Born Unplugged Pt.2

(Click here for PART 1)

I used to think they called Sunday because it was, well, the sun.  On those Sundays where it was so sunny and I was forced into my Sunday suit it was especially hot.  Did it bother the congregation?  Nope, they stood in that heat outside that pinkish-beige stone church conversing and gossiping. It almost exclusively women and kids (maybe exclusive is the wrong word) with a few men sprinkled about, everyone with their fly suits, fancy dresses and big-as hats.  And did I mention their happy face; that false grin that black folks are so good at?  The kind that comes attached to phrases like “The lawd woke me up today.” The kind that developed during slavery as a kind of coping mechanism for really fucked up situations (that’s my take on it anyway). 

Church had always been a weird environment for me; it’s like Showtime at the Apollo and Dance Dance Revolution got together and had a baby.  The service would begin by marching through the door to mind-numbingly repetitive songs about suffering and weakness, songs that extoll how unworthy we humans are and how we would be nothing if not for clutching to these myths.  Another 20 to 30 minutes of chatter from the church officers, another jesus song, maybe two, and then the preacher would come up for the main sermon.  The whole time the children were made to sit down and shut up, especially the ones who thought to ask why or how? Or what does it mean?  Each time they were told in one way or another listen to the preacher, while adults and the elderly applauded the discourse from the pulpit with utterances of “Amen”, “That’s right”, or “Jesus” and so on.

About an hour later there would be another song, followed by the main or key sermon.  Eventually the tension and the drama of the minister’s voice would build until he began yelling and snorting like a wild hog (anyone who’s ever been to a black church, even once, know exactly what I’m talking about here).  I remember asking “Why doesn’t someone call an ambulance or at least have a doctor on here”, and my mother would say, “That’s just the preacher gittin’ the holy ghos’”.  All of the singing and yelling and praising would usually lead up to what I can only describe as a mass psychotic breakdown. The congregation would go into these fits; from jumping from their seats and convulsing to doing variations on a simple two-step.  I remember watching this chaos and thinking “They think this is a good thing?!” It wasn’t until I was older that I realized the cultural aspect behind what they called “shouting.”

(To be continued…)