Thank You Jesus!

Okay:

So, a few weeks ago I screwed up my knees real good. I think I may have mentioned it in my last blog. Anyways, there were more than enough jokes to go around at work about my hilarious dead man's limp, from both students and staff, ranging from "Limp C" to the shockingly clever "Sir Limp-a-Lot". Between the jokes, the pain, the red bank account, the slumped love life and the failing of the Praxis, I was fairly depressed.

So, I did what I always do when I'm depressed. I wake up early Sunday morning and watch Joel Osteen. If he can't cheer me up, then I know I need a drink. Well, old Joel didn't disappoint. It wasn't a full recovery, but he did make me smile. He's just so white and rich and happy. It's not even about Jesus for me. I'm an adamant agnostic. I just like him because he seems genuinely pleased with himself. He makes me feel all warm inside about things. So warm, in fact, that I decided I would go to church. I wanted to spend time around happy people, people who are so blinded by their love of a ghost that things like credit scores and writs of possession seem trivial.

But before I left for church I had to watch the MacLaughlin Group. This also cheers me up. Joel made me smile, but I needed to laugh. And if watching Eleanor Cliff scream "Let me finish!" at Pat Buchanan doesn't make you giggle, I don't know what will.

But I digress. My family is Pentecostal. This means that I know the Bible better than most, but the extrimity of the doctrine surrounding this particular faith will send you one way or the other. I went the other.

Anyways, they own a church over on the infamous Hobart Street. My grandfather started the church many years ago. Now my uncle is the pastor. The ushers are my cousins. The missionaries are my aunts. And my father plays the piano. There are 10 pews and rarely ever more than two dozen "saints" (church members). My father, the paino player, and my uncle, the pastor, decided that they needed to improve upon the building to create more space. So, they started this thing called the building fund. Then they got someone to bring a bulldozer over and dig a big canyon-like hole in the backyard. Then they got someone else to fill that hole up with cement. For whatever reason, things stopped there. That was about two years ago.

They have "temporarily" moved services to a Christian school in Hyattsville. This is where I went this past Sunday. After listening to my uncle go on a thirty minute tiraid about how muslims are taking over the world and soon it won't be safe to worship the Lord anymore and women will "have to wear them silly lookin' thangs on they heads", the service finally ended. I went over to the makeshift pulpit (a lunch counter during the school week) to greet my uncle and father. They noticed my limp and became very concerned. "Have you gone to the doctor?" "You need to have that looked at." "You may have arthritis." "Why would you want to go running for the sake of running?" To which my father added, "I think I gave you bad knees. I tried to give you good knees but I couldn't find the good knees button."

Then finally, as I should have been able to predict, someone said, "Let's pray on them."

Before I could protest, they had already broken out the bottle of virgin olive oil. The next thing I knew, they were upon me. It was my uncle leading the charge. He took the oil and made a cross on my head. Then the church elders appeared out of nowhere and everyone had there hands firmly placed on different parts of my body. Then they all started praying at the same time. One of them went limp and started speaking in tongues. This went on for about three minutes. Then my unlce looked at me and smiled and said, "You should be fine now."

Well, I wasn't. My knees still hurt like hell, but I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings so I tried my best to straighten up and walk straight. As I laboriously made my way across the room, my aunts, the missionaries started shouting, "GLORY HALLELUJAH! He is Good! He is so Good! GLORY!" Apparently, I had inadvertently participated in a miracle.

Well.

That night my father called. "Are you okay, son?" he asked.

"My knees are a little better. Why?"

"No, I mean you personally. Are you alright? I've never known you to just pop up at church like that. I was hoping there wasn't anything crazy going on."

The old man surprised the hell out of me. Just him asking made things better. I realized that I had been moping around for weeks but no one had noticed, which was making it worse. I just wanted someone to acknowledge that I was out of sorts. Being human, man. Being human. What an experience!