Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One Read Online Free PDF Page B

about at night in my bed. It had always been preached to me in our church that God was coming, and if I was in sin atthe exact moment he arrived, then he would take all of the Christians with him, and he would leave me behind. It was a horrifying thought. I could never commit a sin, because I didn’t know when he would appear on earth, and I didn’t want the moment of sin and the moment of reckoning to be the same. But now it had happened to me. The Rapture had come, and I’d been left behind.
What did I do?
I worried. I’d obviously committed a sin, but I had no idea what it was.
    I was too petrified to move, and I sat in that pew, my heart knocking in my chest. And then I heard a noise from the rear of the church. Slowly, fear tingling throughout my body, I crept back toward the stairs that led down to the basement. The sound of voices floated up to where I stood, but that didn’t reassure me at all. Who knew what tortures awaited me and the other sinners who’d been left behind down in the church basement? By the time I got downstairs, I was crying. I recognized the faces I saw. They were people from our church. But I couldn’t stop.
    “Where’s my mother?” I said. “They’re all gone.”
    “No, no, no, we’re here,” Trish said.
    I ran to her and threw myself into her arms. I was so relieved. They’d gone downstairs to have dinner and left me upstairs to finish my nap without thinking anything about it. I’d been spared that day, but the depth of the fear I’d felt when I thought I’d been left behind only strengthened my devotion to being good. I’d always been an antsy kid, and that episode heightened my nervousness and increased my desire to be as perfect as possible.
    In layman’s terms, members of the Church of God in Christ denomination were Holy Rollers. Our pastor started out services very steady and deliberate, kind of like a train pulling out of the station. Slowly but surely, he ramped up his talk into a feverish, singsongy yell, punctuated by whooping sounds, as ifhe were clearing his throat. I was told that, if a preacher never reached this point in his sermon, it was considered a waste of our time.
    “Oooh, he sho did preach toDAY!” the women of the church said at the end of each successful service.
    But, as far as I could tell, no one could ever decipher what the service was about. When the preacher started “whooping,” the music minister jumped on the organ and added musical exclamation points. As the mood grew loud and emotional, people in the congregation began to scream and jump. Sometimes while the preacher paused between shouts, the music took off, and people ran around the church in a delirious haze. One lady sprinted from the back of the church, down the center aisle, and slammed full force into the communion table. She fell to the ground writhing as the “mothers” of the church—older women who were the female counterparts to deacons—draped sheets over any body parts exposed as the result of her “receiving the spirit.” As a child, watching grown men and women turn into wild people who sometimes frothed at the mouth was more than a little upsetting.
    To the church, people had one of two spirits: the Holy Ghost, or the spirit of Satan. I wanted no part of anything Satanic, and so I wanted to “receive the spirit,” in order to ensure I was right with God. I began to ask people how I could make it happen. No one could tell me how. My mother told me it was a feeling deep inside, and others said it would just overtake me. I prayed and prayed. At every church service, I waited for this thing that would come and take me, making me run around, shaking uncontrollably, and speaking in other tongues. But it didn’t happen.
    During one of these manic services, our preacher proudly surveyed the spiritual ecstasy set to music. “If you don’t feelnothing … then you must not HAVE NOTHING!” he exclaimed, smirking righteously for effect.
    I was crushed. I felt