Post by Radrook Admin on May 30, 2019 8:23:16 GMT -5
Nicia's Evangelizing Ways: A memory
Well, every Saturday, on schedule, rain or shine, she would appear at our apartment as if it were just a regular neighborly visit, but after making small talk, she’d divert the conversation to religion and ask why we were not attending church. You see, my parents had once been regular churchgoers of her denomination, but had stopped attending. In fact, it had been approx. ten years since the last time they had been at church. So Nicia felt it her Christian duty to bring the lost sheep back into the fold just as Jesus had told his followers to do. That in itself, of course, was admirable. However, what I didn't find admirable was the way that she went about it.
The whole encounter would always go in the following way:
"So when are you going to attend church?” she’d say gazing intently into my father’s haggard face and he'd immediately gaze away tiredly. You see, my father was extremely averse to any word and idea repetitions. If you said it once, to him that was enough and any repetition was perceived as pestiferous. If the same phrase was used too often in a commercial on TV, he’d jump up from his seat and change the channel. So Nicia’s constant repetitions were definitely grating on his nerves.
“One of these day I will attend.” he’d utter looking as if he was being slowly led away to be guillotined or being subjected to the infamous Chinese dripping-water torture.
“Don’t you know that your immortal soul is in danger?”
“Yes, I know!” he’d respond tiredly. still avoiding eye contact and looking like a cornered animal seeking a way to escape a predator.
“Then what aren’t you attending church?”
“Well, you know, the job has me getting home tired. I work eight hours a day. Sometimes even overtime to make ends meet. You know?”
After a moment of gazing at him accusingly he'd continue:
“There are others who are tired from working the whole day and they still attend church, you know.”
“True, but maybe they don’t feel as tired as I do?”
“Ha! What? Really? Look! My husband comes home exhausted and the very first thing he does is grab his Bible, get the kids ready and go to church! He even encourages me to attend if he notices that I am tired.”
“Well that’s him and this is me.”
“Maybe you do it because you don’t really appreciate what your behavior involves?”
“Oh I know what is involved. I heard all the sermons before-you know? As I said, I was a regular church-goer once.”
“But you apparently never appreciated them, because if you had you had then you would not be so calm about your present situation.”
“What situation is that?” he gazed at her tiredly as if fearing that his question would trigger a prolonged response with no end in sight.
“What situation is that?" she'd respond, "The situation that your behavior is taking you straight towards. the bowels of hell where you will roast forever along with your family.”
“Roast forever? With my family?” my father would respond calmly in a surprised tone of voice as if he had never heard that threat before. That reaction would only serve to galvanize her determination.
“Yes roast! You see that oil on the skillet over there?” she said as she pointed a quavering finger at the skillet on which my mother intended to fry some pork chops. As usual the oil was boiling-hot, and the meat made a loud crackling sound accompanied by smoke as its moisture reacted to the oil.
My father would gaze at it not in fear but with hungry eyes of anticipation.
“Ever burn your finger in the frying pan? Eh? " she'd continue "Hurts doesn’t it? Well, that’s just a finger. Now imagine your entire naked body covered in boiling oil while you are screaming in agony but unable to get out, asking for mercy but getting none-not just for a few moments-but for forever” she would say her face turning a bit flushed from the vehement emotion she could barely contain.
“Yes, I have heard that preached at Church before. You know, at the Rose of Sharon Church that we attended for for two years back in New York about ten years ago, as I said before” my father would calmly respond as he struggled not to fall asleep.
“Ah so you do know eh? Then you really have no excuse. If you were ignorant, then you would have an excuse. But because you are not ignorant, and you know exactly what you are doing, you will suffer the consequences of eternal damnation.”
By this time the large purple vein on Nicia’s pale neck would be throbbing something fierce, and her face would be beet red while my father seemed calmer than before her sermon had started. In fact, he looked outright sleepy. Actually, his reaction it had absolutely nothing to do with Nicia nor her particular way of preaching. For some strange reason, any mention of religion would seem to trigger sleepiness in my dad. He’d be watching TV programs such as The Twilight Zone or Combat and would by 100% alert.
But if the film the King of Kings, or Jesus of Nazareth, or the The Ten Commandments would appear on the TV screen, he’d immediately begin to doze off. So if he was remaining awake with Nicia, it must have been an enormous effort on his part. In any case, she always seemed completely oblivious to his increasing drowsiness, and would continue even more fervently as if his disinterest was a challenge.
“And you know what? And you know what?" she'd continue,
"What?" my father would obediently respond out of courtesy since to him, for some reason, visitors were always treated as royalty, no matter how they behaved.
"The book of Revelation tells us that before he sends you to hell to burn forever, he will unleash monstrous animals to sting you. And your tongue? That tongue refusing to acknowledge him, that tongue that refused to offer God praise? it will rot in your mouth. And those those eyes, those eyes that refused to see his holy truth, will waste away in their sockets! So are you going to go to church this Sunday now?" she would conclude with a confidence that she had terrified him sufficiently to get him active in church again.
“I will have to give it some thought!” was the calm response she got from my father who seemed even more on the verge of passing out from sleep deprivation. After the formal goodbyes at the apartment door, my father looked like the world had been removed from his shoulders or like a fattened pig that was scheduled to be eaten on a holiday who had been granted reprieve.
Curiously, as a kid, I always listened to all this and just couldn’t accept that a righteous God would fry people alive in the nasty way Nicia described. I suspected my father felt the same. Strangely, he never explained why he wasn’t moved by Nicia’s gory warnings. He'd just calmly sit down on the living room sofa after she'd leave, ask when the pork chops would be served, and begin reading his newspapers as if nothing unusual had happened.
But much more often, or he'd fall immediately asleep on the couch from the effects of her sermon. I imagine that Nicia felt that she had left him quaking in repentant, morbid fear.
