I am not an atheist, but more of a Quantum Deist. There is a higher power that can and does shepherd his creation in a certain direction. However, no person or organization can lead one to salvation--it is my responsibility to live a moral, ethical, and altruistic life and see where I end up. When I was five, I believed in organized religion and that the organization was the Brethren of the Kingdom of God, or "The Church" as it was termed by the brethren.
The Church was led by Harold Powers, God's Apostle. Trent Powers, Harold's son, was the heir-apparent to run The Church if Harold Powers was no able to fulfill his role as God's Apostle. It was unlikely that anything would happen to Mr. Powers as it was 1968 and the Tribulation was only four years away. The most obedient and worthy brethren of The Church would be whisked away to The Place of Safety, so as not to suffer the Tribulation like the "worldly" people.
At age five I believed in predestination. I did not know what the word meant, but the concept was cemented in my mind. We were God's chosen people so our future was assured. That was why I was so proud that I was fasting for the Day of Atonement for the first time. I was now one step closer of going to The Place of Safety.
The fasting was not easy. I remember my head was pounding nearly as bad as the time the bumble bee stung me near my eye. I looked at my two year old sister, Nicole with a mixture of anger, resentment and jealously. Nicole or Cole, as I had tagged her, was serenely sucking on a bottle of ice cold water while God's Apostle preached the truth in the October East Texas heat. I was 20 hours into the Day of Atonement fast and I was fantasizing about what I would eat once the sun set. I was proud of myself for fasting but with four hours until sunset and the increasing decibels of God's Apostle preaching "the truth"; my headache was worsening.
"Brethren, the days are growing short--even now Satan has put his minions in place. Soon Trent and I will go to Jerusalem to witness the deception of the Anti-Christ and die in the service of Jesus to bring about the Millennium. We will surely die in the streets of Jerusalem, but will miss out on the terrible Great Tribulation that will follow. If you do not obey and render your very hearts to God, YOU WILL NOT BE RESURRECTED AND RULE BY THE SIDE OF JESUS IN HIS KINGDOM. YOU WILL BE CAST INTO THE PITS OF GEHENNA.
I was sitting next to Mr. Allen and his breath smelled like rotten cantaloupe--this further increased my discomfort. Mr. Allen was a nice man who, at the best of times, had the scent of a very dirty armpit with fecal undertones. It was normally standard operating procedure to keep an empty seat between yourself and Mr. Allen, but today all of God's people within driving distance came to hear God's Apostle speak. It was standing room only and I was packed right next to Mr. Allen, who, as a habitual mouth-breather, was disseminating his malodorous foulness very effectively. Cole was escaping Mr. Allen's breath and much of the heat since she was lying on her pallet on the floor. Dad started making me sit up through the church services when I turned four, so now I was inside Mr. Allen's turd breath zone.
One benefit of sitting next to Mr. Allen was that I was able to get an up close view of his tremendous warts. The warts could be considered disfiguring, but I could not help being transfixed by the carbuncles. The largest wart was on the top right side of his head and was almost an inch in diameter, and then every one to two inches a wart protruded from Mr. Allen's head until the final wart nestled on top of his right eyebrow. In a cruel twist of irony, Mr. Allen had a very scant horseshoe of white gray hair around the sides and back of his head, but three huge coarse curly hairs grew out of each of the eight warts on his head. I had this overwhelming compulsion to reach over and pull one hair out of one of the warts, but of course I did not. I was very worried about these weird thoughts and compulsions I had, I knew I should not have bad thoughts or think ill of others; it could allow Satan to keep me out of the Place of Safety for my wicked thoughts.
I looked at God's Chosen People in the auditorium and was amazed how easy it would be to pick out a church member out of a crowd. Harold Powers made it clear that it was God's mandate that no woman should wear make up or be painted like a whore (I asked Dad what is a whore and he said it was bad woman and that is all I needed to know). Furthermore, women could wear no dress that rose above the knees. The men also had their own prohibitions, the hair must be worn short and sideburns could not come below the middle of the ear. Remember, this was 1968 and the "worldly people" were wearing their hair quite long. Likewise, bell bottoms were strictly prohibited since the drug taking, long haired, rock and roll hippies wore them. Aside from the outward appearance, I noticed that many of God's Chosen People were losers in life's earthly contest. Many had physical afflictions. Most were rather poor and several were the outcasts of society. Mom always told me it did not matter how God's people fared in the "worldly" domain, because soon we would be gods and rule at the right hand of Jesus. Dad always said the first shall be last and the last shall be first. That is probably why Mr. Allen did not have the warts removed. Once God brought Jesus back to rule over the Millennium all physical afflictions would be healed or removed. Also, if Mr. Allen removed the warts, it would show a lack of faith and might keep him out of the Kingdom of God. Of course, it would be fine if a Minister anointed Mr. Allen to have the warts removed, but if they remained that was God's will and he would have to live with the warts until the Millennium arrived. Again, I thought of predestination and wondered if Mr. Allen's warts had a celestial reason for their existence. Predestined?
Harold Powers, God's Apostle, continued his message of Millennial salvation. My earliest memories of "The Church" was thinking Harold Powers was God and Trent, being Harold's son, was Jesus Christ. It made sense to my three year old brain; the ministers always spoke of God the Father and his only begotten son. By five, I knew that the real God and Jesus were up in Heaven until Jesus comes back to cast Satan out of the world. Ironically, when I studied the faces of the other brethren it appeared that they thought he WAS God from the expressions of rapture, reverence, and awe. The brethren not only deified Harold Powers, they had complete faith in his message. Not only did they adhere to Holy Days that mainstream Christians would find strange if not heretical. The Day of Atonement was a good example, since The Church observed a majority of the Old Testament Jewish Holy Days, ate kosher, but also banned the observance of Christmas, Halloween and other "worldly" holidays. Finally, they gave 10% of their income to Powers all year long and additionally gave more offerings on the numerous Church Holy Days. It was expensive preparing the world for the return of Jesus and the casting out of Satan.
Mr. Powers was on a roll that day. We had been sitting on the torturous metal chairs for three hours and God's Apostle showed no signs of concluding his message.The auditorium was very hot because it had no air conditioning and close to two thousand brethren showed up to hear God's Apostle--all emanating heat, unbelievable body stench and an amalgam of toxic bad breaths that had no water pass their lips in twenty hours. To worsen things, my butt was sweating and a tremendous itch began that no amount of squirming could eliminate. I never new why they used the agonizing torture chamber chairs. The one upside were the chairs were excellent fart amplifiers.
My best friend, Richie, once purposefully cut a colossal fart on one of the rigid chairs during a church services; it sounded like 20 men unanimously hammering a tin roof with a ball peen hammer. Rich got five swats for breaking wind in church and the additional penalty of sitting on the malevolent chair with his sore butt for two hours, but WOW was it loud. Richie always claimed it was worth getting the five swats to create such a masterful example of fartmanship.
Mr. Powers always sounded like he had root beer bubbles in his voice. He was a good speaker, but the root beer bubbles never went away. He was really hitting his stride: "DO YOU WANT TO GO TO THE PLACE OF SAFETY? THEN YOU MUST REPENT AND SUPPORT GOD'S WORK. THOSE WHO DO NOT GO TO THE PLACE OF SAFETY WILL SURELY DIE WHEN SATAN AND THE ANTI-CHRIST REIGN DOWN THEIR SEVEN YEARS OF TERROR--THERE WILL BE FAMINE, WARS, PESTILENCE AND A WORLD WIDE HOLOCAUST FOR THOSE WILL NOT PROSTRATE AT THE FEET OF SATAN AND SWEAR ALLEGIANCE. MY PATH IS ALREADY SET (predestination?), I WILL ASSUREDLY DIE IN JERUSALEM JUST AS REVELATIONS PROPHESIES, BUT I WILL BE RESURRECTED WHEN JESUS RULES THE KINGDOM OF GOD FOR 1000 YEARS OF PEACE. WE WILL BECOME GODS-- WE WILL RULE OVER THOSE WHO MOCK US NOW. THEY WILL BE OUR SERVANTS, AND WE "THE CHOSEN ONES", WILL RULE AT THE RIGHT HAND OF JESUS!!
Just then, Powers slammed his hand on the podium and actually woke a few people up. However, Mom suddenly stiffened and a deep guttural growl came from within her. She then stiffened even more and then flung herself on Dad's shoes. She then kicked and literally screamed as if she was in extreme pain while one of her feet kicked Cole in the head causing her to open her eyes and started crying. Dad did his best to subdue Mom and several helped carry her to the back of the auditorium to the bathroom area. I was very frightened, but at the same time embarrassed by her disruption of the services. Richie's mom, Aunt Nancy, helped Cole and I get to the area where Dad was cradling Mom's head in his lap as a minister prayed over her. I now know Mom was having an epileptic grand Mal seizure, after which Mom had a period of time where she rambled in very disjointed sentences, spoke to people that were not present, and many times she would digress to a point where she acted as if she were in school or she was sixth or seventh grade. There were many anti-seizure medications, but Mom would not take them because she new God would heal her.
The more stress Mom was under the more seizures she had. When she went to college, where she met Dad, she had some extremely bad gran Mal seizures. Word quickly spread that Mom was possessed. Her room-mate swore she saw their toothbrushes floating in mid air. It was all rumor, in some circles she was ignored. Looking back what frustrates the Hell out of me is a few simple pills would have stopped or lessened her malady. But, that is now, back then the ministers knew all. Some praying, a couple drops of olive oil, and Mom was better. HORSE FECES, there were many times Mom would have a spell in the middle of night and scare the Hell out of Cole, but, most mornings she would wake kind of normal. And I assure you no minister and his olive oil anointed Mom.
Was this my first inkling of the predestination heresy--it probably was. No anointing or laying on of hands made Mom's seizures stop. There was a point in the late 1950's when Mom took the medicine and it greatly reduce her spells. Yet, when she arrived at the College of the Brethren, she was strongly admonished about the drugs as God will heal anything that was causing her problems. It turned out to be unadulterated pig sheist. Even when I was five I knew God was very selective in his miracles. I fervently prayed for a TV to pop up on my wall so I would not be so bored while napping--it did not happen. Maybe I did not pray hard enough, but I fervently wanted the TV. Why did God not answer me?
Now Mom was starting to come out of her spell, but was still really incoherent, talking gibberish and such. And that is when I had the overwhelming and instant need to vomit in a monumental fashion. This was not the type of vomit that one could swallow if to embarrassed to vomit in public. My vomit in the next second was going to be projectile and vile vomit. I had no time to make it to the bathroom so I turned and let loose a torrent of incredible volume for one my size. Was this vomiting a sign of my family's predestination. Being ostracized by friends for going to Church on Saturday and not being able to celebrate Christmas or Halloween (after Dad was fired from the college and we moved from the only home I ever knew)--or was it the banning of lay brethren from dating College Brethren-- or was it the missing out on athletic Scholarships because I could not compete on Saturdays. Maybe, it was the minister whom drove me to the church National Track meet that wanted to strip naked each night and give each other massages. Perhaps, it was the ban on the Church's college girls--yet the vomit continued on its own volition. I could not stop it--it was as if I was taking penance for my future trials. The drinking on the Holy Day's when I was 16, the premarital sex (as much and as often as possible). It may have been my later conviction that the Church was a bunch of crap and the whole lot of the Brethren could bugger off. Maybe by taking that position God turned his back on me, but as time went on I realized that Gehenna was not coming and I was doing just fine thank you.
As the vomit started to reduce I realized I had vomited of one of the ministers stylish white shoes and a matching belt that gave him the conservative "mod" look. The minister looked at me with righteous disgust and took a handkerchief out to wipe his shoes. He then said between clenched teeth, "You little bastard have you ever heard of using a bathroom--go get me some paper towels to wipe this mess up." Unfortunately for the the white-shooed minister I had just enough bile left in my stomach to stain his stylish paisley tie with a rather garish yellow-green muck of indelible puke that could never be removed from the vain minister's tie. Richie later said that was twice as good as his masterful percussionist fart.
I did not know what a "little bastard" was, but the fashion in which it was spoken to me made me understand that one should shy away from being a "little bastard". I was doing the walk of shame since I had just puked on a rather important member of the Church. That was when I began to believe in predestination--It looked as Mom and I would miss out on the place of safety, her being "demon possessed" and I being a little bastard. There was still time though, it was only 1968, maybe I could do something about being a little bastard. In the end, 1972 came and passed and know body went to The Place of Safety, or the following year and the year after that. In fact the prophesied Tribulation never came.
I soon learned what a little bastard was and I was certainly not one. But, there were months where I could not sleep, because of my fear of being left behind.
Now I look back at those days with a little amusement. There were deacons and ministers that one could liken to Hitler's SS. They were there to guard the Church and the "Truth". Now, the Church has splintered as if one hit a china dish with a 16 lb mallet. I wonder how the ruling class of the Church of old was handling not being an important fish in relatively good sized pond. Now, nobody gave a crap if they were deacons or elders. Most of the splinter groups were just trying to put back a gospel that all could live with and the uber-deacons and elders had to check their enormous hats and egos at the door.
I'm still not sure about predestination--the flashing insights I had into my future life did seem to have some merit, but was it because I had been indoctrinated into the church or did I have a guttural mystical experience. I am not sure, and guess it does not matter as much as a warm bucket of spit. I do know what Hell is like and Hell on earth was the manipulation, mistreatment and malfeasance of the brethren of the "Kingdom of God". I got out when I was 18, but still have dreams of having to hurry so we could go to The Place of Safety. What of those that came to the realization that they had been fed forty years millenial mendacities.
The "Church" no longer exists in the unified form as it did in the 1960's. The vain minister I puked on was found dead in a closet in what seemed to be an act of self-sexual aphixisation. Both the Powers are dead. They had a sad and meaningless power struggle over who would be the head of the church--which was non-existent two years later. The minister that molested me is still preaching somewhere--I guess God forgives those that really repent, but who knows we waited for the end of the world and it never happened, so maybe he is still into naked full body rub downs with sixteen years old boys.
In the end, I guess none of this means much when/if we meet our Creator. I do know being a slave to predestination turns one into a meek, malliable, automotons. And if one is an automoton predestination may exist. I choose the road that the carrion eating, billboard, TV Sunday self-promoters do not take--that of extorting as much money and ego from their flock. There is a God and I visit him every time I go for a long bike ride or run, or just having a quiet moment with my daughter--unconditional love, the supernatural, celestial love only a deity can bestow upon a person. The clarity and euphoria after these sessions no man can create or cause to be created. Sorry Jim Bakker you cannot give me these moments of peace, satisfaction, and true belief in God. Besides, I can sing to myself while I am running without a soul knowing it. I lived through the Tribulation, the potential end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine).
