CONSIDER (IN) SILENCE

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash

“DEVIL BE GONE” immediately followed by a forceful palm to my forehead. The tears barely being held back began flowing like a river. The remainder of the service was a blur. I was eleven, I was lost, I felt betrayed by someone who was supposed to protect me. Everyone around me was convinced God’s spirit had entered my body and healed me; I felt abandoned and broken. In that moment God died. Five years later, as a potential friendship was blossoming, I received an invite to an Episcopal church service. I didn’t want to throw away another relationship because of my struggle around religion, so I agreed to attend. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I remember being incredibly nervous at the prospect of grappling with the tweenaged trauma I had experienced.

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Growing up in a household with an atheistic father and a sometimes-Baptist mother meant that church wasn’t an integral part of my early childhood formation. As a child, I was familiar with the classic Bible stories and generally understood that being a Christian meant caring for our neighbors. Going to church was reserved for weekends when I stayed with my maternal grandmother who lived in a nearby town. In a way, church was a special event because I cherished time with my grandmother. Then my mother began attending a non-denominational church and weekends at grandma’s were shortened to overnight stays. Mom went from attending church once every few months to attending twice weekly. And these services were long; sometimes lasting upwards of 5 hours. The first time I attended this new church, at around ten years old, I was uncomfortable. But as a painfully awkward and shy child, this unease in a strange environment was nothing new. There was a lot of shouting, loud music, and something about the service brought out an unfamiliar side of my mother. 

Around this same time, I began feeling intense pain after I would eat, which eventually necessitated having my gall bladder removed. While the doctors were pinpointing the issue, they discovered a small tumor in my throat that would need to be addressed at a later date. I recovered from my abdominal surgery and the removal of the tumor was scheduled. At this point I disliked the Pentecostal environment so much that whenever possible, I would beg to do household chores to avoid attending church. I still believed (in a child-like way) in God and would pray before bed; but, going to church brought more dread than the all too familiar medical examinations. Two weeks before my throat surgery my mom said I had to go to church with her. I went. I left afraid. 

The service started like any other I attended. Contemporary Christian praise music followed by a scripture reading from the pastor leading directly to a lengthy sermon with shouting and other theatrics. The end of the sermon would almost always emphasize our need for repentance, prayer, and accepting God’s will over our lives because God’s Kingdom was imminent. Typically, during this prayerful portion, I would daydream and think about kid things while remaining somewhat aware of the laying of hands and speaking in tongues as I sat in the pew. I would occasionally snap back to reality upon hearing a high-pitched scream, a loud resounding AMEN, or the drummer beginning the beats to a song. This time; however, I snapped out my daze at my mom urging me to move toward the altar. I immediately refused and received a response just as fast to do what was asked. 

I sheepishly approached the altar of the worship space and rather quickly was enclosed by a circle of adults in various phases of receiving the Holy Ghost. The preacher, who doubled as the healer, noticed I was crying and said to me everything is going to be better in a few minutes. He taunted the “evil spirit” in my body that created the tumor by insulting the “demonic force” for choosing a young child. Missing my mom, somewhere in the crowd of people but not in my line of sight, led to me sobbing. I felt stranded. The crowd of twenty adults grew louder as the preacher swayed between speaking in English and in tongues. Once the crowd had been thoroughly driven into a religious fervor the preacher banished “the Devil” with a thud to my forehead and someone from the crowd pulled me out of the circle and told me to lie down. The environment around me was drowned out by my pounding heart, the embarrassment and shame from needing “healing”, and anger from feeling abandoned around strangers. I don’t recall leaving the church that day, but I do remember thinking God had left me in a time of need. 

*** 

When I walked into the Episcopal church in my hometown in rural northwest Ohio I remember my first sense memory being the carpet. The red carpet instantly transported me back to traumatic prayer circle. My stomach dropped and I felt a twinge of regret. There was nowhere to escape so I took a deep breath and tried to keep an open mind. When the organist began playing, I followed the musical line and let it take me where it wanted. The music distracted me from my discomfort through much of the service. That is, until the Prayers of the People rolled around. The prayers with their deafening silences between each petition left me to seriously consider my relationship with Christianity.  

In my first exposure to this structure of prayer I realized how deep my wounds from the broader church were; but simultaneously and paradoxically felt drawn into a sphere of healing and new relationships. The absence of sound produced a newly found presence. 

My doubts were amplified by my willingness to reassess God’s presence in my life. The complicatedness of it all left me unsatisfied. I knew the answers weren’t going to be found immediately; so, I went back to the church the following week. I was still deeply uneasy and unfamiliar with the flow of the worship service. The standing, sitting, and kneeling all had meanings I didn’t understand, but the relative lack of physicality and the presence of silence made the service feel more intimate than church I remembered as a young child. I still sought answers for why God allowed me to go through the pain of being “healed” in the pentecostal tradition. I also wanted to know why God allowed this incident to create an uncrossable gulf with my mother. Why should I spend time believing in Christianity when at that point it seemed to have caused more grief than joy in my life?  

*** 

I didn’t have answers but something in the Prayers of the People deeply resonated with me. I found comfort in the repetition, rhythm, and predictability in the Prayers.  

The silence was everything I needed as young child. It shocked my soul awake. It opened a world of questions and considerations.  

I’ve not managed to shake the contradiction that the church both caused me deep trauma while also being the source of healing for the previous trauma. Neither does the irony escape me that a healing prayer caused me spiritual and emotional pain.  

These entanglements have shaped my spirituality.   

The Prayers of the People opened the door to embrace complicatedness in my faith.  I proudly wade through murky, gray waters of theology and ethics with few certainties; an impossibility to the Christianity of my childhood based in dualism and dichotomies of good and evil. Proverbs 12:18 states: “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” I’m grateful for the wise words of the Prayers of the People and its invitation to consider (in) silence: 

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Lord in your mercy,  

hear our prayer. 

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