Growing up in Mississippi, in the 90’s, at a Southern Baptist church, was a treasure trove of watching people and learning people.
When you are at church, you are supposed to be on the same team with everyone else. Everyone is a disciple of the same man. You would think that would mean we all acted a like. You would think that would mean that we would take his teaching according to our gifts and spread his love and his Words of repentance and the cross and heaven and hell. We do a lot. I learned all of this as a young child. I also learned something else.
I learned that people hate change. It is hard for us to perform at peak levels when change happens. I know Jesus changes our heart, but He better not ask a lot of people I know to change where they sit each Sunday in church. People hate change when it comes to big things in their lives, but we also hate it about the most trivial things.
I grew up going to a small Baptist church in Clinton. I haven’t been in that building in almost two decades, but I can still picture where my family would sit when I was young - the 4th row to the back on the left. After my kitchen table, this is the place where my view of God was shaped the most as a young man. I can also picture vividly where other people went to sit, as my dad arrived to our spot each Sunday morning wondering how these newbies didn’t know the pew where they began at but didn’t finish at was reserved for us. If people didn’t know where we sat, they were about to learn today.
I used to adhere to the principle of knowing where I sat in church and sitting there consistently, even if it meant hurting someone’s feelings. This is church, not daycare. Lately though, I wonder if it’s time for a change. My spot, at my present church, may be spoiled for me. It’s not that I don’t like the view. It’s more that the people around me may feel, uhhhhh, distracted. Let me explain whats been going on.
Not long ago, per usual, I was running late for church. Everyone else was already in the church. I was walking fast along the side of the sanctuary on the sidewalk. Next to the sidewalk are parallel parking spots. As I walked past the last parallel parked car, I saw our church policeman standing over a briefcase of some sort, staring down at it, looking pretty perplexed. When he saw me, he spun around really quickly and looked at me like nothing was going on.
That man was waiting on the bomb squad, obviously. I’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy; I know what pink mist is. When I die, I plan on still being a physical person for more than an instant. I do not want to be a liquid until my body is under the ground. Sorry, I understand “Bardin” will leave my body when I die, but I think my body is gonna want to get used to being dead before my innards become my outers.
You can tell I was freaked out. The cop wigged me out so badly; I didn’t say a word to him. I just kept walking. I was having the psychological melt down and moral battle of ages in my brain. See, my usual spot, where I sit in church, is right by where the bomb was. I walked to my seat. I wanted to tell everyone, that we were under terrorist attack. If anyone needed a hero, it was my church on this morning.
As I was about to make my announcement, self-doubt began to swim through my thoughts. What if I was wrong? I don’t have much of a filter when it comes to telling people my version of reality, but making a bomb announcement in church really ups the ante. I didn’t know what to do.
I did know one thing. I couldn’t be a hero if I was dead. I was sitting way to close to a WMD to be making life and death decisions. I decided to get up and go sit on the other side of the church. It literally took a bomb scare for me to change seats, but finally I felt like I could breathe again, kinda.
I then remembered that my nephew, Trey Jr the Third was upstairs doing the sermon slides. He was definitely in the blast radius. For that matter, even on the other side of the church, I was still in the blast radius. How could I figure this out while my life was still in jeopardy. No one knew what I knew.
The cop was outside trying to de-escalate a bomb situation by staring at it. I was my church’s last hope. I needed to get outside. Time to move again. Just like Gaylord Focker, from Meet the Parents, knows that you cant say bomb on an airplane. You may get shot if you say bomb in a Mississippi church in 2020.
YeeeeeeHawwwww. I moved silently.
I did text Trey Jr the Third. I told him we had a code black, and it was time for him to evacuate. I assume he watches tv shows and knows this means bomb threat. This was no time for ambiguity. He needed to know that I was for real. I was hustling. I put my phone away and busted outside. I was walking very quickly toward the corner closest to the bomb. I was going to sneak up on the cop and catch him standing over the bomb. I would then alert the rest of the congregation. I figured if I could do it before everyone blew up, that I would probably get on the front page of the Clarion Ledger newspaper.
I rounded the corner ready to do my best Ethan Hunt, only to find nothing and no-one. There was the car I remembered. It was shockingly un-blown-up. There was no cop and no bomb. For a split second, I wondered if the bomb had blown up. I asked myself if my own personal hell was re-living the previous 5 minutes for eternity.
I stopped and looked around. Nope, I wasn’t dead. I was still alive, body and spirit, for now. To this day, I am not sure what happened. I don’t know if the cop found his cape and secretly saved the day or if the bomb-squad showed up. What I do know is that there was a bomb there at 111:05 am, and not one there at 11:10 am. 15 seconds after my original text message, I sent another text to Trey Jr the Third to let him know we had a false alarm. I cancelled the code black. I was surprised I didn’t see him managing an evacuation. He was probably about to get started when he got the 2nd text. Things were chaotic for both of us, I am sure.
I went back and sat down at my usual spot. I felt really strange. It felt like I had just had a near death experience and no one knew. I was glad to be back on my home pew, though. I had fought hard for those people that morning. Looking back I wish I had told them about it. Maybe it would buy me some grace for what has happened the last 2 weeks…
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