Step through the doors into musty air mixed with acrid, sweet colognes and nostril-singeing perfumes.
Don’t let Bob Gibson ogle your Mom or touch her long fingernails. He’ll bike to your house while your Dad’s at work and scare her. Have a laugh with your Mom and sister as you hide upstairs, terror turning to relief as you watch him swearing at your German Shepherd, Sheba, who won’t let him anywhere near the house before he bikes away in defeat. Give Sheba some table scraps that night, and let her sleep inside for the first time.
Sit quietly during the sermon like all respectable five-year-olds.
Suspend your disbelief.
Listen to your father mumble lyrics in a deep, self-conscious monotone during the hymns, and wonder why he didn’t choose a religion that doesn’t demand group singing. Also wonder why they would put high notes in almost every song.
Avoid questions or dialogue about mental health or identity issues when the minister is hospitalized for “exhaustion” and a member of the congregation shoots himself through the mouth during a lone, off-season, late night “hunting accident.” After all, these issues have no place in the 1980s, or in a community setting aiming to inspire and uplift the human spirit.
Praise Him.
Suspend your disbelief.
Get kicked out of Sunday School at least every other week. Be proud that you are the reason your family sits in the back of the church so your grandmother doesn’t notice when you are sent back to sit through the sermon with your embarrassed parents.
Grow up into a hardened Athiest with basic critical thinking skills and a beautiful contempt for believing shit just because people tell you it’s true.
Drive by an empty relic of spirituality so forgotten and unnecessary that it pollutes the landscape with many others in small towns across the map. It’s ominous shell can’t contain your spirit, and you never needed it to be a decent person.