Although I come from a Christian background, I consider myself an agnostic. I have a very strong sense of the divine, but this intuition has never organized itself into a set of principles or certainties, existing instead as a great and ever-mutating question mark to which I will always be subordinate. In short, I imagine my understanding of the universe to be similar to a lobster\u2019s understanding of the earth.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for me to imagine a creature more physically dissimilar from a human than a lobster– an entity that inhabits the same planet as the rest of us but lives on the cold, dark floor of oceans. If we could imbue it with a human intelligence, could it possibly conceive of the terrestrial civilization above that actually farms and manages lobster communities and then eats them as delicacies? My guess is that no, the lobster is not thinking this, and so I assume that whatever my instinct is about what lies beyond the field of my imagination, the actuality is going to be so much stranger and greater that there\u2019s absolutely no point in trying to codify it into a religion.<\/p>\n

I have a friend who is a Charismatic Christian, and knowing that my wife was out of town one weekend, he invited me over for dinner with his men\u2019s group. I did not know what a men\u2019s group was. I imagined a bunch of guys who liked fantasy football, crossbows and the free market, and with that in mind went over expecting to eat a huge steak.<\/p>\n

When I arrived there were about six other men sitting in the living room, as if waiting for me, as if they\u2019d been waiting for me for their entire lives. There was something unusual about these men, an aspect of aggressive contentment that was entirely humourless and disquieting.<\/p>\n

One man seemed to make a special project of me. He handed me a piece of paper upon which were what he considered to be numeric proofs of the immaculate nature of the Bible. After looking at it for a minute or two, and commenting on the interesting connections it made, I joked, \u201cIf the Bible were perfect, surely it would contain a few photos of Raquel Welch, don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I was being charming.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s Group charming, I thought.<\/p>\n

He gave me a long, hard look and then nodded to the other men, who over the course of the next fifteen minutes filtered out to the front porch to have cigars.\u00a0 Thickly built, the man was probably 20 years older than I was and gave me a look that suggested he\u2019d seen my type before. We talked for a good half hour before he announced, \u201cYou know, when I was younger I was a sex addict.\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded respectfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere seem to be very few old sex addicts,\u201d I couldn\u2019t help but add.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think you\u2019re funny, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot funny Ha-Ha, funny the other way, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

He snorted, \u201cWhen I met a woman do you know what I saw?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenitals. That\u2019s what I saw. Just genitals.\u201d<\/p>\n

He spat out the word \u201cgenitals\u201d in the same way a serial killer in a movie starring Morgan Freeman might. \u201cBut it was the Lord Jesus Christ who saved me from this sinful bearing!\u201d And then he shouted something and raised his fist into the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome with me, son, I want you to see something.\u201d<\/p>\n

He led me out to the front porch where the rest of the men were, and for the first time in my life I saw people\u00a0speaking\u00a0in\u00a0tongues, or at the very least, pretending to speak in\u00a0tongues. With their arms up, aspiring for heaven, the men were shouting and crying. As a holy babble poured forth from their mouths, they twisted and spun, undulating, as if no longer owner\u2019s of their own bodies. Ferdinand, the Congolese guy who had been addicted to heroin and cocaine, was so stricken by the Lord that he collapsed and fell into the Weber barbeque. I rushed over to him, and upon revival asked him what he had seen during his hallowed transport but he did not know what to say. His wide, innocent face just looked back at me, \u201c All was good,\u201d he said, \u201call was glory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what happened when you collapsed into the barbeque?\u201d I pressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lord spoke his miracle into me.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I looked at the men on the porch. Although in a state of ecstatic transference, they still managed to hold their cigars and glasses of whiskey. Each one was recovering from some life seizing passion, be it drugs, alcohol or an addiction to sex, and it was clear that they\u2019d replaced one obsession with another. It was fantasy football, only with the Pentecostal Church replacing the NFL.<\/p>\n

As I crouched near Ferdinand with what was likely a look of wonder on my face, they asked if they could pray for me, the black sheep. I was a little bit anxious about what this meant, but said yes and inched into their prayer circle clutching my scotch like it was a holy talisman. They all put a hand on me and lifted the other toward the skies, and then they really put their hearts into it. The man who had taken me on as a special project reached out to touch me, and when he did, he shuddered away as if suffering an electrical shock.<\/p>\n

But he was strong, and reached out to touch me again. It pained him to do so, I could see it in his face, but he persisted, Satan was not going to beat him. Powerful, unguarded commands from his heart issued forth, and then he proclaimed that he saw a serpent wrapped around me, a serpent coiling tighter and tighter. The other men were shrieking and howling. \u201cYou must come to the Lord, the serpent is winding itself into you, I see it,\u201d my exorcist proclaimed in a voice that seemed to come from a TV set. I nodded my head and looked at him, \u201cNo,\u201d I said, \u201cyou don\u2019t see a serpent. You\u2019re lying. I think the serpent is wrapped around you.\u201d And I looked at him like I was goddamn Clint Eastwood. And then Ferdinand, whom I think has peace-making instincts, distracted everybody by being struck by the Lord again, shouting, \u201cThe Lord has seized the Serpent, it departs!\u201d before collapsing once again into the Weber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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