January 28, 2005

2005-01-28

Satan in Chapel

I went to a private, small Baptist University. Which is sorta ironic considering I'm not Christian.

Anyhow, once a week, everyone had to go to Chapel for an hour. It sounds like a real drag, and I thought it would be a pain in the ass, but it ended up being okay. I mean, it was a whole hour once a week when I could just you know...sit...meditate...relax...fall asleep...whatever.

But the first experience I had in Chapel was a freakin sideshow. Since I hadn't ever been to Chapel before, I walked in, and found my seat right up front and sat down. I was surrounded by you know...wealthy, white, sheltered kids who were used to very staid dignified boring church services. Which is what I'm used to..with the exception of I'm used to staid dignified services in Hebrew...and being pinched by any older woman near me when I nod off.

So, anyhow...the drill in Chapel was the preacher dude would get up and tell everyone to "settle down now!" I looked around and yeah...these kids were WILD let me tell ya. They needed some settlin' down before things got out of hand. Dude. They are sitting in their seats whispering. Anyhow, I guess saying "settle down now, folks" made Preacher dude feel authoritative or something.
So, he always gave the weekly news or whatnot at the beginning of services. He would tell what club was trying to save the souls of doomed nonbelievers and where they were doing this...they called it "mission work", and then there would be a short prayer, and I would fervently recite the Sh'ma in my head so as not to be condemned to Hell forever.

Then, he turned the floor over to these two guys. One had bongos and one had a guitar. The guitar guy comes up to the microphone and starts out with this really sad sort of faux cool voice.

"Hey everybody! Allright! Woo!" *silence*
bongo bongo bong bong bongitty bongitty bong

I glanced around..nobody was joining him in the "woo!ing". I felt like I should do a fist pump in the air or SOMETHING for Christ's sake..but hey who am I to start trouble...if I had done that, I may as well just put a big ass sign on my ass that said "FILTHY HEBE".

So, sad pathetic faux cool guitar dude with the patchy goatee says...

"Yeah! allright! So, like....we are looking for anyone who plays an instrument to join our band and help us praise the lord with song."

*silence*

"Ahem..Allright, people! Let's hear it for Jesus!!!!!Woo!!!!"

*sporadic clapping and "woo!"ing*
Even I clapped. Hell, Jesus was nice enough, I guess...I'll clap. The dude was really dying up there.

So, he continues..."Yeah...so anyone who can sing or play any instrument...any instrument at ALL...just contact me or Shane after Chapel...and you can join us okay? Yeah...so we're gonna play y'all a song now....YEAH!"

I whispered: "woo!" very quietly to myself.

and they played one of those contemporary Christian songs you see the commercials for. And there was this screen behind them where all the lyrics were flashed for us to sing along. But before they started, they made us stand the fuck up. Shit. Stand up and sing the fuck along. God. Shit. I'll stand, but I am not gonna sing. I can't. Sorry. I'll whisper a "woo" every now and then, and I might even pretend there are lasers behind you, but I will NOT sing along. So, I'm standing along with everyone else, and I look around and there are all these people with their arms up in the air like they were doing the "YMCA" dance from the late 70's. Like they were doing the "Y", you know?
Then I noticed the lyrics..they creeped me out. I'm not even going into the lyrics. They were almost sexual. Ick.

So, the poor singer dudes finished like FIVE FUCKING songs during which we had to stand the whole GODDAMNED TIME. I swear to God, the only thing that could have made it worse was if Yoko Ono had joined them.

So, then the "Guest preacher" came onstage. And the fact that I say "on stage" is sorta disturbing. But a stage is what it was.

Okay. Guest preacher dude was from a "Methodist antique African Primitive" church or something like that. I remember the word "Methodist" and then a word that meant "old". I'm not sure if it was "antique" or "primitive" or what..anyhow..this dude charged onto the stage and grabbed the microphone from ole Sadsack bongo player. The "band" schlepped off stage with their Abercrombie jeans dragging ass very sadly...and slowly..and they paused before they hit the stairs..and they waved at the audience...and then new preacher dude...
He immediately starts SCREAMING incoherently.

Which woke up everyone. Including me. I thought "Kick ASS, this is getting fun, now." Anyhow, I couldn't understand what the fuck he was saying because he was screaming into the mike so loud. Spittle was flying all over the freakin' place. It was flying around his head, it was flying clear into the 3rd row. It was like a Gallagher show. But every once in awhile he'd pause and you'd hear these voices across the Chapel holler "Say it preacher man!!!"
So I look over and there was a small pocket of African American students sitting together and they were thoroughly enjoying it. As was I. But I did't know it was you know...INTERACTIVE. But it was. And it wasn't like...something you could CHOOSE to do...it was EXPECTED.
And the preacher stops and stands in the middle of the stage and gets totally silent. He glowers at the shell shocked white kids sitting out there and says "Y'all aren't listening to me."
He wanted all the uptight kids to holler and carry on.

Fuck yeah.

So he gets a few of the "YMCA" dancer people who decided to get down and get funky and holler "yeah!" every once in awhile, but they never hollered it in the right spots. It was truly painful.

Anyhow, as the sermon went on, he started saying that Satan was on the campus. He was alive and well and on our campus. Man, he was all over this Satan shit. And I'm sitting there thinking..."What the hell? Satan? As in THE Satan?"

I looked around because I'm sitting there thinking.."with the prices I am paying on tuition...you fuckers can't keep fucking SATAN off campus? This is a goddamned PRIVATE school!!! DAMN!"
I look around, nobody else seemed at all upset or surprised. I was completely disgusted.
I'm thinking, "Does Satan have to take Chapel? Did he get permission to skip Chapel? How do I get out of Chapel? Does he have to take the Old and New Testament classes? What does he look like? Is he in any of my fucking classes? DAMN! Is he on financial aid? What.the.FUCK?"

So dude finished up, and everyone all of a sudden jumped the hell up and started pushing like the building was on fire. I thought I had missed some secret signal or something, because it was like a Metallica concert had just let out and people were trying to get to their cars or something.

Yeah. So this went on week after week. I eventually figured out that I could sleep during this hour except when the two sadsacks played their music.

And nobody ever joined their "band".