Vacation Bible School

Abstract

Vacation Bible School Erika Meitner (bio) It's not the words you couple togetherbut the state and condition of your heartministers the radio in the Episcopal Thrift Shopscattered with ladies sorting donationsand other ladies picking their way throughexhausted racks of everything that has everbeen carried or worn by anyone.At the register, with lilt enough to fillthe shop's three rooms, a woman tellstwo cotton-haired ladies about her son,who married the wrong girl too young.It's not the words you couple together,but the state and condition of your heart,the radio preacher repeats. He's midsermonon Acts Chapter 22: What shall I do Lord,what shall I do? We come in the bloodstainedname of Jesus. Let our neediness be known. [End Page 98] I've spent all year at the university teachingabout Christ, though I'm Jewish, in Historyof American and Intro to Western Religions:Jesus as nonconformist, Jesus as warrior,Jesus as Black Power, Jesus as Jew,so I'm not surprised when a womanbehind the counter says, "When I found outtwo of my children was killed I was hurtingthrough my chest, my head was swimming,my heart wasn't beating right. I was in shock,I guess, and they told me I should see a doctor,but the only doctor I needed was our good LordJesus Christ, who stood by me in my suffering.I never had another symptom of heart trouble." Spring semester, I taught Niebuhr and Oxnam,hateful Falwell and more hateful Robertson,and the only theologian I love now is King—True neighborliness requires personal concern.The Samaritan used his hands to bindthe wounds of the robbed man's body.But what would Jesus do with these junked pilesof costume jewelry and single cuff links?Use men's undershirts as makeshift tourniquets?The radio gives instructions on ordering tapesguaranteed to help us turn our faith loose.The minister tells the faithful to register teensin Vacation Bible School so they can learn, he says,apologetics—a fancy word that will teach themhow to argue for creationism in their classroomsrife with evolution. He says, we comein the wonderful name of Jesus! He says,do you know your soul comes under regular attack?We need to guard our souls. Do you know how to do that? [End Page 99] I tell him, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrowbecause of you. He ignores me, says, join meas we take this journey into the secret life of the soul,and while I might not be trained in homiletics, I saylisten, Brother—the secret life of the soul is this:chipped gas-station juice glasses and frayed-hemhouse dresses whose zippers hold ghosts of ladieswho suffer and suffer and suffer at thrift store countersfor you. Their paper-fanned hot flashes buoy you up,whether you know it or not. We all have bodies,and our bodies long for objects, however wornor lived in. Our bodies are like them: shoes that havewalked out their payless miles, gnawed stuffed bearswith carefully stitched scars, out-of-season ski jacketssporting tiny duct-taped tears. He says, One day Godwill give you a new body, but I say what if we want to keepthese? "All things are accepted in the Beloved,"says one register lady to the woman with the divorced son,and she means somewhere in the farthest back binis whatever regretless thing you gave away; someone elseis holding it up. She's checking for stains and seam rips.She's draping it gratefully over her arm. [End Page 100] Erika Meitner Erika Meitner is the author of Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore (Anhinga) and is currently the Morgenstern Fellow in Jewish Studies at the University of Virginia. Copyright © 2007 University of Nebraska Press