My First Church
Brantwood Baptist Church in Dayton, Ohio was just down the road from our house on Wanetta Ave. In my mind, I can still walk there and I can clearly remember the steps leading up the vestibule, the parking lot, the Sunday School classes in the basement, and the baptismal pool behind the pulpit and how cold that water was.
I remember we were there EVERY Sunday morning for Sunday School followed by services, every Sunday evening for another church service, and EVERY Wednesday evening for another service (later in life someone joked about us not being trusted to make it an entire week so we had to come in for a tune-up).
Mostly though, what I remember is wanting a transistor radio for my 5th birthday and, to my shock and surprise, getting it! Back then, transistor radios were about twice the size of a pack of cigarettes and only received AM channels. I didn’t care, my little radio freed me from listening to whatever my folks or older brothers were blaring or arguing about. I could plug my one little earphone in, put my finger in my other ear, and have my own little world!
One Sunday in early June, just a few weeks after my birthday, church services had just let out and the congregation had emptied out into the parking lot for “social time.”
(For those of you not familiar with country churches, this is a common occurrence and it’s during this social time when adults exchange their latest news and gossip while the kids play.)
On this Sunday, it was hot outside so I decided to go back inside. Once in the vestibule and out of the noonday sun, I dug my radio out of my pocket, put my trusty earbud in my right ear, turned on some music, and began dancing. The next thing I knew some big, fat, red-faced man had grabbed me by the arm and began screaming at me. I remember the rage on his face and the spittle flying from his mouth as he yelled and told me I was a sinner and was going to burn in hell because dancing was a mortal sin! His screaming went on and on until my mother grabbed me by the other arm and stared the man down. Honestly, that’s the only time I can ever remember my mother sticking up for me. More importantly, though, I remember thinking “Wow! God hates kids for having fun?” and then “Am I going to get in trouble for playing with my toys?”
I was really bothered by the fat man’s outrage. As days passed and I played outside with my Tonka trucks, my feelings told me the idea of God not liking dancing or Him not liking children playing and being happy was, well, just plain dumb! Still, the fat man had created doubt in me about God, forgiveness, compassion, and whether or not He loved children. The fat man hadn’t saved my soul, he had made me wary of God.
The Billy Graham Revival
It was 1964 and Billy Graham was coming to Ohio! Everyone was excited about it! Mom had gotten tickets for the entire family. A road trip (it was an hour's drive) was planned! I remember going to some stadium but I don’t remember if it was a high school football stadium or a college stadium or what. I just remember it being a stadium and there being more people there than I had ever seen before.
Mr. Graham was a much better speaker than the guy at Brantwood. He was also less scary. I enjoyed listening to him and when he called people forward to be “saved,” I asked my mother if I could go and she reminded me that I had already been saved. I told her I knew but after the radio incident, I thought it might be better to do it again “just to be sure” so she smiled and told me to go ahead.
After mom’s divorce and subsequent marriage to my stepdad, Poopsy (an affectionate nickname that he embraced) and our move to Fairborn, Ohio, I can’t remember us attending a church. Maybe we did, but if we did it wasn’t the least bit memorable.
Where My Grandfather Preached
It was just after school was out in 1965 when we moved to Tennessee. My maternal grandfather (yeah, the same one who cruelly killed my dog Lady, was a preacher and supposedly a good one and well-liked. My first time hearing him preach I remember having some pride in knowing that was my grandpa but also thinking he was no different than the preacher at Brantwood Baptist Church. The sermons were always “If you breathe you are sinning and if you are a sinner you are going to burn in hell.” I began to wonder what the point was, if, no matter what you do, you’re going to end up in hell. Yes, 8-year-olds really are capable of these kinds of thoughts… they may not be capable of expressing them but they’re certainly capable of understanding the message.
The Snake Handling Church in LaFollette
Grandpa decided that we all needed to attend a “Holiness” church in LaFollette. Imagine my surprise when the preacher breaks out the snakes. Yeah, real live snakes that bite! Apparently, this practice started in some small, isolated churches across Appalachia over 150 years ago and the belief was that if the snake bit you, you were filled with sin. Based on the sermon (people were breathing), there should have been 50 ambulances waiting outside.
You can google this nonsense using “Snake Handling Church LaFollette.”
Poopsy had been serving in Vietnam while we were being exposed to snakes and, upon his return, Mom was oh so excited to take him to this special church. So, on Sunday we found ourselves sitting in a hard pew about three rows from the back. After the service we all went outside for “social time” and Grandpa came walking up and excitedly asked, “What did you think?” Poopsy looked at Grandpa and my mom and said “Don’t you EVER bring my kids to this place again!” There was no room for discussion. We never went back.
After that, church became less and less important to our family. Or that’s how it seemed as we didn’t attend church nearly as often.
Catholicism
I was stationed in Germany and one of my drinking buddies was a Chaplains Assistant whose job was to help the Chaplain perform services for a variety of religions. On Saturday evenings it would be a Jewish service (Havdalah?), on Sunday it would be Baptist one hour, the next hour was a Catholic Mass followed by some other kind of service. Anyway, I showed up to the rectory and my buddy told me he couldn’t leave as the chaplain's assistant who was scheduled to help with the Catholic Mass was sick so he had to fill in. I was told to go sit in the back and we’d leave after Mass.
Having never seen a mass before I had no idea what to expect but by the end of that mass, I knew I had found a religion I could call home.
After that one service, whenever I went to church, it was always mass. I simply refused to participate in any form of protestant services unless it was a family wedding or funeral and even then, you had to be a VERY close family member or someone I wanted to see buried.
One day I drove down to Ft. Rucker, Alabama to visit my biological father. Despite my mother's interference, I’d always tried to maintain a relationship with him. On one trip down we were having coffee early one Sunday morning and I asked him if there was a Catholic church nearby. He nearly choked on his coffee but told me where the church was so I left and went to mass.
Upon my return from mass we cooked breakfast (eggs, bacon, biscuits, and gravy) and when we sat down to eat, the conversation went like this:
Him: “How was it?”
Me: “It was fine.”
Him: Is Father So-and-So still the priest?”
Me: “He presided over mass this morning. How do you know him?”
Him: “You may not know this but our family has been Catholic for as far back as anyone could remember.”
I knew his mother had died when he was very young, his father had died when he was about 8 and he was shipped off to an orphanage in Sevierville, TN but I hadn’t known it was a Catholic orphanage.
After that conversation, I felt very settled in my Catholic faith. It felt right. Like my soul was in the house it belonged in.
Ironically, like most of the family lore I’d heard from my biological father, that part about being Catholic was wrong. Turns out, the first of our ancestors to come to America (1743) was a Lutheran as were his children and grandchildren. I’m not sure when the family diverged from the Lutheran faith into evangelicalism or whatever else as there’s no record and no family bible that I’m aware of.
Some years later, I married a catholic and we raised our kids in the Catholic church. From CCD (Sunday School) to mass, we were quite active in the church. I even got to a point where I was attending mass every morning after the gym. My routine was to get the kids off to school, hit the gym for a good workout & shower, leave and go to mass. Six days a week I was attending services. I even took the arduous course (for 20 weeks it was one night a week for 4 hours and one Saturday per month) and became a Stephens Minister so that I could provide Christ-centered emotional caregiving to my fellow parishioners who were struggling (Priests and Preachers can’t minister to everyone!). At one point I had also become a crew lead on a framing team for Habitat for Humanity. If there was a way to do God's will, I was all in!
During one family dinner at an aunt’s house, an evangelical uncle (one of mother's brothers) prayed over our meal and then went on a screed culminating in a prayer asking God to deliver me and my family from the “cult of Catholicism.” I packed up my wife and dropped some biblical words in the air, and we left. I never saw that aunt or that uncle again.
As my (ex) wife and I started divorcing, I had to go to her attorney's office and give a deposition. So, being my usual self, I went to church, got down on my knees and said a prayer. I asked God what I should do and, as usual, there was no answer. I returned to the minivan, cranked it up, put it in reverse and sighed as I backed out of the space to head to her attorney’s office. I reached over and flipped on the radio and the first song that came on was “Let It Be” by the Beatles. I smiled. Finally! After all these years and 1000’s upon 1000’s of prayers, I had gotten an answer! God knew I desperately wanted away from her, so on the way to the deposition I resolved to not fight or prolong the process but to only stand up for my rights as the children’s father.
The Last Church
The kids and I were attending the Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church in Oakland Park, FL. It was about two blocks from our house and we generally walked. As I had done in Atlanta, the routine was the same, get the kids up and off to school, hit the gym, attend mass, go to work. On Sundays, we’d attend the evening mass. My thinking was to let the kids sleep in on Sunday mornings, try to make it a fun day and then finish the weekend with something calming and to nurture their souls for the coming week.
It was 2008 and I had been struggling with my faith. The tribulations I and others were living through simply didn’t square with the promises I’d read in the bible or the countless sermons I’d heard. There was no guiding hand, no unyielding love, no compassion. The single row of footsteps in the sand wasn’t from His carrying me but from where I was walking alone, sinking knee-deep in the sand from shouldering my own burdens. I had been losing my trust in the written word for quite a while and my faith was coming to a breaking point. 
Prayer wasn’t any better. I would go to church and pray for my kids or for some kind of help or guidance, and get a flat tire on the way home. This became a regular occurrence. I’m not talking about attaching something bad that happened to a prayer I’d prayed three months ago, I’m talking pray now, and BOOM! Once we can dismiss, twice is eyebrow-raising, three times is a coincidence, 10 or more times is a pattern that only a fool would deny and this cycle had been replaying over and over for so long that, eventually, I became afraid to pray so I stopped. The wariness I felt as a child had returned.
People would say “You weren’t giving thanks and praise!” Oh y’all have no idea! A little job from my side hustle would show up, I’d do the job and give thanks and praise, go out to get in my car and the battery would be dead and would cost me twice what I’d just earned. I became afraid to give thanks. One time something really good happened and out of habit I looked up and then I pointed to the heavens and said “Ha! Ha! You almost got me again!” and never again have I been tempted.
The best analogy I can use to describe how I ended up feeling is the proverbial abused dog analogy. You know, the master calls the dog over and once it’s within reach, the master kicks the dog. The dog whines, wanting to go outside, the master stomps his feet and yells at the dog until it slinks off in terror. When the dog can no longer hold its business and goes on the floor, it gets a beating for that too! Eventually, the dog will stop coming to its master’s call and will cower when the master comes near… or one day, it will run away.
My Last Mass
During my last mass, I was sitting and listening to the first and second readings and the message was "God will always be there for you" and I literally wanted to throw up. I leaned over to my son, a high school Junior and told him I had to leave before I barfed. He said he’d stay and walk his sister home.
I left. I couldn’t bear to hear the nonsense anymore. The words struck me as lies. I stopped attending mass.
It took a month before I went to speak to a priest about what I was feeling and I was told “You need to pray more.” I laughed, stood, shook his hand, and walked out the door. As I reached the edge of the church property, I stopped and shook the dust off my feet. I’ve never been to a church service since (well, except for my daughter’s wedding and her mother’s funeral).
A New Church
Over the past dozen-plus years I’ve been invited to many a church and the invitation always comes with only a slight variation of the same words: “Come to my church, it’s filled with the Holy Spirit, He’ll get in your heart.” I think of the arrogance of that statement. Like every other church I’ve been to wasn’t filled with the Holy Spirit?
So Now You Want To Pray For Me?
Sigh... I’ve had 100’s of people want to pray for me. The conversation usually goes something like this:
Them: “I’ll pray for you.”
Me: “Do me a favor and ask God if he wants you to pray for me.”
Them: “Oh, I don’t have to ask, I KNOW he does!”
Me: “That’s pretty arrogant of you to assume you know what God wants you to do as it relates to me.”
After a blank stare, they walk off, and more often than not, I never hear from them again. Besides, at this point, no prayer would do any good for I am “obstinately impenitent” in my decision.
Just a few weeks ago a lady said to me: “You have never had ME pray for you!” The thought that went through my mind was: “So your prayer is, somehow, better than the 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of prayers I’ve prayed and He will hear your prayers over mine because you are just so much better than I am or ever was?” Seriously! The arrogance!
My Final Thoughts
Anytime religious people hear my story, they spew all the tropes “God was trying to get your attention!” If He knows every hair on my head, he knows how to get my attention and how to drive me away, He chose the latter. “God was trying to bend your knee.” It was already bent, both of them were. “God was trying to bend you to his will.” I was already bent to his will.
God this. God that. It was always my fault because I didn’t do this or that right. Or, somehow, I had managed to misunderstand all those words I had spent my life hearing and reading. You name it, just whatever nonsense they could come up with they tossed at me but no matter what they said, ultimately it was another way to blame me for what they perceived as my failings and, each blaming session, only drove me further away from religion. While I have never claimed to be perfect, I have also, never once, intentionally hurt anyone. Have I said or done things I regret? Absolutely! Did I say or do those things with intentional malice? Not once.
With each assault on my already shattered faith, each remaining piece of my religious foundation collapsed until there was nothing left but rubble and, eventually, even the rubble was ground to dust.
Like the many other losses in my life, I grieved this loss. I wrestled with the denial, yelled out in anger, I bargained, I got depressed, and then, finally, acceptance came and I moved on.
Even today, a true believer will confront me, or "call me out" in their parlance, and want to pray for me and I still have the same reaction, I want to throw up. To those people, I quote your Jesus: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you." and let's just leave it at that.