A Pearl Before the Swine

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I have never been considered an attractive man. At my worst, I weighed 350 pounds. Dating was very rare for me. My experiences with women were, for years, a series of blind dates. A woman would start talking with me on the internet, like my personality, and then we would arrange to meet.

Once they met me, suddenly these same women that could talk to me for hours online and on the phone suddenly had somewhere else to go.

I went through a prolonged illness, which caused a massive weight loss. I also, unfortunately, had a limb amputated.

Even after the weight loss, I still could not be considered attractive. But it was to the point that occasionally, I would be out an a woman's eyes and mine would meet-- and she would smile. That had never happened before, when I was fat and healthy.

I met her at a nursing home I was convalescing at. She was beautiful: a slim figure, a pretty face, enormous breasts. I am sure some would dismiss her as plain. This is a look she effected because of her religious beliefs. Though she claimed to be nondemoniational, she followed the beliefs of the Pentecostal church as to how she should dress and so on.

Thus, no pants (long dresses only), no make up, no jewelry, and no cutting of her hair.

I soon found out about her extreme religious beliefs. I felt I could work around that. She was worth the effort.

In the beginning, I was excited just to say hello to her. She always seemed glad to see me.

As the weeks turned into months, we would see each other every day. We would meet when she came in and when she left, and eventually we would meet daily after I ate dinner or after lunch-- whenever she worked and took a lunch or dinner break.

Talking to her was exciting. When she started hugging me hello and goodbye, I was ecstatic.

We had talked about our dating after I left the home. We couldn't date because the home had policies against employees dating residents. We talked about dating, I even mentioned the
possibiloity of marriage. Her reaction at that point was a very happy smile.

We seemed to be getting closer and closer to each other. But it was never consistent: sometimes things seemed to be progressing, sometimes it felt like she wanted to push me away.

She had some problems. She was extremely gullible. Anything her pastor told her, she believed. She believed the most absurd claims made by health quacks. She believed she had bone cancer, in spite of being repeatedly told by doctors that nothing was wrong with her. She figured that the doctors were to blame, not her. She believed she saw Jesus and would stop to talk with him on occasion.

All of the above, added together, can be summed up with one word: schizophrenia.

But she was pretty, she had a wonderful giggle. And I think she was in love with me.

I say "I think" because to this day I am not sure. I have asked her where the relationship is going. I usually get the same answer: My relationship with Jesus is more important than my relationship with her. I take this to mean that nothing is going to happen until I believe what she believes.

There's the rub: that's never going to happen.

Every time I am away from her, I have doubts: Should I pursue this relationship? And then when I am with her, my doubts melt away. If only I could be with her without having to lie, to deny who I am, to play a role.

I thought to myself, well, maybe I could parrot the empty words. My mind contains the fundamentalist mind. That is, I can think the way they think. It's a matter of turning off my reason. I could probably make a good pastor:

"You can't find God by reason. God is irrational. You won't find God by finding proof, because there is none. If you see someone attemtping to offer an artifact that is supposedly a physical proof of God, you can rest assured that it is a fake.

"There are no writings of Jesus outside of the Bible. Every alleged manifestation of God can be explained by prosaic means. In short, there is nothing tangible that points the way to God..."

And after telling the truth, I would simply end it with the Big Lie: "And that is why you need faith." And not adding: "A man without a God is like a fish without a bicycle."

I tried. How I tried. I bought a Bible. I bought computer software that had the Bible and other holy books on it. I would read her shallow pamphlets. I figured that I could pretend well enough to get by-- or at least pretend that she was convincing me, and I was in the process of changing.

It didn't work.

I suppose Christians reading this would suggest that the only reason I have not converted is because I haven't heard the Word enough, or that the messenger has been inadequate. I find that not to be the case.

I decided that I wanted to be with her. She invited me to her church. I said yes, happily.

My whole point was in going there to see her. I think it was partially a test. She was hinting that she was thinking about going to the first two services (she went to three each Sunday) and leaving before I came to the third service. She was worried that our seeing each other at church would be against her employer's rules. I was very upset at this. However, I resolved to keep my word.

She told me that she wanted me to go there for Jesus, rather than for her. I almost felt like apologizing to her for being in love with her.

A few days later, she had asked someone in charge whether we could meet at church.

Eventually, she was given an answer: it was okay, as long as I didn't ride in her car with her (this is for liability reasons-- if she had an accident with me in there the home would be iable).

The Big Day came. I got a suit I had bought some months earlier. It was assembled from stuff I had bought at local thrift stores. I looked ridiculous: more like a parody of myself than myself.

I arrived at the church. It looked like a converted warehouse-- which is exactly what it was. I went inside. I heard the usual empty "Praise Gods" and "Glad to meet yous" that is standard for churches.

Stuff was being sold left and right. There were tables full of overpriced stuff. My favorite: stress balls that sold for $4.00. I suspect they were standard soft rubber balls, available for about 50 cents each wholesale.

The previous service went out. I went in, looking for my friend. She called to me, and I sat next to her. I had come in earlier than I had anticipated. I had assumed the bus ride would be a lot longer.

I looked around. This was not a traditional church. It looked more like an old time movie theater, in the days before stadium seating.

There is a standard formula among televangelists, and this place followed that: all of the pastor's children (and there were quite a few) were all participating in the service.

The service started with a song that reminded me of Boston's "More Than a Feeling," only more saccharime.

I noticed something immediately: the pastor's children were allegedly playing musical instruments. But none of their movements matched the sounds that came out of the speakers. I had to amuse myself somehow, so I would look from one family member to another, trying to
decide who was doing the worst job of faking to the music. It was a tossup, though I think the tambourine player was probably the worst. The singing was real, at least.

This atmosphere of phoniness permeated the rest of the service.

The pastor came on next. Looking like a combination of comedian Dennis Miller and "That's Incredible" host John Davidson, he started his message. But there wasn't much of a message: he spoke for a minute or two, and then showed a videotape of the weekend's activities.

I soon grew to flinching every time the word "awesome" was used. This was a futile attempt to try to connect with the younger crowd. I looked around at the kids there periodically. They looked more restless than anything.

Whenever the pastor would quote from the Bible, a screen would have the relevant Bible verse. In fact, the whole thing was very high tech: there were four screens that showed either slides or videos. It became obvious that the speakers would mention a Bible verse, and then wait while the projectionist would put it up on the screens. Then they would go on reading.

The pastor attempted to make jokes. I presume they were jokes. The audience would titter on cue. About the best line he had was the old comedy bit about someone's cell phone ringing during every service.

Finally, the pastor's brief time was over. A speaker from Australia came up. She exhorted the crowd to witness to the world, telling them it should be a compulsion, something they do
with everyone, at any time.

She let a bit of her life story slip through. She had gotten so obnoxious, so inflexible with her religious beliefs, that she was disowned not just by her family, but also her church.

And then came a part that got me wondering. basically, it was a bit about how to witness to people, using the old "living water" analogy. She used a "volunteer" from the audience. In service #1, he was a volunteer. In #2, suddenly he was part of it all along. I wonder what the truth is?

She said something that made my blood run cold: her basic contention was that the best way to witness was to find out about a person's wants and needs, and to tailor their witness to
that. Notice that she did not say to actually care about these people, notice that she did not say to help these people: just to tailor the message so that people would accept it. Getting them to believe was the important thing. All other considerations were worthless.

I couldn't help but look at my friend and wonder how genuine her feelings were.

Really, what is the difference between a religion and a cult? In a cult, emotions are phony, and relationships are only allowed to flourish among members of said cult. I do have to wonder if the term "Christian cult" is either an oxymoron-- or a redundancy.

The speaker was completely clueless. She couldn't understandf why people believed in Jesus, but yet most of these same believers didn't go and evangelize everyone every day. It's simple enough: it's the same reason a lot of believers join cause organizations and work for peace, or against abortion, or whatever, instead of just waiting for Jesus to come back (why bother working to change the world, after all, if Jesus is going to come back soon and make everything better?).

The reason is this: deep down, the majority of believers know that what they believe just isn't true. That's it.

That service ended after that. My friend and I went to the church bookstore.

I was amazed: an entire room full of books, about the size of a community college bookstore. I love books-- and yet, looking through the collection, there was not one book that I was tempted to buy.

This was quite a commercial operation: on one wall was a rack of audio CDs of past services. I flipped one over at random: it had been run off on a computer, and was not professionally duplicated. I thought it was funny, the mix of slick ptofessionalism and "Let's get Spanky and Darla and do a play in the barn" amateurishness.

I had to pretend to be interested in the books around me. If someone that I respected had been there (other than my friend) I would have been embarrassed.

Finally, the second service ended. I had allowed for a lot more time than I needed. My friend seemed a bit restless. She offered to stay with me. But she seemed uncomfortable with sitting with me for very long.

I finally confronted her. I got the old "Jesus is more important" line again. Not even a hint as to how she felt. But yet, given her previous actions, and all we had talked about, I suspect I know the answer. But, given what I had seen that day, I can only guess at her motives.

I remember reading an excellent quote about what "Christian love" is all about. Here it is:

"But this love, like all the others offered us, is offered cheap. In fact, the word cheap is doubly justified here; I love my neighbour only for the ulterior motive of my own salvation, and this love is possible without its conditions being necessary. On the human level every disagreement or inequality reduces love to a stage production. But for religious reasons, I can love beings whom the whole of my own being detests. What nullities such beliefs engender."

We had to stay for a time in the parking lot, waiting for my ride. We talked about a lot of things. She is one of the few people I have ever told about how my mother abused me. Her words were no comfort. It was the standard "Jesus will make you start all over again, fresh and clean." The words were neither useful or comforting.

And the thing is this: her personality is still such that I would seriously consider entering into her world, despite how much it would hurt my sense of self worth.

I remember an old TV show called "James at 15." It was a wonderful show, and it lasted about 1 1/2 seasons. It's about a teenaged boy who wants, more than anything else, to be both loved and in love. Most of the episodes centered around his trying to get a girl, and failing.

In one episode, James met a girl who was part of a religious cult. She claimed to love him. James figured why not? Just join the cult, get the girl, and true love will prevail.

But the cult wanted something else: a donation. James had a 35mm camera. He greatly enjoyed using that camera. The cost of that cult: giving them that camera. He was just about to give it away, when his sense came ack to him. He kept the camera, left the cult, and lost the girl.

Here I am, living "James at 15," only instead of my camera, it's my sense of self respect.

Only I don't know how it will end up.

So, what to do? The basic question is: Is she worth it? A few days ago I would have said yes. Now I am not sure.

That's progress, I guess.

An unsent letter

Still more of this pathetic story

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