What’s weird about Atlanta is that sometimes you forget you’re in the South. Most whom I know aren’t from here, and it’s not all that often I run across a thick Southern accent, and some Bible-thumping. But there are reminders everywhere, like the hoards of church busses I find parked at the Botanical Garden when I jog past it every day. Here’s a taste of what could happen on one of those church busses, from Scott Daughtridge, who runs the Lost in the Letters reading series.
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“Hand check!”
Forty hands fly into the air. The hands attached to young arms attached to young torsos, all fueled by young hearts.
Sarah, whose heart is no longer young, walks down the aisle of the bus, stepping carefully to keep her balance. She wears the khaki shorts she has worn all day. She didn’t expect the temperature to drop this drastically and is cold. It is dark outside but the interior lights flashed on with the call of the random check. She looks at the hands of the adolescents but she looks into their eyes as well.
Though the hands may be clean and pure, young as they are, it does not necessarily mean their actions are. Some of the children are afraid. Their shame overtakes them although they are doing nothing wrong. The spontaneity and urgency of Sarah’s march is enough to shake them up. There are others, though, whom Sarah could call out by name, that likely have something to be ashamed of. Even after a week of basking in the light of the Lord, singing hymns, combing Bible verses, confirming faith and welcoming Jesus to walk among them, the counselor does not think that it is enough to dampen the hormones that course through their teenage bodies, not enough to discourage their hands from wandering under blankets, pillows, zippers and underwear, into the places they all desire, secretly or not.
Sarah had once been a youth member of this church and remembers well what happened on the youth retreats. She disapproved then and she disapproves now. Becky Hill was severely punished by her parents after Sarah told them what their daughter was doing with James McKay twenty years ago, and since then she has turned in nearly two dozen boys and girls for doing what thirteen-year-olds find so natural and appealing. As Sarah walks, she smiles at the children if their hands do not show any evidence of misdeeds, showing them she approves of their innocence, allowing them to drop their hands and return to what they were doing before they were interrupted.
“Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” Sarah repeats over and over as she scans the hands and faces of her youth group. She does not enjoy this aspect of being a retreat counselor, but knows it is necessary to help keep the teens from deviating from the path. Throughout the week, Sarah facilitated prayers as they worked to hinder the grip of the devil. The tears were genuine and their wishes to keep in good standing with the Lord strong.
They are an hour into their three-hour journey home. Soon they’ll pull over at a rest stop to use the bathroom, stretch their legs and, if need be, Sarah will call homes to relay bad news. The first hand check went smoothly. Most of the campers had fallen asleep, but now many of them are awake and fidgeting with energy. With their hands raised, the scene looks like a robbery, like what would happen on a stage coach in the old west. In a sense this is a kind of robbery, but no valuables are handed over, no weapons needed.
Julie, Bobby, Chris, Martin, Sean, Krystal, Shea, Susan, Scott, Matt, Mark, and Ben are all at ease and following the rules. Then Sarah comes to Brittany and Jennifer. Looking hard into Jennifer’s face, Sarah sees something that she does not want to see. Jennifer avoids her counselor’s eyes, and her hands droop in front of her like wilting flowers. Sarah looks closely and notices a smudge of red that extends from the tip to the middle of her right index finger. Sarah’s not-so-young heart pumps hard and adrenaline flows through her; the same physical response a police officer gets when he finds a zip-lock bag filled with powder, the same feeling a jealous lover gets when he finds a text message on his girlfriend’s phone from her ex-boyfriend: the eruption of chemicals that move one into action when what has been suspected comes to fruition.
“What’s on your hand, Jennifer?” Sarah asks. The young girl quickly looks at her right hand and rubs it on her jeans, and because she’s a child and not accustomed to speaking and thinking up lies at the same time she stammers, “I…I…I don’t know.” Adrenaline also flows through Jennifer’s body and she hears the words in her head after she speaks them. The face that Sarah is making scares her.
“You don’t know?” Sarah notices that the top button on Brittany’s shorts is undone. Sarah looks into Brittany’s eyes and they tell her what she already knows.
“Come with me, Jennifer,” Sarah says. Jennifer stands and they walk to the front of the bus, much to the relief of Rachel and Ryan, who are in the last row of the bus and still trying to clean up the result of Ryan’s biological response to brisk and gentle hand motion.
In the front of the bus, Jennifer notices the ride is smoother. She looks out the front window and watches the road unfold in the headlights before them. Sarah prays to herself. She does not speak out loud until they are at the rest stop, where she calls Jennifer’s and Brittany’s parents to tell them something similar yet altogether different than anything she has ever told other parents.
Within a week, Brittany will leave the youth group and neither her nor her parents will attend Monroe Baptist Church again. In the fall, Jennifer will become the newest member of a camp where she will surrender to God and pray for the release of her guilt and shame. She will cry more tears than she ever will again in her life.
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