This is Tommie - Church.

As I’ve said before Church and I have a live and let live relationship. For most people I think faith is as a matter of tradition more than spiritual enlightenment. Let’s say you a Christian and as a Christian you believe 100% that Jesus died for our sins and that the only way to heaven is accepting him as your Lord and savior. Do you think you would find Jesus if you were born and raised in Qatar? It’s rhetorical.

Our parents wanted us to go to Church and become well rounded. I think that was one of the best things they did for us. Even though I’m agnostic and I’m pretty sure my brother is as well. At least we were given the chance to experience Church. If I ever have kids I plan on doing the same thing. I don’t want to force my worldview on them that’s not how things should work. If my kids take to Church and really get a lot out of it. I’d be there everyday of the week.

When we used to go to Church we would sit there and listen to the sermon and then when we got home sometimes my Dad would ask us what we thought about the sermon. This wasn’t so much to see if we were listening but, more to see what we thought, to get us to ask questions and not accept what is told just because it was told.

As any good Catholic knows questioning the Church isn’t a good thing and me not questioning something is a bad thing. My parents realized that Church my not be the best outlet for my talents and made sure that my brother and I stayed quiet. I mean in reality I know it’s only respectful. Questioning someone in School is different than doing it in Church, it weird but somehow I understood that. That doesn’t mean we weren’t prone to some slippage.

This is one of the funniest things ever to happen in life. At Church they had some thing like Children’s time and every kid younger than 11 had to go to the front, they would have some storyteller with a mic so everyone in the Church could hear. Man, I was so happy to turn 12. Well it was one of the first times I didn’t have to go to the front and my brother had to go both sets of my grandparents where there and a whole lot of family so it was a big event. I think he was in the 3rd grade or something like that, he was mad because he still had to go and Tommie didn’t. Oh well, sucked to be you get older, sucker!

Well this lady was telling some “God is happy when children behave so be good so God doesn’t condemn your little heathen ass to hell for eternity” story and at the end of the story she asked a question “About what is God thinking right now”. It was a gimmie what the answer was he is happy because we are being obedient little kids in Church. However, she asked the wrong kid, on the wrong day. She asked my brother and what was his answer. He grabbed the mic and said as plain as day, “I have no EARTHLY idea what God is thinking right now.”

Oh classic that was 80’s style ownage. My parents were so embarrassed my Granddaddy Freddie thought it was the funniest thing in the world. I thought it was pretty funny too but, my Mom gave me the evil eye and that quickly shut me up. But, that is the way we thought.

Church was my first interaction with Black kids and they could have kept it. At least in school they force you to play with one another. At Church I think my brother and I had the cancer or the pox or something because as soon as we moved close to the kids in our age group they would move to another side of the Church. Well it didn’t take me long to realize that they didn’t want to be bothered with us. No biggie, I didn’t really want to be bothered with them heck if my folks gave up on this Church charade then we all would be better off for it. But, they were trying to force the Black experience on us. They just found the wrong group of Blacks. After awhile my parents gave up on the Church thing they could tell that we were unhappy with going and we had a difficult enough time at school why double the torment.