Awana get outta this club

  June 26, 2025

Last post I talked about my first experiences with The Church. As an adult I had a very long period of trying to find a faith. I think I have been involved, at least for a short while, almost every world religion except Islam. I probably didn't end up in a hijab simply because there was no mosque near anywhere I lived in my 20's or 30's. I did try to Sufi spin once and ended up banging my head on the sofa arm as I fell over. 

In middle school I got talked into going to an Awana meeting at the brand new Baptist church outside town. WE HAVE SNACK TIME! Awanas did not last long, they didn't like me because I swore like a sailor. "Do you eat with that mouth" they said, and then got proof that I did as I single handedly consumed a large part of the snack table.  

I was fine with the sermon, okay with the big empty cross up front, and liked their stained glass which was just bright beautiful colors instead of pictures. The snacks were good, music unremarkable, nope this was all okay, until they broke us off into small groups for "handbook time". Ooooh I was excited, books! I love books as you know and that we might be reading something made me happy as a puppy with two peters. 

 So they whipped out the papers, there weren't really any stories, just like rules and stuff. I was irritated but willing to hold on for a possible story... Until they had me read something with an acrostic for Jesus on it. We were supposed to use "Jesus" as mnemonic device to remember pieces of scripture. And I was okay with that until we came to U which said "...We are all as an UNCLEAN thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags;" Isaiah 64:6. 

I vehemently and loudly objected to this statement. I was already well versed in similes and understood they were talking about my soul. The Awana leader further pissed me off by explaining to me it was my SOUL that was a dirty filthy bit of excrement because I wasn't saved. That pissed me right off. I was in 8th grade! I hadn't even BEGUN to sully my soul yet. See me after college lady. I might have spoken like a truck driver, but I was a good kid really.  So I told her she was out of her "Goddamn mind" and this was "fucking stupid". And I "sure as hell" was not going to admit to having a dirty soul.

Phone calls ensued, I remember it being quite chilly alone in the parking lot waiting for my Dad to come pick me up. I also remember my Dad chuckling jubilantly when I recounted why I'd gotten the boot.  He agreed with me entirely, Mom was upset because I used awful language, but not because of the stand I took. So that was it for me with the Baptist for another 20+ years.