rabbit of salvation out of the Devil’s top hat. Or thin air.
Meanwhile, Brother Modest’s style gave you the impression that polished insincerity was the hallmark of God’s inner circle, and much of the congregation preferred his chilly aloofness. For some he was also a symbol of hope, since he was as close to the middle rungs of the economic ladder as most Emmanuel Temple regulars were likely to come.
Brother Pemberton, on the other hand, seemed like somebody who’d been passed over for promotion, an underdog struggling against the evils of Beelzebub more for God’s amusement than his own satisfaction. This made him just another underpaid worker, like everybody else. Simply put, the former appeared to make more money saving souls than the latter.
Certainly the church elders deemed Brother Modest the better bet to lead them to the Promised Land.
One Sunday, toward the end of Brother Pemberton’s tenure as copastor, my mother and I were kneeling at the altar with our heads bowed; she piously, gratefully, sibilantly thanking Jesus for one thing or another. Bored to distraction, I snuck a look at who was kneeling beside me, and my eyes fell on a pair of brown and white, pointy-toed, bebop loafers. I stared at them with the kind of admiration I now reserve for Tom Waits and Mother Teresa, then took in a pleated pant leg and the bottom of a gaudy green plaid sport coat, my gaze traveling upward until I was staring directly into eyes that closely matched the brown and white of those two-toned shoes. Caught red-handed, my mind adrift and unrepentant, I braced myself for the inevitable, because surely a gaffe of this magnitude would provoke the wrath of God. Then Brother Pemberton did something that under the circumstances was the last thing I ever would’ve expected. He winked at me. With one bat of an eyelash, that poor man’s Billy Graham let me in on the secret of a lifetime: He, too, was bored.
Now and then, in waking dreams, I find myself kneeling at the altar of the Emmanuel Temple. In my less cynical moments, I realize that God once spoke to me directly through an old-school, hellfire-and-brimstone preacher. In the wink of an eye, I saw a compassionate, tolerant, and nonjudgmental God of love and great humor. My own faith was planted as a seed that morning, and there are days its fruit sustains me still.
The move to Jacinto City brought my mother’s churchgoing to an unceremonious halt. One day she was washed in the blood of the sacrificial Lamb, and the next she was stuck in some Godforsaken wasteland where charismatic Pentecostal preachers were as scarce as African Bushmen. For the first six months in what she called “your daddy’s new hellhole,” she struggled so hard to maintain her signature Christian buoyancy that even her husband took notice. One Sunday morning, in a rare but timely display of concern, he offered to drive her (and me) to the Emmanuel Temple for a much-needed shot in her gospel-starved arm. Of course he had no intention of attending the service; as usual, he’d spend the morning drinking beer with his buddies at the Texas Ice and Fuel Company a few blocks away on Harrisburg Boulevard. But his act of generosity, however limited, noticeably perked my mother up. Her postsermon spirits were running so high that she seemed to neither notice nor care when he arrived thoroughly sloshed to pick us up forty-five minutes after the janitor had finished cleaning the church for the evening service. As time went on, though, these doses of her beloved Brother Modest grew more and more infrequent, and the lack of prospects on the spiritual horizon sent her into a prolonged depression.
Parishioners at the Emmanuel Temple knew my mother as a first-class amen sister, and she earned their respect by peppering sermons with the well-placed and punchy “Thank you, Jesus.” That everybody counted on Sister Crowell to praise the Lord or proclaim the Devil a liar at ninety decibels and in perfect
Meanwhile, Brother Modest’s style gave you the impression that polished insincerity was the hallmark of God’s inner circle, and much of the congregation preferred his chilly aloofness. For some he was also a symbol of hope, since he was as close to the middle rungs of the economic ladder as most Emmanuel Temple regulars were likely to come.
Brother Pemberton, on the other hand, seemed like somebody who’d been passed over for promotion, an underdog struggling against the evils of Beelzebub more for God’s amusement than his own satisfaction. This made him just another underpaid worker, like everybody else. Simply put, the former appeared to make more money saving souls than the latter.
Certainly the church elders deemed Brother Modest the better bet to lead them to the Promised Land.
One Sunday, toward the end of Brother Pemberton’s tenure as copastor, my mother and I were kneeling at the altar with our heads bowed; she piously, gratefully, sibilantly thanking Jesus for one thing or another. Bored to distraction, I snuck a look at who was kneeling beside me, and my eyes fell on a pair of brown and white, pointy-toed, bebop loafers. I stared at them with the kind of admiration I now reserve for Tom Waits and Mother Teresa, then took in a pleated pant leg and the bottom of a gaudy green plaid sport coat, my gaze traveling upward until I was staring directly into eyes that closely matched the brown and white of those two-toned shoes. Caught red-handed, my mind adrift and unrepentant, I braced myself for the inevitable, because surely a gaffe of this magnitude would provoke the wrath of God. Then Brother Pemberton did something that under the circumstances was the last thing I ever would’ve expected. He winked at me. With one bat of an eyelash, that poor man’s Billy Graham let me in on the secret of a lifetime: He, too, was bored.
Now and then, in waking dreams, I find myself kneeling at the altar of the Emmanuel Temple. In my less cynical moments, I realize that God once spoke to me directly through an old-school, hellfire-and-brimstone preacher. In the wink of an eye, I saw a compassionate, tolerant, and nonjudgmental God of love and great humor. My own faith was planted as a seed that morning, and there are days its fruit sustains me still.
The move to Jacinto City brought my mother’s churchgoing to an unceremonious halt. One day she was washed in the blood of the sacrificial Lamb, and the next she was stuck in some Godforsaken wasteland where charismatic Pentecostal preachers were as scarce as African Bushmen. For the first six months in what she called “your daddy’s new hellhole,” she struggled so hard to maintain her signature Christian buoyancy that even her husband took notice. One Sunday morning, in a rare but timely display of concern, he offered to drive her (and me) to the Emmanuel Temple for a much-needed shot in her gospel-starved arm. Of course he had no intention of attending the service; as usual, he’d spend the morning drinking beer with his buddies at the Texas Ice and Fuel Company a few blocks away on Harrisburg Boulevard. But his act of generosity, however limited, noticeably perked my mother up. Her postsermon spirits were running so high that she seemed to neither notice nor care when he arrived thoroughly sloshed to pick us up forty-five minutes after the janitor had finished cleaning the church for the evening service. As time went on, though, these doses of her beloved Brother Modest grew more and more infrequent, and the lack of prospects on the spiritual horizon sent her into a prolonged depression.
Parishioners at the Emmanuel Temple knew my mother as a first-class amen sister, and she earned their respect by peppering sermons with the well-placed and punchy “Thank you, Jesus.” That everybody counted on Sister Crowell to praise the Lord or proclaim the Devil a liar at ninety decibels and in perfect
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