Learning to Hate

Shawn had been with his aunt and uncle for six weeks before they finally insisted that he must go with them to church. He didn't go places with them during the week, so he saw no reason that they should expect him to go with them on Sunday, but they gave him no choice, saying that to be a part of their family meant going to church (or something like that--Shawn wasn't really paying attention to exactly what they said). With help from Travis, he put together an outfit to wear. It consisted of tan dress pants and a checkered shirt, both borrowed from Spencer, so it immediately received Aunt Grace's approval, then, after she'd said it would do, the added a big, dark blue hood and pair of Aviator shades from Travis. Between the hood and shades, little enough of his face showed that, at a glance, he looked almost normal, and his prosthetic arm looked very convincing.

Aunt Grace met him at the car and, as Travis had predicted, demanded that he change. Shawn saw his opportunity and told her, making ample use of his profanity vocabulary, that if she wanted him to attend her church, she'd let him dress as he pleased. She gave him a very satisfyingly shocked look before caving to his demands. As far as Shawn could tell, his rant had only further convinced her that he was in desperate need of church. 

Shawn could tell that he stood out sharply the moment he entered the church door. The girls all walked around in full length skirts, some even with their shirts tucked into the waistband. As for the guys, every  shirt was buttoned all the way and tucked in. His aunt, uncle, and cousins fitted right in, with their neatly ironed shirts and slightly too short dress pants riding at their waists. Shawn could both see and feel the disapproving looks he was getting, but he almost liked it. It showed them he wasn't one of them--he wasn't a good little church boy like Ethan.

The pastor began his sermon with a long, loud prayer. Shawn wasn't entirely sure who the guy was praying to--the first part was definitely directed to God, but then he went on to start addressing the devil, telling him to stay away and get out of the building and other such rot, then it closed with a short exhortation to the people to be separate from the world and never compromise. Shawn didn't bother closing his eyes, so he saw every eye that turned his way at that point. An elderly man then stepped forward to lead the singing with a slow, monotone voice while a surprisingly good pianist ran her fingers up and down the keys. Shawn paid more attention to her than the hymnal.

After the singing, the pastor stepped up again, with a massive Bible in hand and called up the ushers. One of the ushers was Travis. They came to the front, picked up some wooden dishes and came down the aisles, passing the plate around as that pianist raced through a song that vaguely reminded Shawn of something from the Lord of the Rings, though, of course, it couldn't be. Once the plates had been passed all around and were pretty full of money, the ushers brought them back to the front and retreated to their seats as the pastor began his sermon. He read  few verses from the Bible--it was some kind of story about a lady judge and a guy who didn't want to go to war, even though the judge told him to. Then he began the sermon. It was heavy on condemnations of the world and other churches, and light on basically anything else. Apparently, the moral of the story was that a lady being a judge was a curse on the land, which doubled to have heavy implications for women in authority. To Shawn, it had seemed to be more about the guy being a coward than the judge being a woman, but the pastor seemed pretty sure of its message. The sermon was long--mainly because whenever the pastor wanted to emphasize something, he would draw out the word. Lord God always became Lllawrd Gawd. 

After the sermon, there was another song and another devil-rebuking prayer. A song Shawn had heard somewhere popped into his head. "God said "Go to the devil." So I ran to the devil..." Shawn smiled to himself at how horrified Aunt Grace would be if he were to sing that around the house. And then the sermon was over and the congregation was all dismissed--except that pianist, evidently. She stayed at the piano, diligently plunking out some very march-like song. 

Travis took Shawn and introduced him to his friends. They were a skinny guy with a military-style hair cut named Tyler, Simon, a short Filipino boy with a generous amount of facial hair and the most rebellious kid in the church, Isaiah. Rebellious, as in his shirt wasn't tucked in, and he had vaguely longish hair. Tyler eyed him much the same way everyone else in the church had, but Simon shook his hand. Isaiah seemed delighted to have found another heathen among all these Bible thumpers and began, to the other boys' horror, to show off his supposedly bad language. It consisted mainly of "bloody", "crap", "hell", and other words which barely count as swears at all. He then proceeded to talk about a TV show he was watching which was apparently all shocking and edgy. At least, it was shocking enough that Simon and Tyler both began lecturing him on "putting no unclean thing before his eyes". Shawn found it ridiculous. Tyler kept saying things about wrecking one's testimony and sighting his own high standards while Simon quoted the Bible like there was no tomorrow. If nothing else, Shawn was impressed by Simon's memory for verses. Isaiah defended himself by claiming that he didn't share their convictions, it was his own life, they had no right to tell him what he could and couldn't watch, and, in short, giving all the most stereotypical defenses. Finally, Travis, who had been fidgeting from the start of the conversation, whipped out his own Bible and began reading about trying to be at peace with all men and respecting each other's consciences. Shawn abandoned the conversation and headed off into the foyer where he tried to blend in with a coat rack. Travis soon found him.

"Sorry about that. My friends like to debate." Travis smiled. "They're trying to make it up to each other now."

"Yeah. My dad warned me about that."

"About what?"

"That Christians always fight. They're always looking for anything to denounce or condemn."

"That's not true. People always fight. It's part of being human. Christians are still human, so we do fight sometimes, but that's not what Christianity is about. The Bible commands us to love each other and maintain a bond of peace and unity."

Shawn coughed. "Unity? No one fights more that Christians do. You can't even talk about a TV show without starting a war."

"Isaiah was trying to provoke a debate. That's what he does. You can't blame Tyler and Simon for taking up the challenge. It was what Isaiah wanted."

"What? Are you saying Isaiah isn't a Christian? Because he watches TV and doesn't tuck his shirt in?"

"No--it has nothing to do with that. Isaiah isn't a Christian. He's never even pretended to be one."

"And what makes Tyler and Simon--and you, for that matter, so much more Christian than him? You all go to the same church."

Travis's face lit up and Shawn realized that he had just opened the door to a sermon. He'd always thought Travis was the least religious of the family, but it looked like he was wrong. "Being a Christian isn't all about going to church--and it isn't determined by how you dress, though I know it looks like it is sometimes. You see, Shawn, all humanity, by nature, is--"

"Sinners. They're evil, horrible, cruel, and my parents are burning in hell. I don't care what your Bible says. If your God sent my parents to hell, I hate Him."

"It isn't like that--"

"Tell me they aren't in hell. Then maybe I'll listen to you."

"Shawn, it isn't for me to say--"

"Oh, right--because they may have repented last minute. I was at the funeral too, you might remember."

"Look, Shawn, I don't know where your parents are today--I hope, with all my heart, that they are in heaven. I loved Aunt Lisa and Uncle David. My whole family did. You may not see it, but we're all hurting from this. We need to get through it together--not by debating where they are today, because that's up to God, not us, but by facing the tragedy and moving on--together."

"All your family ever did with my parents was try to convert them. You're just sorry that it didn't work."

"You know my mom is your father's sister. If nothing else, she--"

"No. Stop." Shawn held up his hand, "I don't give a damn what you have to say. My family is dead. I look like a freak. If your God is real, then this is His doing." Shawn left the foyer quickly, before Travis could start defending God.

From that moment on, life with the Pfeiffers went downhill. Travis began to distance himself from Shawn. They didn't talk much because Shawn couldn't get past what had been said in that foyer. Instead Shawn became more and more rebellious and belligerent. He hated his aunt's holier-than-thou attitude and sensed that they all considered him a wicked, unrepentant sinner. He made it his business to become what they thought him to be. He swore constantly, receiving again and again the "You can't talk that way in this house lecture". Then he started pranking his aunt and uncle. It provided a distraction and something to do with his time when the family was out, and seeing his aunt burst into tears over finding all her skirts full of holes one Sunday morning was rather satisfying. The way she shook him and screamed in his face afterwards only confirmed to him that she deserved it. And so it continued--Opening the chicken coop and letting them run brought on hours and hours of hard farm work, putting super glue on Uncle Scott's razor left him locked in his room with all electronics confiscated for a whole day, and tying the hair of the girl sitting in front of him in church to the back on her chair brought on writing out dozens and dozen of verses from proverbs mostly about people "forsaking the law".