Crosses and Switchblades

While a mere lad, I was brought to a very strange concert. The whole set-up was very strange, all the dads in the mens group at our church brought all their sons. Usually when you went somewhere with a parent, you would sit with him or her. This time the dads said: "Why don't you boys all sit together?" OK by me. The dads sat together in the row behind us. The lights dimmed, and the curtain opened. There was a rock band, with a choir and a Hammond Organ and man did we ever get a show.

After a while a greasy looking guy came out and started to rap. It was a sermon, but not like the sermons our pastor would deliver. This guy would go on about illict, sinful behavior among the teen gangs he had ministered to in NYC. Oh, and also sex. LOTS OF SEX. Just what a pimply 14 year old (who had only recently learned what his dink was for) needed. I hadn't had much in the way of "impure thoughts" before this, but I had 'em now, hot and heavy. So about the time he reached a climax in his sermon, I was ready to reach one of my own.

Then he laid on the guilt trip, and suddenly I felt this strange pressure on the nape of my neck. The preacher wanted us to come forth, and the stares from our dads made sure we did. We went up, repented of our vicarious sins, and were saved. They gave us a lesson book to fill out and mail in. It was the same one I got the summer before, that one didn't stick either. Years later I did get into a rock band myself—complete with singers and a Hammond organ. We were doing the same thing, but instead of saying "Jesus” in our songs we said “Baby”.

And you didn’t get a lesson book.