Religion Strikes Our Family

This is creative nonfiction. It is nonfiction because it mostly true; it is creative because of a few little embellishments I threw in to add a bit of humor.

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I suppose many families have at least one member who is a strain on the forbearance of some of the other family members. In our case it was Uncle D, my mother's brother. He was a lifelong bachelor completely devoid of ambition or any shame about that shortcoming. He wore striped overalls and smoked big, brown, stinking cigars. He never new or cared that they were sickening to a child riding in the same car with him with the windows rolled up. I could turn green and barf in his lap before he noticed.

The day Uncle D got saved at the Nazarene Church was the day he became a menace to more of the family than just me. In those days, it was called "getting religion," and the symptoms were: a) a sudden cessation of sinning, like smoking, drinking, dancing, and cussing; b) a need to be in church for every service, no matter the weather or whatever else you needed to do; c) pestering your friends and relatives whom you thought were most certainly going to hell if they didn't join your church to experience a similar spiritual awakening for the salvation of their souls.

 Nobody could say grace over a family dinner longer than Uncle D, and he prayed for everything from the war in Korea to the widow lady who lived next door and stalked him like a teenager in heat. The rest of the family just sighed and watched the mashed potatoes and pot roast grow cold. Asking him to shorten his prayers would have been a maltreatment to his Christian spirit. Once at a barbeque my sister S got so bored during grace that she threw a weenie right in his face. Uncle D prayed for God to forgive the little brat.

Not all his methods were that straightforward, though. Sometimes he took a more circuitous route to restore lost souls unto their Creator. At some point my daddy became his target for redemption, but rather than speak directly to Daddy about his impending residence in hell, Uncle D invited our family to come to church with him. Afterward, we were all to assemble at Grandma's house for Sunday dinner and another endless plea to God, over the pot roast, for the salvation of our sorry souls.

After the church service came the invitational where the preacher pleaded and cajoled all those who had not been baptized to come forth and lay their souls on the line. At this point a couple of Uncle D's friends seized upon Daddy, grabbed his arms. and begged him to take this opportunity to join the blessed in Christ. I was both angered and entertained by this because I knew Uncle D had put the men up to it--but I also thought how amusing it would be if Daddy's bad temper let go and he punched both men in the face. I suppose it was wrong of me to be disappointed when Daddy just ignored the men and they finally went away. Still, there was hope that he might punch Uncle D later. But that never happened.

Things were quiet for a while after that; I little knew that my turn was coming. Toward the end of my senior year in high school I came home from school one day to find Uncle D sitting in the living room. He informed me that I should pack my bag for a weekend trip to a Nazarene Church college where he hoped that I would enroll. This sneaky approach to proselytizing angered me considerably, but I knew better than to argue with an adult family member so I packed a bag. Shortly, the local Nazarene preacher drove up to haul me to the college, a three-hour drive away. I grumpily slammed out the door and got into the car only to find that a couple of my friends were in there. Ha. I managed to have a great weekend and ignore all efforts to enroll me in college.

Uncle D never said anything more about the subject. He did come to my graduation from the state university, though, so I assume he took his defeat gracefully. And to my knowledge, he never again attempted to save my daddy's soul. Maybe he got punched in the face after all.