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FOUR EASTER STORIES -- LENT

As the son of American missionaries in the 1960s, who went to Christian boarding school, I grew up with devotions, church, Bible study, youth groups as a big part of my family and social life. I had a hard time with Bible studies because I a) I never really liked being told what to I had to believe and b) I was the type who could point out possible different interpretations and possibilities of logic and drive the study leader crazy. Lately, I've been trying something different. I'm a storyteller—don't necessarily want to be, but that's what I am—so I'm thinking through issues of faith through the lens of this gift, or curse. It's the Easter season, and I'm writing a cycle of four stories. These aren't fully fleshed and polished stories, but more like sketches, driving to get down quickly what it is I'm getting a sense of. Here is story one. The others will follow in other posts. FOUR EASTER STORIES LENT Our Aunt Betsy was the only Catholic, let alone the only nun, in our Baptist family. That was already scandal enough, but on top of that she also drank wine. When she visited us every year, our mom had to drive clear over to the next county where people wouldn't recognize her to buy the bottle. When our dad became a church deacon, he took over the chore. He would wait until late Friday morning, when the old biddies of the church did their shopping at the Wal-Mart. The old biddies were bosomy front pew stalwarts and prayer warrior gossips. They could start with an innocent public hug in the park and by the time they were done with it and the phone lines all heated up, you'd think the spirit of licentiousness had taken over the town. At the checkout, my dad would slip in front of with the bottle of wine. He'd say a gracious hello and they'd say a gracious hello back but with their eyeballs glued on the bottle. By Saturday morning, they would have plumbed turned our dad into a drunken sot, and he a deacon to boot! But everybody else knew the wine was for Aunt Betsy. She wasn't one of those pious nuns with an invisible halo around her head. It wasn't like we had to walk around on tip-toe and watch we said. She liked to drink two glasses of wine at dinner and then play Twister with us. Playing Twister with a nun in her robes sounds about as weird as it gets, but not with Aunt Betsy. She played to win, too. She would also pray for everybody's pets, and so when word got around she was at our place, our front porch soon filled up with neighborhood kids and their dogs and cats and birds and gerbils and piglets. The visit I remember most was when me and my twin Emma were fifteen. Our younger brother Andy was nine. When my mom brought out the bottle of wine, Aunt Betsy said thanks, but no thanks. "I'm sorry, I should have told you," she said. "I've given up wine for Lent." "Who's Lent?" Andy asked. "It's not a who. It's a remembrance. We prepare for Easter by giving up to God something we enjoy. We sacrifice a little for a short while to remember His greater sacrifice. Andy, if you wanted to give something up for God, what would it be?" My mother and father glanced at each other. We loved Aunt Betsy, but to good Baptists a Catholic ritual was just a step away from pagan superstitions. "For how long?" Andy asked suspiciously. "Forty days is the usual." Andy frowned in thought. "I think I could give up give up brushing my teeth." "I don't think that's what Aunt Betsy means," my mother said. "What about you, Emma?" Aunt Betsy asked my twin sister. "Me? Forty days? It'd be hard, but I guess it'd be sex." My dad choked on his iced tea. My mother let the potato dish clatter. "Emma!" she gasped. Emma's freckles twinkled with her grin. "Gotcha! Just kidding." My dad felt his chest. "Thank God. My heart's started again. Always a joker in our family." Aunt Betsy pointed her fork at me. "What about you, Eddy?" "I'm an atheist," I said. "I don't have to give up anything." "Oh, my. An atheist? What brought this about?" "Adolescence," my dad said. "Whatever I am, Eddy isn't about to be." I glared at him. "Don't trivialize it." I said to Aunt Betsy, "It was just one day about six months ago I watched the news and it fell into my head that things make more sense if there's no God." This was true. I was being completely serious. "But you still go to church," Aunt Betsy said. "That's Mom," I said. "It's extortion. It's hypocritical to make me go to church for my allowance." My mom poured me pour tea. "Whatever works. You don't have to believe in God, but God believes in you." Like I hadn't heard that a million ties before. "If you were a real atheist," Emma said, "you wouldn't give up something, you'd pick up a new bad habit, like smoking." I kicked her under the table. She knew that I was sneaking out to the back woods with Peter and George to puff on cigarettes Peter stole from his dad. The rest of the meal Emma became thoughtful and quiet. This was typical of her. Sometimes she drifted away into her own world. But I wasn't expecting what she said as Mom dished out the Oreo pie dessert. "Okay, I'll give up something for Lent," she announced. "Cheddar cheese popcorn?" I said. That was her one big bad habit. Mom was always yelling at her for spilling kernels everywhere in her bedroom and on the sofa. "Too easy," she said. "I'll give up my computer." I laughed, shaking my head. That was too impossible. Back then, computers were already everywhere, and the Internet and IM had hit our small town in a big way. Emma would be awake all hours of the night on her Apple, munching on popcorn and getting her keyboard greasy as she chatted with friends. "For forty days?" I mocked. "You wouldn't last four hours." "I will. I'll give it up for Lent." Aunt Betsy reached out and patted her hand. "You'll be blessed beyond knowing." "If she breaks it, is she cursed?" I asked. "Because she just won't be able to do it." Emma gave me look. "I'll make you a bet I can." Dad cleared his throat. "I think making a bet is against the spirit of what Lent is." But I was curious. "What kind of bet?" "If I give up my computer for 40 days, then it will be a miracle and you'll have to believe in God and can't be an atheist anymore." "Sure," I said, and we hooked our pinkies over the last slice of Oreo pie. I didn't even have to think this over. No way she could do it. Emma would break down, and I could tease her for years about it. Years of teasing material was irresistible. Even if she did do it, I could always cheat on my promise. That was the great thing about being an atheist. You could get away with it without your conscience bothering you. She started her vow that night. I disconnected and put her Apple in my room just to be sure. She kept her vow for one day, two days, three. She wrote school essays in longhand. By day four her friends were asking her why she was on IM anymore. The word got around school. Her friends declared her weird. She didn't seem to care. The time she used to spend on the computer she spent her time reading. Not the Bible and devotional magazines we had around the house, but tabloids and People magazine and teen novels with sexy cheerleader squabbles. It wasn't like she was getting more spiritual or anything. She watched more TV, too, until I lodged a protest. "TVs work because of computers," I said, "so you're technically cheating." "Then I'll stop watching TV," she said, and she did. By twenty days I was starting to get worried. I tried to sabotage her by moving the Apple back into her room and logging on for her after school. She turned it off. I got a couple of the cutest guys in school to give her their IM addresses. Whatever I could think of. Easter week, her friends had decided she wasn't weird after all but really cool. They started talking to her in private about family problems they never talked about with each other. Stan Thayerdahl asked her to a dance, breaking the heart of a few dozen girls. Our dad said sure, she could go, and gave her fifty dollars to buy a dress. It was my mom who threw a fit. This was a switch. When we were twelve, my dad taught me how to hit a curve ball, and our mom taught Emma how to use make-up. Dad didn't like that at all. Now he was saying Emma could get all prettied up to go to a dance and it was Mom who fretted. Parents. What can you do? By this time, I knew Emma was going to fulfill her vow. She was going to make those forty days. I knew was doomed. I would have to figure a way out of my promise without having Emma all over my back about cheating. I didn't mind the cheating, but Emma would be a real nagging pain about it. She would be worse than a conscience. Aunt Betsy had said that Emma's vow would be over after the Easter Sunday service. We all went for the sunrise service and had the church brunch and then went home. I followed Emma into her bedroom. We sat on her bed and stared at her blank Apple.. "I won the bet," she said. "Because you're stubborn," I said. "That's all it was. You didn't really do it for God." She sat hunched, her hands clasped in the skirt of her Sunday dress. "You're right, I guess I didn't," she said. "And even though you promised to believe in God if I won, nobody can make you." She sounded so sad. I wanted her to feel better. "Well, I was baptized same day as you. Nobody can un-baptize me." She clasped her hands to her face and began crying. I was shocked and alarmed. Emma, crying? Sobbing? She lowered her hands. "Oh, Eddy, I don't want you to go to hell." I stared at her. What on earth? Then I began to laugh. "That's certainly thinking way into the future. And there isn't any hell anyways." I was still laughing. She scowled through my tears and hit my shoulder, hard. "Maybe not, but there is a heaven, I know there is, and that's where I'm going to be and you're not. You're my twin. I don't want us to be apart, ever. Don't you see? That's why I made the vow. It wasn't for me. It was for you." This silenced me. I didn't know what to say. So I gave her an awkward hug and left the room. We never talked about it again. But what she said, what she did, stayed with me. That was the crack in the wall. In college I kept building the wall higher and thicker, but the crack was always there. And then one day the wall just let go and God came flooding in. That's another story, though. Aunt Betsy still comes visiting every year. Her bones can't handle Twister any more, but she plays a mean Wii. I'm a first year graduate student in university, studying math. Emma dropped out of college to start up her own computer company. I guess that was to make up for those forty days. She's a good Baptist, but she still observes Lent. These days, though, it's Cheddar cheese popcorn.