Cain, Abel, Dino Bones and The Yellin' Guy

I live in the rural south. AKA the Bible Belt. There are more churches around here than there are gas stations, post offices, and schools combined. And some of the local churches are participating in the strangest campaign I've ever seen. They hand out yard signs from the back of a pickup truck at the courthouse square on Saturday mornings. They are bright yellow with blue letters that say, "Keep Your Eyes on Jesus." And people actually take these signs and put them in their yards, in their flower beds. I have no idea what the slogan means, because, ya know, you can't see Jesus.

I made the decision not to become a Christian at a very young age. Hang on, I'm about to do some therapeutic venting, so bear with me or skip down a couple paragraphs.

I grew up going to Sunday school on a regular basis, but we didn't always stay for the sermon because my dad would fall asleep and I think it embarassed my mom. Sunday school was the compromise between my parents - we were going to church without "going to church." We kids were supposed to learn about the Bible while coloring in Christian coloring books and singing happy songs. That was the plan, anyway. It was more like, "If you learn this verse, I'll give you candy. If you don't learn this verse, we will make damn sure you feel intense shame." The adult Sunday school class was separate from the children's classes, so my folks never knew what went on in those rooms. The teachers would tell us to ask questions, but if the questions actually questioned the content of the Bible, they would get really mad at us. Like, when Cain killed Abel, God sent him away to be with the others. Who were the "others", if the only people God had created were Adam and Eve? Oooh, that was a big one. See, ten year old children aren't supposed to be observant, thinking creatures. They were supposed to smile and sit with their ankles crossed, hands in their laps, and blow up mailboxes with cherry bombs on the weekends. At least, that's what the "good Christian kids" in my class did. But their parents would never believe that they were the mailbox bloweruppers, they were little angels. And these eleven year old weekend pyrotechnicians - they never asked questions about the Bible. So the teachers thought they were "good." I'd make eye contact with those kids who played with cherry bombs and murdered kittens, and they'd always look at me with an expression of, "Look at me, Rachel. I've got these people under my thumb. They would NEVER believe I'm a delinquent. But you -- YOU don't wear nice enough Sunday dresses, and you don't go along with what they say, so they think you are the bad one. BBWWAAAA HA HA HA HA."

We were taught, of course, that evolution never happened. Over the years, my brother and I would try the same question on different Sunday school teachers. "But what about the dinosaur bones that scientists have found all over the globe? Those go millions of years back. Why aren't dinosaurs in the Bible?" With fire sparking from their retinas they always answered in the same way, "SATAN put the dinosaur bones in the ground so we could distinguish the believers from the non-believers." It's fitting that I never got the lead part in church plays. All the other little girls got to be angels while I was a stump. Or a camel. Or the curtain rope puller. But I didn't care. They didn't care about me.

Sometimes we would stay after Sunday school for the church sermon. And inevitably some lady would come greet us and welcome us on our first time visiting the church and would ask our names. And we'd tell her we'd been going there for years, thanks for being observant, bitch.

I remember the one single day that I decided not to be a Christian. I had been surrounded by hypocrisy in the church for years, and the queen of hypocrisy happened to be my Sunday school teacher. My brother was in a different class, so I was left alone to fend for myself, with the wife of the sermon director. Arg. She was one of those ladies from the movie "The Witches." She was always smiling and happy, but you just knew that when she got home she pulled off her latex mask to reveal a chronic scowl and balding head with festering wounds on her sunken pock marked cheeks. There were a couple times when her facial muscles around her mouth started to twitch, as if they were going to spasm from too many years of the pseudo smile.

Well, on this particular Sunday she thought it was her personal duty to God to make sure I got baptized. So she made all of us put our heads down with our eyes closed, and raise our hand if we hadn't given our lives to Jesus. I raised my hand. All the other kids had been baptized, and we all knew that I was the only one who hadn't, so she was just trying to single me out and make me embarassed. Because she came over and started talking to me while we still had our heads down. [If you're gonna talk to me and point me out, why the fuck do we have our heads down and eyes closed?] Well, she walked me out of the room that day, walked to the car where I was to meet my parents, sat in the car with them and me, and told them I had decided to give my life to Christ and get baptized. I was stunned silent. On the way home, my folks said they would support my decision, blah blah blah. Then I told them that what she had said was a lie - I never made any of those claims, and I DIDN'T want to get baptized - especially not after someone tried to con me into doing it. We stopped going to that church shortly thereafter, and I swear that I saw a bit of that lady's latex mask come unglued around her jawbone, the grayish pulsating skin underneath just waiting to get home to breathe.

All of this brings me to this afternoon. April 6, 2006. I was driving home from work and took a shortcut. It was a narrow, winding road, speed limit of 35. I came to a church, and there was one lone teenager standing right on the edge of the road holding one of those "Keep your eyes on Jesus" signs. He was holding it like a car wash sign, holding it up for the cars to read. I slowed as I passed him, but I didn't make eye contact. I think he was expecting a honk or a thumbs up (as people usually do when they campaign on streetcorners) but I didn't acknowledge him. My windows were down, and all of a sudden I heard an incredibly loud, gutteral yell from that guy. It sounded exactly like Macho Man Randy Savage screaming as loud as he could in an obviously pissed tone, "Heeeyyyyy!!!!" I looked in my rearview mirror to see the guy standing in the road, facing my car, alternately shaking his fist at me and pointing at the sign. Yeah, dude, keep that up. I bet you'll get a LOT of converts that way. And I can point you to a church that would just love to have you as their youth minister, so you can intimidate other young, thinking children.