Holy Shit!: Piece #3

Holy Shit!

The lights go off, and everyone cheers. Here we go! I am here in a large tabernacle of sorts, full of an all-you-can-attend buffet of audience members from toddlers to teenagers (like myself) and young adults, immediately, like Southern Baptist Zombies, hands raised in creepy unison, each worshipper swaying like the Balloon goons you see at those large, obnoxious car dealers.

(What the He— ya— ell — ah did I get myself into?)

Being a huge theater nerd, when my best friend, a recent hard-core convert to Emmanuel Southern Baptist Church in good’ol smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt, Weatherford, Oklahoma, I was thrilled to go. Courtney and I had been inseparable since my first day as the weird new kid with huge blue glasses, mismatched socks, and half-braided, half-down hair. She was the only classmate to say hi and talk to me. We have been best friends ever since.

I trust her taste in entertainment and religion, so about 1 year ago, in true BFF fashion, we were baptized on the same day. Of course, we were saved and dunked together in the freezing-cold, questionably colored water and were reborn as Christians- sisters in Christ! 

As we found our way to an opening on row 4, I expected a typical church service, maybe some hymns and a sermon, nothing like this over-the-top spectacle. 

BOOM!

The lights go off simultaneously as the red overhead strobe light starts aggressively lighting the stage. Red here – red there – Red fricking beams everywhere. My easily distracted, undiagnosed ADHD eyes didn’t know where to look. 

BOOM!

Then, what I can only describe as a rock tour-style pyrotechnic, a four-foot-long flamethrower lit up the left and right sides of the huge, elevated stage. The roar from the crowd encompassed me: “BOOOOOOOO!”

 In unison, everyone yells as if they are at a WWE wrestling match, and The Undertaker just field-goal-punted a newborn puppy. As I nervously cross my legs, I squeeze my legs tightly together.

I peer around, and the whole crowd is cheering as the fire continues. 

(Is this a play or a Metallica concert?)

“HELLS FLAMES!” 

There is another crack of the mic and more fire, as a man in a cheap Spirit Halloween devil costume, complete with pitchfork, tail, and a mustache that even Salvador Dali would be envious of, runs onto the stage that is now officially transformed into Hell on Earth.

What the cheaply costumed but deeply creepy-looking devil said next, I don’t remember. I think I was in shock. I was too busy pinching my forearm in an attempt to wake myself from what was quickly becoming my own living Hell. (Pun intended) 

(What the Hell did I get myself into? This is not like Jesus Christ Superstar, for Christ’s sake.)

Due to my quote-unquote “religious trauma” (as a therapist would later tell me), I only remember the rest in flashes like a skipping film reel. I thought I didn’t remember because I was a sinner who was touched by Satan and therefore blacked out, and therefore was blocked from hearing all of the play’s message from God. 

(Religious Trauma? Huh. Who knew?)

There are flashes of horrific scenes of nice, average, law-abiding citizens dying unexpected and horrific deaths. Close your eyes and picture this scene: a nice, middle-aged dad driving his 5-year-old daughter to school. The scene was lit like heavenly daylight, with warm colors, and everyone’s costumes were pastel and visually very soothing. Harp music resembling Kenny G’s or Enya’s music played blissfully in the background of this lovely display of domestic daddy-daughter time.

(HOLY SHIT!)

Out of bum-fuck nowhere, a drunk driver wearing a Slipknot shirt crashed into the family sedan, and everyone is instantly DEAD! What the fuck?!?!? Where did the head-banging drunk driver come from? Off stage? From Hell?  From the most sinful wasteland of all (according to my youth minister), the city known as the “City of Devils,”  aka Los Angeles?

As if a child and two adults dying were not vomit-inducing enough, the dime store Satan runs on stage and grabs the 5-year-old daughter while she goes limp, screams, and is physically dragged from the stage by Satan. As she screams and reaches for her dad, Satan’s minions, aka day-mons (Demons if you are not local), appear. sprint from behind the curtain, also referred to as the 7th level of Hell.

I sit in shocked silence, mouth wide open like a catfish, dumbfounded like a kid finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real. 

(Did that sweet little girl just get kidnapped by the Devil and dragged to Hell?)

With the swift movement of a drunk duck, my attention is drawn back to the center of the stage, where the young dad is on his knees pleading with Satan to let his girl go and not burn for all eternity, tears and snot rockets running down his desperate middle-aged face. 

Satan throws his head back as he yells in his best announcer voice, “NO, YOU DID NOT SAVE YOUR DAUGHTER. YOU DID DO YOUR FATHERLY DUTIES. SHE DOES NOT HAVE HER NAME IN THE BOOK OF LIFE. YOU-YOU! HAVE DAMNED HER TO HELL!”

Then the traumatized dad screams as Satan disappears off the stage like a cracked-out David Copperfield. The lights go off, and the stage and the entire arena are abruptly catapulted into pitch black stillness. 

(Holy shot. Was I in Hell? Is this for real?) 

As I frantically fan myself (Is it getting hot in here?),  I begin shaking like my Nanny’s hairless chihuahua; I slowly reach out my hand to make sure Courtney is still there somewhere in this black abyss. I feel her arm. Hallalujah!

(Breathe in 1-2-3, Breathe out 4-5-6 . . . if this is indeed, literally, not figuratively Hell . . . at least I’ll have a friend here.)

After realizing I have a BFF for all eternity, all the lights abruptly turn on, and the hypnotized crowd covers their eyes in unison like a small Baptist Evangelical, Bible-thumping Vampire army. My heart skips a bit and catches in my chest. 

Like Elvis on his farewell tour, a Brad Pitt Doppleganger-looking Jesus floats from the ceiling to the stage with grace, and a gloriously bedazzled robe that makes him sparkle like a Heavenly disco ball come to save the world.

(Thank God. I’m not dead.)  

Disco-fever Jesus reaches out and takes the grieving father by the hand. The crowd cheers and raises their arms like they are on the downhill drop of the Texas Giant roller coaster. 

(Put your hands in the air. Wave them around like you just don’t care. Jesus is here!)

Realizing I have been holding my breath for way too long, I forcefully exhale and deflate my lungs like a leaking balloon. 

“FEAR NOT, MY SON! YOUR NAME IS IN MY BOOK OF LIFE SINCE YOU WERE SAVED BEFORE YOU DIED. YOU MAY GO THROUGH THE GATES TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.”

The dad cries tears of joy as he slowly crawls towards the feet of Jesus and kisses them.

(Wait? The Book of Life? Saved? I was baptized a year ago. Is baptism the same as being saved? Is it a two-for-one deal? If you buy a baptism dunking, do you get your name in the Book of Life for free?)

Feeling my chest tighten and my butt sphincter unexpectedly spasm, the floor starts to morph into lava, and my head turns into a factory of rejected crash cymbals.

Courtney nudges my arm, bringing me back to the present.

“Are you okay?”
“I . . . I don’t know . . .”

I place my head between my legs as Courtney pats my back like a good mom trying to knock a burp out of her screaming, colicky baby.

Before I knew it, the organ began to play, and the choir floated across the stage floor. 

(Where did that choir come from?)

As the panic inside me builds like an operatic crescendo, I feel the Holy Spirit inside of me. 

(Or it could just be a full-grown panic attack. Who knows?

As the choir sings and the rhinestone cowboy-esque Jesus sings “Amazing Grace,” like pinnichio with my strings being pulled, I stand up.

“IF YOU HAVE NOT ACCEPTED JESUS INTO YOUR HEART. COME! COME DOWN THE AISLE AND BE SAVED! SAVED!”

(Should I get saved again? Is God making me stand because he wants me to walk down the aisle?)

“DO YOU WANT TO LIVE ETERNITY IN HEAVEN’S GLORY OR HELL’S FLAMES?”

(Is that a rhetorical question?)

“BE SAVED!”

(Okay!)

“COME TO JESUS!”

(I’M COMING!)

“HAVE YOUR NAME FOREVER WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE!”

I am compelled to start walking down the aisle when Courtney grabs my arm and pulls me down to her level. 

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting Saved . . . Duh.”

“But, you’ve already been saved.”

(True. But . . . I’d better get saved twice just in case. It is eternity after all. You can never be too careful.)