Page 72 of Life, Love, and Other Messes

“It’s new,” Dad said quietly. It didn’t sound like he was particularly supportive of it, but I couldn’t read his face.

“We’ve had it for the past few years,” Mom said. “You just haven’t been to church when you’ve come home for Thanksgiving.”

Lucky for all of us. I sat quietly as my father parked the car, my body taut with anger. My mother went off to talk to someone so Dad and I walked toward the side entrance in silence. I could feel him glancing at me from time to time, but I didn’t look back. I was about to enter the sanctuary when I was almost taken down from behind.

“Aunt Sam!” Mary Margaret, Rebecca, and Rachel managed to wrap their collective arms around me in a hug that almost knocked the wind out of me.

It was the perfect distraction. I scooped Rachel up and started walking the others toward the nursery. “I can’t believe I get to see you two days in a row!”

“Mommy made French toast for breakfast this morning,” Mary Margaret said. “It was delectable.”

I laughed out loud and glanced back at Missy, who was following us with Jeremiah. “Have a good time, guys,” I said to the younger girls and the baby, then turned back to Mary Margaret. “You’re big enough to go to grown-up church now.”

“I am. They make us go to Sunday school after the children’s message.” Her voice was conspiratorial. “But sometimes we sneak out instead.”

I leaned close and whispered in her ear. “We used to do that too.”

“I know. Daddy told me.”

My father, Kevin, and the boys were already packed into our family’s pew. The Travis family always sat on the right side, fifth pew from the front. When she wasn’t singing in the choir, Mom always sat on the aisle, with Dad next to her, then Kevin’s family on the other side. When we were little, one of us always sat on Mom’s left and the other on Dad’s right so we wouldn’t fight. I was surprised that Asher, Seth, and Mary Margaret were any better behaved, but they were on their electronics immediately.

I looked around as people started to fill the rest of the sanctuary. The same families sat near us that I remembered from years ago. Most had gray or missing hair and several had extended families with them. The one thing I didn’t expect was a huge screen in the front of the church, so big it covered the enormous golden cross. It hadn’t been there during the wedding, so I assumed it dropped from the ceiling. I wondered what kind of excruciating multi media experience we were in for.

At ten minutes to eleven, the organist began to play quiet, ethereal music, which cued everyone to take their seats. Mom came to join us and leaned over to tell me that I needed to say hello to several people before I left. The acolytes lit the candles, and the service began with a generic greeting and a hymn. Mom sang loudly, Dad mumbled off key, and I picked up the hymnal even though the words were projected on the big screen and gave a half-assed attempt to sing along. I’d sung in the adult choir when I was younger, too. It kept me safe from Jackson Hardeman.

The next time the screen lit up was to share video from a missionary family in Central America. They were doing renovations on a school, which was nice. The children in the village seemed happy. They had goats and chickens that looked happy too. I sat back and tried to relax, thinking that just maybe everything would be okay.

It was not. Everything in that morning’s news seemed to be cleverly tailored to needle me. We congratulated Darrell Roundtree on his glorious marriage to a lovely woman who, as Kevin whispered, he had met two months prior on the internet. We thanked God for the speedy recovery of Esther Harrington and the selfless devotion of her daughter who had moved home in order to care for her after her stroke. We prayed for several Republican politicians by name and cheered for our troops overseas. I tossed a few dollars into the collection plate when it came around because my mother was watching me like a hawk, but I didn’t go up for communion. The youth pastor presented the children’s sermon, and Kevin’s kids scampered out with all the other children. I was jealous.

While I remembered disagreeing with Pastor Hardeman and thinking he was an idiot, I didn’t remember being so incensed by his words that it made my stomach hurt. Maybe he’d gotten more confident in his tenure, or maybe I simply tuned out enough of the hatred to get by. One way or another, I was right about the church leaning farther right.

The sermon that morning was loosely based on one of the parables, but somehow Pastor Hardeman managed to tangent into a diatribe on pornography and the general ills of liberal society. After that, I really thought it was over. We sang again, and my phone read noon. To my surprise, though, Pastor Hardeman moved to the middle of the sanctuary and folded his hands in front of his body. “Ushers, please come forward for our special offering.” The screen behind him lit up with a picture of a beaming white woman and man in front of a bed of daffodils. The text read Your Way Home Ministries.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father’s jaw tighten. On my other side, Kevin’s words were nearly silent, yet deliberate enough that I couldn’t possibly miss them. “Oh, shit.”

I didn’t need to ask what he meant. For the next three minutes, the congregation was treated to an infomercial about a pray-the-gay-away ministry. Tearstained Jimmy, holding his head in his hands in a dark room, whose homosexual thoughts made him feel helpless and suicidal. Tattooed, pierced-up Amelia, who had lost sight of God due to her homosexuality. How, thanks to trained counselors, hard work, and help from Jesus himself, these lost souls regained their faith and their heterosexuality and were now married with three beautiful, beaming, white children. As the video played, my cheeks went red-hot and it felt like a spotlight had trained on me. The congregation around me disappeared into the darkness.

Pastor Hardeman cleared his throat to direct attention back to himself. “As many of you know, the liberal lawmakers have banned ministries like this in Illinois.”

There was an indistinct murmur from the congregation. Dad ran his hand through his hair and Missy glanced warily at me.

“Fortunately, Your Way Home Ministries operates just across the Missouri border and gladly accepts anyone in need. Our special collection today will go to support their noble work, returning gays and lesbians to the lives God intended for them. Please open your hearts this morning and help their cause.”

As I watched the collection plates travel from person to person, my body began to tremble with a rage I had no idea how to contain. This time, my parents were not stupid enough to pass the plate in my direction. Instead, they sent it right back toward the bewildered usher. I didn’t notice whether or not they had contributed.

As the ushers began to march back up the aisle so Pastor Hardeman could praise the congregation on their willingness to pity the poor queers, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was done being a part of this, just plain done. “This is unconscionable.”

My whole family jumped and there was a huge creaking, shuffling sound as literally every head in the building turned to stare at me. Pastor Hardeman eyed me coldly, a look of annoyed confusion on his face as if there was a large fly in the room and he wasn’t sure how it’d gotten there. “Pardon me?”

“This is unconscionable, reprehensible, and irresponsible. This attitude doesn’t keep people alive, it promotes self-hatred and drives people to suicide.”

Dead silence. My mother’s eyes were closed, as if perhaps if she didn’t look at me, I’d cease to exist. My father was wearing a pained expression. The woman sitting directly in front of us was gaping, her nose wrinkled up like I’d farted. Her husband looked bewildered. I glanced around at all those faces, some I’d known since I was born, some belonging to complete strangers, and the silence continued. When someone finally coughed, half the congregation swung around to glower at him for daring to interrupt.

Pastor Hardeman stood there, hands clasped as if to protect his genitals, his face white as a sheet. I wanted to tell him that our youth group had mocked his sermons and attempted to conduct seances using altar candles during lock-ins in the church basement. I wanted to tell him that his son had raped me in the downstairs bathroom during bible study. I wanted to take a bow.

“If you believe God created all of us, then God created me exactly as I am, and she doesn’t fuck up. Now if you want to spend your money supporting the gays, I take cash, check, or Venmo.” With that, I picked my way past my brother and his family, out of the row and down the side aisle, still surrounded in such intense silence that my footsteps echoed. Without looking back, I continued out the door and sat on the cold stone steps to reflect on what I had just done.

My brother burst out after me. “Holy fucking shit, Sam!”