Amputation
Several men, each one with a bit more belly and a tad less hair than the one before him, file into the too small room where the Senior Pastor of Podunk Baptist Church and I sit. It’s 2009, I’m the Youth Pastor and he’s my “boss” if such a term can be used to describe our workplace relationship. Even though I technically report to him we both know who we really work for: the church. It is to her that we owe our allegiance and our fealty. It is she that puts food on our tables and a roof over our heads. Still, she needs us just as much as we need her. You see, we are Professional Pessimists by trade and like other tradesmen we have a customer base that deeply, longingly needs what we’re selling.
The uninitiated and the optimists among us would be forgiven for thinking otherwise, but a church is exactly like any other business or organization in most ways. Every way that matters really. However, in spite of all the similarities one stands out more than most: if you want to talk to the person in charge you only need to find whoever it is that controls the purse (title may vary).
My particular “purse controller” is the head of the finance committee at Podunk Baptist Church and is also walking into the room now, last in line. For a brief moment I wonder why he’s entering last. Maybe it’s a show of faux humility? Wouldn’t fuckin’ surprise me. He closes the door authoritatively. Nope, not humility. He wants to show us that he’s got the biggest dick. No one enters or leaves this room unless he allows it. All find their seats on the vinyl-covered metal church chairs set in a row opposite me, perhaps five or six feet between them and myself.
A painting of Jesus looks down on me from the wall. Our Lord and Savior, evidently, is a white man with blonde hair and blue eyes. Fuck you, white Caucasian Jesus! You’re a goddamn insult to my intelligence. An inner part of me screams silently. Bemused, I let it continue. Your middle-eastern ass never looked like that and I know it! While I hadn’t yet fully deconstructed my faith I had definitely grown out of many of my former evangelical beliefs. Truth be told, I was relieved this was happening. I hated my job. But I sure as hell didn’t have the balls to quit.
“Your youth group isn’t growing, Ben.” Jim, the head of the finance committee says, mercifully breaking the silence. While my brain registers the noises his mouth just made, my attention has already started to wander. I didn’t yet know of my autism and ADHD but it was both of these disabilities which were now dragging my mind somewhere else. Maybe I was dissociating, maybe I was fawning. I force my mind to rejoin my body through sheer willpower.
Is anyone else going to talk? I wonder silently. I can’t tell if Jim’s asking a question or making a statement. Maybe it’s my turn to talk now. I glance around the room desperate for someone to toss me a social cue. It’s in this instant that I understand the purpose these other men in this meeting serve. They are here, packed into this room which, thanks to our collective bigness, is growing alarmingly humid, to serve as witnesses to “the event”. They’re like those groups of people that get brought in to witness an execution. They’re simultaneously repulsed and entranced by the spectacle unfolding in front of them.
Suddenly, I became aware of one of the younger men. He’s been here the whole time, why hadn’t it registered to me that he’s here? What the fuck is Bill doing here? I ask myself. He’s only a year older than me. I used to see him as a friend. Used to. One thing’s for sure, I never saw him as a part of whatever (gestures vaguely around the room) this is. It’s humiliating being assessed like this, by someone my own age no less. The gall.
He’s being groomed by these old men. They’re showing him how a church removes a pastor like a surgeon amputates a rotted limb. After all, these ol’ boys won’t be around forever. They’ll need replacements when they die – hallelujah by and by.
I’m about to respond to Jim’s statement, or was it a question, about my youth group when I look hopefully to the Senior Pastor for some measure of guidance, a glimmer of camaraderie shared. But in his eyes I see only the helplessness he feels for us both. I wonder if he’s thinking quietly to himself about how his job used to be so different, all those years ago when he was a young youth pastor himself. Or maybe he’s simply trying to figure out how I had become such a Liberal (intended as a pejorative). He abandons me with a sad, cautious glance, eyes moving downward, finding solace from the moment in his shoes.
“Okay…” I reply, stomach a knot of agony. Fuck. This is gonna hurt.
My response is really as much a question as it is a statement. I’m not actually trying to be a jerk answering like this, but I’m honestly confused. I’ve never had much natural talent when it comes to being able to tell when it’s my turn to talk. It would be years after this when I would craft the necessary social scripts to have conversations like these.
I realize that I actually do have the option of genially accepting my fate, bowing to kiss the ring before the ax falls on my neck; I defend myself instead. It’s a bold move, Cotton, let’s see how it plays out.
”I’m sorry,” I fire back sardonically. In addition to not knowing when it’s my turn to talk, I also didn’t know when sardonic humor is an appropriate conversational technique when you’re in the middle of being fired from a job. Hint: it never is. I plow on, “I must have been operating under a different set of expectations than you for the past four years and just haven’t heard about it until now.”
What I’m saying to this room of dyed-in-the-wool Southern Baptists is entirely true from my perspective. I hadn’t knowingly participated in any performance review, formal or otherwise. I’ve been under review this whole time, the test never stopped. And even though I understand how futile it is, I lean in even harder. “I THOUGHT I was hired here to join alongside brothers and sisters in Christ on their spiritual journey and help bring them closer in relationship to God! Have I not been doing exactly that!?”
Upon hearing this, Jim doesn’t waste a beat. He cuts to the chase. “You’re not doing a good job, Ben. And if you’re not doing a good job for this church then some generous tithers might not be happy. Then who’s going to pay your salary? We’ve read your online blog… erm … website… thing… ” he looks at his notes. I can tell he’s trying to work out how to say the name he’s written down “... openswitch dot org.” You probably had to look up the word “blog” didn’t you. In retrospect I wish I had actually said this last part out loud but alas, I didn’t. I’m daring, not crazy.
Bill, the young guy I recognized earlier, can’t hold back any longer. “Ben, we all know how you write online about how you think mission trips are a waste of money and tithing 10% isn’t a biblical mandate.” He looks around the room, finding nods and mumbled agreement from all present. “We can’t have a person who questions these kinds of things stay in a position of authority here. You understand that, right?” His eyes beg me to agree with him on this. He thinks he’s showing me the safe path, the one that lets me keep my job. So naive, he thinks I have a say in the matter.
Almost imperceptibly, Jim leans forward. The vinyl-covered chair he’s sitting on makes a farting noise. “Listen, you have two choices, Ben.” He says unapologetically. “If you resign from your position today we’ll allow you to stay on for two weeks to say your goodbyes, you’ll also get paid for it. Or, you can get fired right now, after which you’ll be escorted out of the building. It’s your choice. Remember Ben, it won’t look very good on your resume if you’re fired.”
Choice. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Inigo Montoya implores me to say his overused catch phrase out loud. But it doesn’t matter to me that it’s a false choice he’s given me. My mind is already with my family. Tonight I’ll have to look them in the eye and admit defeat. No, not defeat, failure. I’d lost another job. That’s right kids, your dad’s unemployed again!
Years from now I’d be able to look at myself with kinder, more gentle eyes. But for now I reek with the self-loathing which comes so easily for me. You merely adopted self-loathing, I was born in it. Molded by it.
“Fine.” I mutter. Shoulders slumping, heartbeat slowing, body growing numb. Classic fawn response. I take half a breath, it’s all I can manage. “I’ll resign today, we’ll need the extra paycheck. And I actually do want to say some goodbyes.” A pause. A breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. Someone shifts uncomfortably. Another farting noise. This one might not have come from a chair.
“These chairs really are the worst.” I say in attempted humor, barely stifling the tears.
And those were the last words I remember speaking as a pastor, youth or otherwise. My time at Podunk Baptist Church in the rural town of Anywhere, Georgia had lasted just a bit over four years. After this experience I wouldn’t darken the doorway of another church for just over a decade. The self-loathing I experienced that day has faded a bit with age, but never really vanished entirely. And you know what? Maybe that’s a bit of a win for a pessimist.