TITLE: Now-Cognizant-ism By Patrick McClure 02/10/09 |
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I grew up a Catholic in the fuzziest sense of the word: we went to mass on Easter and Christmas Sundays, or when somebody got married or died. Jesus was, throughout my childhood, a curse word used when hammering your thumb, or enduring some other pain that He had apparently caused. Hell - a bad word. God - prefix to damnit. It was the barest religion imaginable. My brother and I, after a fight or maybe lying to my step-dad, were required to write the ten commandments ten times. I doubt he could even list them himself, but that’ll put the fear of God in them, I’m sure he thought. My closest concept of the afterlife, no joke, was probably the movie, “All Dogs Go to Heaven”. In retrospect, I suppose it was the theology of most Americans, “All people go to Heaven” (except murderers, pedophiles, and Richard Simmons – God forbid).
At the age of eleven, I moved back to my father’s house in Missouri with my fourteen year-old brother, Brandon. Dad had recently been divorced for the second time and had “found Jesus” via Chuck Swindoll on the shoulder of I-435. “There were no accidents in God’s timing,” he would recite, over and over, “no accidents”. We jetted from KCI airport directly to church that Wednesday night, the first day of our drastically new lives. This was not the mass I had been somewhat accustomed to. This wasn’t LA Catholicism; no, this was Bible-Belt Baptist-ism. Suits and v-necks were replaced with scraggly beards, cowboy boots, and Jesus t-shirts. Skirts and sundresses became ruffly blouses and culottes. Somber, boring-as-hell priests became fiery, scary-as-hell preachers. And “A reading from Paul’s first epistle to the people of Thessalonica” became “Please open your Bibles to Judges chapter 23, verse 14”. Genuflections became alter-calls. “In the name of the father-son-and-the holy spirit” became “In Jesus’ name, Amen”. And a bored-out-of-his-mind, when’s the ‘peace be with you and also with you’ gonna happen already!’ boy became a curious little bugger in the back row of Hope Baptist Church: Pleasant Hill, Missouri. The name alone oozed smells of revival meetings and chili-supper potlucks.
Merely two nights later, I found myself at a private lakeside campground with other males from this church – the annual Father/Son Campout. Brandon and I were a new oddity - California boys, fish out of water to these hick-town church-folk. But they weren’t repulsed or threatened, they were intrigued. “So like, do you surf a lot?” and “How many movie stars do you know?” We had a million more questions for them than they did for us, let me assure you. But we toughed it out, unusual as they seemed. Sunday morning we packed up, loaded trucks, and threw trash bags in trunks to dispose of back home. I was nearing our Ford Ranger when Justin, a fifteen year-old son of my dad’s friend, pulled me aside. “Hey Patrick, I was just curious, if you for whatever reason happened to like, die tonight, not that I think it will happen, you know, but theoretically if it did, do you know where you would go for eternity?” You would have thought he was trying to sell sunglasses to a blind guy. But he seemed sincere enough, and not altogether geeky like most of the other boys. And to be honest, I had never pondered the question at hand with a fair analysis before. In a cemetery, I suppose, a casket, dirt. I figured he’d think this as smart-ass, and he was working on his sales-pitch, so I obliged. “No, I suppose I don’t know where I’d go if I died.”
He gave a respectful, ‘I thought you might say that, and I’m hear to help’ smile and proceeded through the Roman’s Road. I learned of my sin, a word that was definitely not in my vernacular at the time. I learned of Jesus Christ’s life, death, His resurrection. All concepts you’d think I would have encountered with some understanding during seven years in Catholic churches. Yet, they were foreign, like Native American folklore or Middle Eastern creation stories. It all seemed logical enough though. He was gaining steam and confidence, and I was in no position to argue against his theories. And then he whipped out the zinger, swung a haymaker for his knockout punch: “You know, this is the same Jesus your dad knows and serves. Christ has changed his life, as I’m sure you’ve seen by now.” It was borderline unfair, a high percentage shot, to be sure. This fact of my father had been subtly playing on me for months and now it jumped out from behind the curtains to accost me face-to-face. My dad, the alcoholic, the yell-at-his-wife-and-kids, the chest of Playboys-man, was completely free. He was joyful, hopeful. Not perfect, but changed, drastically changed. I couldn’t argue that, had no need to. He knew something that I didn’t yet, but since I had moved 2,500 miles to follow him as a young man, I supposed this must be the starting point. “Pray after me,” Justin said, and I followed, rotely, but sincerely, picturing my father crying something to the same effect with tears pouring, engine idling on the side of the highway a year or so prior. I finished the ‘Amen’ emotionally over-full myself, not 100% sure exactly what I had just done, or what life would look like past this decision, but excited for the new clarity.
So Christ converted me, not so much from a devout Catholicism to practiced Protestantism, but more from a non-existent-ism to now-cognizant-ism.
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