Wednesday, 16 March 2005

Anyone For Irony?

A top Catholic Cardinal had this to say about best-selling book The DaVinci Code:

"You can find that book everywhere and the risk is that many people who read it believe that those fairy tales are real."

Posted by flow Frazao on March 16, 2005 at 06:05 AM in Religion | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Sunday, 12 September 2004

Your Discipline Determines Your Destiny

For those of you who don't know, Glenys (my Australian mother-in-law) has been visiting for the past few weeks. She'll be here until the end of September, at which point she'll head back to Oz.

It's been great fun having her here, and we've been having a blast, especially since we all arrived in West Hartford. The past week or so has been real laid back - Fiona and I have been sorting through our stuff that will go into storage in my Mom & Dad's basement, and Glenys has been chilling with my parents and my Grandma.

Glenys, being a religious person, has been especially interested in checking out American churches. Specifically the black ones. She had an incredible time in DC when she went to a service at one of the massive inner city churches. Out of about a thousand worshippers, she was the only white person in attendance.

It's interesting, because when she told me about it I couldn't help but wonder how I would've reacted in the same situtation. She said it was absolutely lovely and the people were warm and welcoming, but I still felt like I would have been uneasy.

I think my misgivings have a lot to do with growing up in America. This country has been so divided for so long over problems and issues and concerns, that it's hard to believe that there's such a thing as an American who isn't at least slightly fucked up about race.

For example, the town where I grew up was overwhelmingly white. I remember at our elementary school we had a program set up to integrate the school system by bussing kids in from Hartford. These were the only black kids I saw up until I was about 12. At the time I didn't think anything of it, but in retrospect I can see how it contributed to a division in my mind between blacks and whites. White kids were the ones you lived next door to and played with after school, whereas black kids were the ones who were bussed into school under "Project Concern". Seriously, that was the name of the program. They couldn't think of anything more degrading? Was "Project You Poor Little Negroes" taken?

At any rate, I've since come to terms with most of my racial hang-ups, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't still have some cobwebs lurking in the corners of my Connecticut brain. Every now and then I feel those old prejudices creeping up, no matter how hard I try to disregard them.

Anyway, as I was saying, when Glenys got back from her DC black church experience I couldn't help but wonder how I would have reacted in a similar situation. I've been to countless functions where I was in a room full of white people save for one or two blacks, but I've never had an experience from the opposite direction.

Until today.

This morning, Glenys and I decided we'd go into Hartford to check out a Pentacostal church in the North End. Now, I'm not much of a churchgoer as it is, so going anywhere on Sunday morning is a bit outside my comfort zone. This was something else though - a truly unprecedented experience for me on multiple levels.

We got all dudded up in our finest threads, hopped in the car, and headed into the city. I felt like I was back in DC driving through Anacostia, but I was only 10 miles away from where I spent my whole life until I turned 18. I had no idea that neighborhoods like this existed in Hartford. Apparently, my naiveté knows no bounds.

We parked the car on the street and walked over to the church. As it happened, we started talking to a woman who was also on her way in. She asked us if we were there for the service and told us we were gonna love it.

I held the door for her and my mother-in-law, and as soon as we entered one of the ushers immediately went to Glenys' side and led her to a seat front and center. On our way down the aisle I noticed that we were the only two white people there. To be honest, it would have been my inclination to sit way in the back, but there would be none of that. We were thrust right into the thick of it.

And man was it thick. I have never seen anything like what I saw this morning. The service started at 10:00 (we arrived a half hour late), and for a full hour there was music. REAL music too - none of that church organ shit. There was a drummer in a soundproof booth, a keyboardist, and 4 singers laying it down along with the entire congregation.

But not only singing. These people were whooping it up. They were dancing in the aisles and stomping their feet. One woman behind me started screaming "Thank you Jesus!! Thank you Jesus!!" over and over at the top of her lungs. It kind of freaked me out a little bit because it sounded like she was losing it. It was a display of naked emotion unlike any I've ever seen.

And this was all before the service started.

When the Pastor finally made his entrance the whole place erupted. I could not believe I was in a church. I had no idea that religion could be so full of energy and life. All my previous experience had been at Catholic masses and Jewish Bar Mitzvahs which are almost as exciting as a public reading of the phone book.

The Pastor stood at the pulpit for about two minutes giving shout outs to Jesus and the Lord. He brought the congregation to a sweaty, hollering crescendo that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. For over an hour he walked up and down the aisles laying his hands on people and reducing them to shaking, quivering piles on the ground.

I saw grown black men hug each other and weep without any shame or embarrassment. At one point, the preacher told "all the brothers" to go give their love to one of the church elders and almost every single man in the building surrounded one person. It was the most tactile, overwhelming display of emotion I've ever seen in public.

And throughout the whole thing people made eye contact with me and spoke to me like they would anyone else. After about 15 minutes I realized that the only person in that building who had any concerns about race was me. I might have been the only white guy in the building, but the important thing was that we were all there together. When the Pastor shouted out "Anybody who's thankful for what you've got raise your hands up" we ALL raised our hands high.

The preacher never even got a chance to deliver the sermon he'd been working on. He got so caught up in the moment that he overran his time, which was a shame because it sounded like it would've been a good one. He said the title of the series is going to be "Your Discipline Determines Your Destiny."

Twelve hours later as i write this, I'm still smiling. My mom said that if I attend again she wants to come with me.

I can't wait to go back.

Posted by flow Frazao on September 12, 2004 at 11:27 PM in Religion | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack