The Church
Pieces on confessions and spirituality from Peggy Schimmelman, Dwayne Thorpe, and Anastasia Vassos.
TRANSCRIPT
Back in 325 AD, a bunch of Christian Church leaders got together beginning in mid-May to try to arrive at some consensus about the core of Christian belief. The meeting took place in Nicaea, which is in what is now Turkey. Out of that meeting came the first version of the Nicene Creed, which said, essentially, that Christians believe in God the Father, in Jesus the Son of God, and in the Holy Ghost or Spirit. A lot’s happened to the Church and Christianity since then, but some version of the Nicene Creed is still at its core. On this episode of Burning Bright, some pieces about the church, and more specifically, about what and how to believe.
In this excerpt from her short story “The Road to Crazytown, 1964,” Peggy Schimmelman describes a young girl’s guilt, as she attends an evangelical revival but doesn’t feel what she thought she was supposed to be feeling.
I confessed to Jesus that I was a sinner, and that I wanted Him to forgive me and come into my heart. Then I waited for it to happen – to feel different, somehow, like a burden was lifted, and my heart to fill up with joy and peace. But after a couple of minutes, nothing had changed; I felt just as guilty and bad as before.
I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed, and so did Aunt Opal and Brother Dinkins and the others, but Jesus just didn’t seem to want anything to do with me. By the time the congregation had sung all the verses of “Power in the Blood,” I was starting to feel a little embarrassed about how long it was taking me to be saved. I was scared, too, thinking I must be a worse person than anybody else in the congregation, since I never before had seen Jesus take this long to accept a person’s soul. I didn’t know what to do, except to keep praying. So I tried just asking forgiveness for “all my sins, even the ones I don’t remember,” thinking that should cover it, but that didn’t work either.
Brother Dinkins whispered, “I know the Lord must’ve forgiven you by now, honey. Don’t you feel Him there in your heart?” How could I admit that He hadn’t come into my heart after all this time? There was nothing to do but lie. So now, on top of my other guilt, I would have this to worry about: lying to a preacher in the Lord’s own house.
As Brother Dinkins raised both arms heavenward, and the entire congregation followed suit, my knees threatened to buckle as I remembered what would now be expected of me. The cries of “Praise God” and “Hallelujah” grew louder, the tone changing from excited to impatient. I should have commenced babbling by now, filled with the Holy Ghost, but instead I stood frozen, soon to be exposed as a fraud in front of the entire congregation.
An excerpt from Peggy Schimmelman’s story “The Road to Crazytown, 1964” from Passager’s Winter 2017 issue.
Here’s another take on confessing your sins, this one from Passager’s 2014 Poetry Contest issue, “The Last Time I Went to Church” by Dwayne Thorpe.
The last time I really went to church
was with a basement congregation
tucked in under a one-story house
on the edge of the city park.
The preacher and his constant wife
lived above in three small rooms.
A cousin of my grandmother he was.
At a dining table having lunch
next to their window after church
we overheard kids at the pool
splashing, daring, and obscening.
In the language of home we called each other
brother, quietly passed the rolls,
complimented her sweet chow-chow
and his Country Gentleman corn.
An hour earlier, down in the church,
a man had wept as he confessed
adultery before everyone.
His fingers shook on the back of the pew,
but he stood straight and spoke clearly,
afterwards to be surrounded by others,
a guardian cloak to protect his wound.
How they loved him, and he loved back,
this tiny group out on the edge
of a world which cared nothing – but declared
it knew they were hypocrites;
those weeping, tender, God-hungered souls
who welcomed me and praised my children,
the last time I really went to church.
Dwayne Thorpe’s poem “The Last Time I Went to Church.”
Anastasia Vassos said she was raised in a Greek Orthodox community and as an adult, continues to search, “to discover what’s greater than I am, a universal truth, an abiding beauty.” She said, “I have come to understand that the big questions have their answers in the particular. Poetry is my vehicle for examining my agnosticism and seeking that meaning.” Here’s Anastasia’s poem “Dear God,”
Dear God,
I saw you today in the grocery store
stacking pomegranates. I recognized your dreadlocks.
I saw you holding my American Heritage dictionary
page 48 searching all the words with Greek roots.
There you were in the maple tree’s phalanges
the blaring canopy grounded
wet leaves and the grass
stunted by November’s cheek.
At 4 a.m. you appeared behind my eyelids
in the shape of a boat – was that on purpose? –
– struts and joints and ribs
and stretchers almost shining.
Thank you for my body. Thank you for listening
to my babbling until an hour before dark.
In the park, the Orthodox priest passes
floating on his cloud of faith
his black cassock, his cylindrical hat
long and tall. I wipe dust off my shoe.
I thought that was you in soot on my finger
after I passed it through the candle flame.
Dear God,
when you see me eating in church
it’s because I hunger.
From Passager’s 2022 Poetry Contest issue, Anastasia Vassos’s poem “Dear God.“
To subscribe to, donate to, or learn more about Passager and its commitment to older writers, visit passagerbooks.com.
Passager offers a 25% discount on the books and journal issues featured here on Burning Bright. Visit our website to see what’s on sale this week.
For Christine, Rosanne, Mary, Asher, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.
Due to the limitations of online publishing, poems may not appear in their original formatting.
Not Pictured: Dwayne Thorpe.
