okay, so maybe I don’t know it, I realize, but the words are projected on a screen at the front of the room, so I follow along. The choir simultaneously sets the melody and deviates from it, showing the congregation their proper level of drone before taking off in flights of fancy toward harder notes and more impressive harmonies, and before I know it, the song is done.

Or, at least the verses I know are done. Glancing quickly over at Gina, I see her mouth still diligently singing the words as her eyebrows reflect her inner confusion. The verses keep coming, beyond the basics of Jesus’ birth to include stars stopping in the sky and staying there all day. I suppose I’ve only been exposed to the more secular versions in recent years, but the implicit belief in miracles reminds me of where I am—the virgin birth is only the start of what Catholics believe. These are the people who have the Pope.

After the song, there are more parades and various readings from the bible, but I begin to tune out. It’s getting late, and the smoke is going to my head. I’m struck by images more than words—something that doesn’t often happen to me—as people walk up and down the center aisle holding the various accoutrements of a Catholic performance. My favorite, by far, is the ornate, colorful Bible, turned to the page from which the priest will read, that is carefully carried down the hill. The man, a little less photogenic than most of the others who will pass this way, takes a couple of steps, then stops to show the page. Even from this distance, I can see the calligraphy of the writing. It looks old in the way that instills a sense of awe in the believer, and I begin to wonder how much I would have to pay to see such a performance if it were a play.

But this is all a prelude. The parades, the various short prayers, the standing up and sitting down, and standing up and sitting down (it happens a lot): to me, they’re nothing more than a buildup for when the priest himself takes the stage in earnest to deliver his sermon. Three churches into my project and already I begin to grasp the pattern, to anxiously await the show at center stage. When it comes, I am not disappointed.

As another hymn draws to a close, the priest takes center stage. He has one of those tiny, flesh colored microphones, the ones that hang from your ear and point toward your mouth. From our nosebleed seats I can barely see it, and the effect of his voice coming over the PA is eerily godlike. He’s smiling again, a Guy Smiley kind of smile, bit and cheerful as he begins his story.

“I am not a shopper,” he says, making eye contact with as many parishioners as possible, “but one day I got this idea into my head that I needed some new pots and pans. I don’t know why—I don’t even cook, but I decided that I needed them, so I set to watching the sales and cutting out coupons.” Like all priests, it was hard to see where he was going with this. There was no mention of Jesus, the saints, or even impregnated virgins: this was a story about shopping.

“So one day, I decide I’ve found what I want—a nice new set of Cuisinart pots and pans from Macy’s.” He makes little flourishes with his hands, nodding head gestures—he’s a showman, and his shtick is working. The audience chuckles on cue and hangs on his every word. “And I go into the store, find my pots and pans, and take them to the checkout. I have my coupon, and there’s a sale going on—it’s perfect.”

His eyes light up, “but it gets better.” I have trouble not laughing. These tangents always get me, how the leadership goes off the deep end on a story before coming back. It’s the most entertaining part of the night. “How does it get better, you ask? There was a free gift.”

“A free gift. Just think about that for a second. How nice is it to get a free gift?” he nods knowingly to the front row. “I was already getting a deal, but now I was going to get a free gift, too!”

“What was my free gift, you might ask? It was a Cuisinart Quick Prep Hand Mixer.” His excitement now has the rest of the church chuckling under its breath. He’s obviously attached to this item in a way that borders on the fetishistic. “This thing is amazing. If you want to make a milkshake, you just put your ice cream and your milk in the cup and vvvvvvvv it’s a milkshake.” He mimes holding this magical device and the noise that it makes while in use. “If you want mashed potatoes, you just put a potato in a cup and vvvvvvv it’s mashed potatoes.” He repeats the name of the gift to comic effect, giving its full name every time. The Quick Prep Hand Mixer. The Quick Prep Hand Mixer. He plays it up, how amazing it is and all of the things it can do.

And then there’s the turn. His method is common to all storytellers, but it’s killing in this room: “There’s just one problem.” He walks to the front row and someone hands him a tall, rectangular box. “I never used it.”

He opens it to reveal the shrinkwrapped parts. “It’s an amazing thing. It does everything, but here it is, ten years later, still in its original box. I haven’t even opened it until now.” The audience lets out a hearty laugh, and the priest reveals his hand.

“This Cuisinart Quick Prep Hand Mixer is a lot like another gift that we don’t use enough: the gift of Jesus.” I always marvel at the way these things come back to God, how fishing or puzzle pieces, music or even a stubbed toe becomes a miraculous parallel. This, however, is a new one.

“We all know we have him, but how many of us really use him?” He’s more solemn now, and his smile is subdued. “Think about that for a moment.” He makes a sideways glance across the room, toward a corner where a statue of a saint stands in a lit alcove. I can’t name the saint, of course, but as he scans back across the room, he nods constantly.

“You can be a good person, you can be gracious and kind and giving. You can do everything right…”

Comically, he’s still clutching the Cuisinart Quick Prep Hand Mixer to his chest as he delivers the punchline: “But without Jesus, you have nothing.”

Gina and I simultaneously recoil. Even in our disbelief, we appreciate qualities like kindness, graciousness and love, but this is what they truly believe: without Jesus, we’re nothing. Without this belief, we might as well be murderers and terrorists. Maybe this is where they get the idea that, without God, we would all devolve into cavemen with firearms, raping and pillaging our way through good God-fearing neighborhoods.

He’s a nice guy, and better than that, he’s got a flair for the dramatic, but Gina and I are done. He ends his speech on this note, a downer for us, but a solemn boost of confidence for the flock, and it’s time for donations. Older men, nearly all missing vast expanses of hair and wearing their best suits, wander around with baskets on the end of long dowels, sliding them in between the pews for people to toss in their offerings. Later, Gina would tell me that the man in charge of our section was a little pushy with his basket and returned time and again to give us the eyes. I didn’t notice—I tend to be a little oblivious of social cues I don’t need to pay attention to. After all, I have no reason to give to a church, especially one that lists its financial figures online at close to a $200,000 gross for the year to date. (They’re short of their budget, but do they really need $200,000?)

As the services recommence, we watch the communion make its way to the front of the room, carried in the usual parade with smoke. The priest rises and sings what I understand to be the standard Catholic prayers. It’s really quite beautiful, and he does his best to put some rhythm to words that were probably only meant to be spoken. As the audience returns its final amen, I tug on Gina’s shoulder.

It’s Christmas Eve, and we’ve had a long day. She’s half asleep in her seat, and we’re both feeling a bit slighted by the Jesus remark. It’s as if the fun and games are over, and I decide to break one of my own commandments: we shalt leave early tonight.

There’s not much left in the services anyway, I figure. After the sacrament, there are the tedious community announcements; then the slow march from the chapel and the traffic jam out front. We stoop over as we walk out, and quicken our pace the closer we get to the door. We haven’t caused much of a scene, but we’re happy to be gone.

Back across the street, we slam the doors to the car. The cold air, paired with the awkwardness of having just done something so out of character, is invigorating. For me, it was just another exercise, but for Gina, it was something more.

She isn’t a nonbeliever, at least, not in the same way that I am. She has a mind of her own, and that’s her biggest gripe with the church. She’s in favor of all things liberal—gay marriage chief among them—and is just as disturbed as I am at the atrocities that churches regularly get away with. But tradition pulls hard, and she feels odd inside. The night has dredged up some deeper feelings, and that sense of longing that I felt during my first visit with the Lutherans.

Back at home, the excitement eventually subsides. For the first time in months, I’m the first to fall asleep.

Lutherans

Waking up at 7 in the morning to go to church is hard. I remember a time when I believed in salvation, the power of the sacrament and all of that but even then it was difficult to drag myself through those reverent doors. Now, as an Atheist, it is even harder.

My first church in this new adventure is a Lutheran one. I’ve never really thought much about the different denominations, but I respect the roots of the Lutheran sect. If you have to believe in something, you might as well believe in a reformist notion, one that was borne of a man who had the courage to stand up and nail his ideas to the door of the establishment.

But today, it’s just a church. I don’t know the particular reforms or the exact words of that firebrand who separated the flock. All I know is it’s 8 in the morning and I’m standing outside of a rather old building wondering which way to turn. I had done some research, taken a few photos and looked around, but I still didn’t know exactly where the services were to be held. To my right, there are stained glass windows and big wooden doors. To my left, there are more wooden doors, and straight ahead, there is a courtyard with a fountain and more modern buildings. As it turns out, all of the churches in this area are church complexes, with many different buildings, some with the big glass doors you’d expect to see on a Wal-Mart, some decorated with the art work of small children, and still others built with stones and wood beams—the ancient look that stood to inspire Philip Larkin.

If you wander around a church long enough, someone is bound to say hello. Luckily for me, it’s the pastor of the church, a man in a white robe and glasses that would stir reverence in me if there was any left for these proceedings. He’s kindly, clean, and has a firm handshake. He introduces himself as Pastor Rick, and welcomes me warmly.

When asked my name, I answer honestly. When asked my purpose, I only reply that, “I’m looking for a church I like.” It’s the truth, though a tad evasive—I do want to like a church, it’s just not going to be easy.

Pastor Rick invites me in, but informs me that this isn’t the service that the majority of the congregants normally attend. Unfortunately for me, I have begun my journey in complete orthodoxy, free of the pageantry and pomp that makes modern religion more than the boredom of rote ritual.

Where Pastor Rick leads me reflects this fact. The room is small—so small, I didn’t even know it existed—and ten or so elder churchgoers sit awaiting his arrival. From the outside, this room looks like a storage closet, or even just a simple wall. It’s made of gray stone and has the appearance and shape of a castle parapet. Inside, there are wooden pews and tastefully upholstered folding chairs along with the odds and ends of bigger services like music stands, speakers, and the like.

There are no young faces here and as a 25 year old in a suit, I stick out like a goat amongst the sheep. Some of the men stand up to shake my hand and I slide easily into the standard chitchat that precedes any social event. Church or not, people are people, and their concerns aren’t always on the hereafter. Given that the average age in the room is well into the fifties, their choice of topics isn’t far from expected.

“I think that’s a 14 point font,” one of them remarks, discussing the large-print version of the day’s lesson, which kicks off the antiquated repartee of how many picas there are in a point, and what exactly a point looks like. I throw in my two cents, the remnants of three months spent in a print shop, and the bespectacled congregation nods their approval. Unfortunately, the conversation comes to an abrupt end when the second youngest person in the room (a matronly 40-something) replies that she lets the computer take care of that for her. The futility of knowing picas, ens, and sarifs strikes me as apropos.

Just as I begin to build rapport, Pastor Rick reintroduces himself to the room, this time more solemn and prepared for his duties. He walks quickly through the aisles, nodding and smiling at his flock. His robe is white with green accents, tied loosely with a gold cord around his waist. There’s a large medallion, reminiscent of an iron cross around his neck and it sways back and forth throughout his sermon.

Pastor Rick stands at the head of the room. He has a small stage (just one step up from the little people), and is oddly fenced off from the rest of us. At waist height, there is a handrail of sorts, though it’s too low to be of use to him. His first task is to guide us through some brief bible study and interpretation, leading us through a handout that tells us (thankfully for me) when to repeat after him and what to say. It’s marked with little C’s for “congregation” and P’s for “pastor.” I read along, channeling my teenage-self who used to repeat the “Amens” after his Mormon leadership. This is far more complicated, but the handout is, quite literally, a godsend.

Pastor Rick doesn’t have the thick drawl I’ve come to know and love from southerners like my both of my grandfathers, but there is a hint of the south in his speech and mannerisms. Once past the introductory pleasantries (if prostrating oneself in guilty shame can be called “pleasant”), he tells a brief story about jigsaw puzzles and the frustration of misplaced pieces.

“How frustrating it must be for the Lord,” he finishes, “to see his puzzle so close to completion, yet missing some pieces.” He nods reverently at us, a knowing yet melancholy smile on his lips. He implies those missing from his flock and those yet to hear the word of God are missing from the great tapestry of the Lord’s love. My presence, especially at this point in the lecture, seems most conspicuous, though not as I had anticipated—I am a newcomer, someone who has heard the call, a puzzle piece nestling into its proper place.

On average, the services are as ceremoniously tedious as expected, though the storytelling is as inspired as any campfire tale. Pastor Rick comes to life as the congregation chuckles quietly at his jokes and smiles down at their laps. At times, I feel as if I am the only one making eye contact with the man in the white robe, the only one looking these proceedings in the face.

With the Lutherans, I find little reason for mirth or ire, though I am nagged by the feeling that I have heard this all before. When the congregation speaks, it is under their breath, their tone tinged with the prostration and unworthiness that our first collective outburst reflected:

“O Lord, I stand guilty before You for I have sinned and deserve Your just and eternal condemnation. I am not innocent in Your sight, for I have failed to confess my faith before others, and have failed to do the good You command. O Lord have mercy on me. I have not loved my neighbor as myself. I have not treated others justly with compassion and kindness. I have failed to forgive my brothers and sisters in Christ. Show me your unfailing kindness for the sake of Christ, my Savior and my God. Have Mercy O Lord, have mercy.”

Paradoxically, the second time we speak together, the pamphlet insists we exclaim: “Amen, Praise God for His wondrous love!” The love whose very mention causes us to cast down our eyes and proclaim our unworthiness, whose rubric puts each and every human life beneath a piece of bread and a sip of wine.

Pastor Rick stands in his holy pen, the sunlight now filtering through the summer gloom outside and invites the congregation up to take the sacrament. Quietly, they file forward until they all surround him, their hands resting on the fencelike structure. It is only now that I recognize the leather-wrapped kneelers on the floor before them and the purpose of the handrail. No one kneels, but they do all stand and make themselves comfortable as they await their blessings.

Pastor Rick waves me forward. He had mentioned that those not wishing to partake of the sacrament could simply receive a blessing, but I’m not game for either. I wave back to him in the same manner I would at a dinner party where I was offered an unappetizing morsel, mouthing the words, “that’s okay, I’m fine.”

He smiles, ever the warm tempter, and carries about his business feeding each attendee in turn a small wafer whilst repeating, “the body of Christ,” before returning for the gore portion of the ceremony. Before offering each a sip from an ornate chalice, he reminds them that this wine is “the blood of Jesus, shed for you.”

Momentarily I remember how nice it was feeling the light of that love—the idea that someone would sacrifice so much for me—as I watch them drink from the cup.

But then I remember that I don’t believe, and that no amount of imaginary sacrifice is more important than the real sacrifices that have brought me here, alive and well, into the twenty-first century. I think of my parents and all that they did to make sure I went to college, to make sure that I was happy and healthy despite my constant sickliness as a child. I also think of the love of the small family I have just begun: one wife and one dog large. That is true warmth, free of the strings that come with a divine presence; a warmth unabashed and unashamed of the shortcomings of human reality. Even as the proceedings draw to a close, I wish I were back in my warm bed.

The sermon, though largely unobtrusive, ends on a sour note for me. As an Atheist, I am routinely accosted by the belief systems of those who think they know better for me, whose faith compels them to share their idea of eternity with me whether I care to listen or not. As a student, I see the ill-effects of religion across disciplines more varied than I care to mention, and the ignorance of this tiny room is palpable when Pastor Rick implores God in his final prayer to “open the eyes and the mouths of [his] followers, especially the soldiers overseas to spread [his] word.” For the first time, I feel compelled to speak out and remind them that the battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East is lost more often by ethnocentric intolerance than by the deeds of the military at large. More often than not, their smuggled bibles and religious rhetoric lose us precious ground with the people we must necessarily convince of our piety. This is the same intolerance they pay to me here, on our home soil, but more poisonous—our battle is one of words, theirs is one of violence.

But I bite my tongue. I am an impartial observer, and more than that, I am polite. Whether on their sacred earth or on the street, I don’t make it a habit to assault people with my beliefs or lack thereof. I am here to find common ground, but within the chapel walls, there is little to be found.

As we file out, people return to their former lives, the color returning to their cheeks as the morning air kisses them coldly. Half of the congregation seeks me out to shake my hand and introduce themselves, to offer kind conversation and turn me toward the church. While one member talks to me about where I am from, another shuffles quickly off to find me a brochure that discusses the merits of the church—their charities and beliefs, information about their pre-school—so I can be better informed.

The conversationalists are all retired and getting on in years, though some are more alert than others. The one with the brochure is worn and exhausted, his eyes clouded by his years on this earth. He speaks only of the church, and butts into a conversation mid-sentence after I tell someone about my higher education pursuits. “What are you studying?”

When I reply that I am a writer, he raises an appropriately skeptical eyebrow, but presses the subject no further. I offer that I write creative non-fiction, stories about reality, but am unwilling to offer my exact subject matter up for scrutiny. As another member continues to talk to me about my other work as a tutor and teacher, the skeptic wanders off toward the mid-morning refreshments, dragging his feet down the hill and into the inner-sanctum.

Now that the pastor and the more devout have given up on me, I am faced with a single man, who reminds me of my grandfather. He’s slightly younger, and a little balder, but I could easily imagine him golfing with my grandfather on a misty morning back in Ojai. As he talks, I find out that he was in the Navy, like my grandfather. Post-service, he pursued knowledge voraciously wherever he could find it and even today goes to the Naval Post-Graduate School nearby for continuing courses. It amazes me that someone who routinely studies for his own self-improvement (and amusement) should be so devout as to be here this morning. He doesn’t say anything about the church at all, but rather strays towards the things that he has learned and the people that he could put me in contact with. He wants me to tutor at the local Navy extension; he wants to make me money. He knows a lot of students who might be interested in my services, and he slips me his card before inviting me to coffee.

“Actually, I have something I need to get to,” I reply, not mentioning that my pressing engagement is another church. He smiles and nods, ending our conversation as warmly as any other I have ever experienced. He is kind in a way that transcends Christianity—it is truly humane.

I’m leaving because I have to get to another chapel fifteen minutes from now, but I’m also leaving because I’m tired of keeping up appearances. Outside the church in standard conversation, I am reminded that these are all just people—people with hopes, dreams, and lives. I remember that I don’t hate them, no matter what disagreements we might have, but I can’t bear the thought of having to face more questions. The service itself is pretty easy, but the deception by omission is not. I refuse to lie, and faced with the right questions, I would out myself for the godless heathen I am. Without God to bridge the gaps between us, I don’t know how much they’d like me, and that thought worries me.

With a shy wave, I make my getaway to the vast and empty parking lot as the full congregation begins to pull up along the periphery. Soon, the halls will be filled with song and the shouts of children, but for me, it remains hollow and worrisome. I write down my final notes and drive a circuitous route toward my next destination. The other church is right across the street, but I don’t want anyone knowing I’ve done both in the same day, so I take a breather at a local elementary school and wait to follow a crowd into the lot.

[Disclaimer: this visit actually occurred in September, the day before labor day to be exact.]