My Dad looks over at his four boys now sitting quietly in the church pew. Their earlier hyper activity had stuck their shirts to their backs and plastered their hair flat to their heads soaked in sweat. His little army for the Lord are all doodling notes on a sermon of eternal hell fire and damnation to the unsaved soul. Now content that his brood was finally well behaved he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a gun.
Three hours earlier:
"Boys! Gordon! Supper!"
It was 5:30 on any Sunday Night, and my Mom was calling her family for a quick dinner before church. We were a Sunday go-to-two-meetings kinda Christians.
Church, and traveling to and from church were our Sundays. With a half hour commute to church either way, and going to two services each Sunday, it took more than two hours in travel time alone. Combine this with a fiery preacher, who needed more than one day a week to expound on his teachings, and was terrible at telling time, it became a day that was not one of rest. All this combined with at least a half hour of pre-service prayer found our little family taxed for any free time. And so it was our Sunday lunches were a hurried affair, followed with a brief rest and a quick easy dinner. And what's easier and quicker for dinner, that would be a treat for her long Sunday suffering boys and tired husband?
Solution? Ice-cream and cookies!
What a great idea! Let's load four pre-teen boys up on sugar and then make them sit.....sorry, try and sit still in church for a couple of hours. And then let's do it every week because her boys just loved ice-cream and cookies.
In my Moms defense it was the sixties and the effects of sugar on four hyper boys had never been tested,.......unless you count us.
I loved being a Christian! Ice-cream and cookies every Sunday. Us boys figured all the preacher had to do to win souls was just to let all them sinners in on my Moms recipe for a pre-service Sunday meal.
Hell-fire and damnation! No! Ice-cream and cookies! And you get to go to heaven, filled with enough milk and honey to make ice-cream for all eternity.
The only bad thing about our Sunday meal was that it was Mom's one chance to pray for the food during the week. She seemed blind to the fact that ice-cream will melt if you pray long enough. This being her one kick at the can for the week she made sure she thanked God for all he had done since last Sunday. Then she thanked Him for everything she hoped for till next Sunday. For everyone and everything! All the missionaries in far off countries, all her family, all my Dads family, the neighbors that needed salvation, her friend at work with the dry patchy skin and even the lady two doors down that had lost her cat! On and on she went thanking God for her beautiful garden, her roses and petuinias and the lady in the lost and found at church (Helen Hunt) who located her umbrella. And all the while my ice-crane lies thereevaporating in front of me. It's shrinking! My precious Sunday meal, the reason I'm a Christian, is shrinking! Doesn't my Mom, a true friend of God, pray during the week? Why did she go on and on and on?
Then I hear it, the word that ends all prayers, my four favorite letters. 'Amen'. It's Christian for let's eat!
My once cherished rock hard mountain of ice-cream now renders to my spoon like mash potatoes. No chance of a brain freeze here! If only Mom could trade for Tuesdays she could pray all the way to 8:30 if she wanted. Cold meatloaf is as good as hot meatloaf.
Dinner now done, and we're in the car off again to church.
Our arrival at church was at about the same time the sugar in our blood stream was pulling into crazy town. We couldn't wait to jump out of the car. We were like hound dogs on the trail of a late night possum. My three brothers and I would run all the way into church, howling as we ran. Dad always parked a few blocks from church, it gave time for Mom and him to take a nice leisurely walk to while his boys feverishly chased the trail of some imaginary game.
Into the church burst four boys as if chased by the devil himself. Crisp white shirts stuck to our backs with sweat. If we had run all the way in the rain we wouldn't have looked any different. Only difference, we would have been steaming. Zoom! Off to the prayer room for a half hour of pre-service prayer. Now our church encouraged lively prayer, and that's just what they got from us four boys. I think the church elders were quite impressed with the high level of energy my brothers and I brought to pre-service prayer. Stand-up, kneel-down, hands raised, swaying back and forth, jumping up and down and all the while loud hallelujahs ringing off the rafters was what we gave them. But to most people looking on I'm sure it looked more like four crazed hounds howling at the moon.
The Sunday evening service would usually start with lively songs of praise, which were easy to enter into by us boys. We would clap our hands, tap our toes and sway to the music in a rhythm slightly faster than four-four time. Our cheeks and ears were a brighter red than Christmas candy. Sweat covered our foreheads and trickled down our backs. We gave off more BTUs than the old boiler in the church basement.
Lots of movement with our arms and legs, singing and clapping was what we needed to release our build up of energy. Slow songs and equally slow sermons were our downfall.
On a slow worship song we were louder, several words ahead (and usually not the right ones) and out of tune. We had to sit on our hands to stop from out of tempo clapping through 'Amazing Grace'. Our Dad had a whole bag full of stern, don't you dare embarrass me, looks that would shut us down and keep us in line.
Now what we needed was a new way to burn off a sugar buzz.
Pain was found to be a great reliever of hypertension. Pinching your brother beside you and refusing to squirm was a great detractor to a sugar high. It was always the first one to move or cry Moses was the one that lost. Standing in quiet prayer squishing your brothers thumb on the pew in front of you, till you were sure it was going to pop was an all to frequent past-time. Or, putting your full weight on his little toe was also a great way to turn sugar energy into parent pleasing calm, that if done correctly could do permanent damage to the little piggy that went 'wee wee wee al the way home.'
But the hardest time to get through was the sermon. Here clapping was frowned upon. Totally! You could shout out the occasional 'Amen', to release energy but here you would have to pay attention to the placement of your personal approval. Here, more often than not you became an embarrassment to your parents.
The Sunday evening sermon was a cold-turkey moment. We were required, expected to and to strongly refrain any and all signs of our sugar buzz. Which was about as likely as pigs singing in the choir.
We were four boys sitting shoulder to shoulder to shoulder to shoulder in reverence, trying to give their full attention to the preachers sermon. Thankfully the sugar buzz was now slowly starting to ease it's grip on the possession of our souls. Yet, still demanding enough energy that when we four sat in a row we could get the pew to vibrate. To vibrate with enough force to make the washers on the bolts, that held the pew to the floor, to loosen and sound like coins dropping in a offering plate. Not an all to unhappy sound we figured given it's surroundings.
It's here Dad would flip us a look that would confirm death was eminent when we got home if silence was not obtained immediately. Mom fearing for our lives would separate us and spread us apart while questioning under her breath that she was sure she had no idea what was wrong with her boys.
Three scoops of chocolate swirl and four double fudge cookies........I'm thinking.
About half way through the sermon sugar had all but released the hold it had on our bodies. Our shoulders now dropped, muscles in our legs, back and arms had relaxed, and our bodies had become tired and sleep would try to overtake us. But! my Mom wouldn't allow this. Nodding off would look like the preacher had bored us. The thought of a message of eternal salvation, delivered by a man of God, a leader in the community would somehow bore her children was not an option my Mom would accept. She solved this by giving us paper and pencils so we could draw. She was convinced, that to the preacher it would look like we were so interested in the sermon that we were taking notes.
My Dad now looks over at his four boys sitting quietly in the pew, shirts stuck to their backs, hair plastered to their heads soaked in sweat. His little army for the Lord all taking notes on the sermon of which he himself had no idea what it was about. Content that we were finally well behaved he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a gun.
Oh not a gun of steel and gunpowder, but yet a gun of equal destruction, one of sugar......Candy! One by one he offers that gun to each child in turn, and each child in eager acceptance not knowing that soon an all to common chain of events were about to unfold. Events that would cause husband and wife to question the legitimacy of their own children. Events that would embarrass my parents enough to maybe look for a different church next week. Events that would make a father grab his son by the shoulders and on bended knee look him straight in the eye and plead more than ask "What in the wide world of sports has gotten into you?"
Bob Niles
