Читать книгу My Name Is Why - Lemn Sissay - Страница 16

CHAPTER 6

As the pastor dragged the ‘forgiven’

From the watery grave

They’d say ‘Jesus Christ’

And he’d shout ‘You are saved’

It was run by the Elders. Bryn Baptist Church, a mile from our home and a mile from Grandma and Granddad Munro’s. Occasionally, Granddad Munro played the organ when the regular organist was away. He was always slightly out of sync. Mum and Dad avoided looking at each other. My Granddad, with his missing teeth, flat cap and a twinkle in his eye, was the best granddad in the world.

Church was full of horrific stories: burned bodies and dead babies strewn in passageways, weeping and wailing mothers, a story of a woman who was turned into a pillar of salt, prostitutes and beggars, lepers and mass baby killings, people drowned in the huge flood and Jesus stabbed with huge nails, hung on a wooden cross, with a crown of thorns and blood pouring down His face. Poisonings, stabbings, burnings, child murders and rape.

‘Repent. Repent for your sins.’

The temperature rose with the pastor’s words. Girders of green, blue and red light fell upon the rapt congregation from the stained glass.

Mum threw up her arms. ‘Praise Him.’

So I threw up mine. Was I saved by Jesus? Shadows swooped over me as clouds swiped the light away. And then it was back again. The congregation flew to the sky. Chris, my brother, was looking at me, lips pressed together in a mean line, his eyes slanting.

‘You stink,’ I mouthed back at him.

‘Praise God, praise God,’ I sang out with the congregation.

I spent twelve years kneeling and praying. It’s what we did. It’s all I knew.

And it was the powerful rhetoric and lyricism of the church that took me to poetry. All stories in the Bible and in church had to be interpreted; everything was symbolic and analogous. Peter had lied and then repented. We should repent for our lies. The woman turned to salt for looking back. We should not look back. Jesus died so that we could live.

I wonder now at the literalness of it all. The cross on the front room wall was made of seashells and had a likeness of Jesus hanging on it. Dad decided to take Jesus (and the glue) off the cross because ‘He is risen’, although the glue was harder to pick off.

There is barely any mention of religion in my files. It wasn’t discussed with the social worker. In my parents’ eyes he was a heathen.

We seek the attention of the world from the moment we are born. An extrovert is just an introvert trying to prove they are not.

The child has an extrovert personality and is attention-seeking. He is bright academically but unable to sustain long periods of concentration and is therefore disruptive in classroom situations. He is given quite a lot of attention because of his a) pleasant personality, b) his colour and c) he is a foster child. The foster parents own children are somewhat overshadowed by this child.