By Brian Jones
April 18, 2003
Some people hate the rain because it ruins the afternoon they worked hard to plan: the walk in the park, the trip to the zoo… Seems like everyone had something to look forward to. Me, I just hated seeing my reflection in the puddles. I saw a guy who was fresh out of high school. Who had an ego bigger than a watermelon. Who could wear his hat slightly to the right and everyone else would do the same. He could captivate the attention of any beautiful girl of his choosing–who did not have a boyfriend taller than six feet–and could use them as his own trophies. I had everything I wanted and I was popular. But every night when it rained, and my friends went home–usually drunk–I’d walk by myself in spite of the miserable down pouring. The feeling of being cold and wet never bothered me; it was seeing myself, my reflection in the rippled puddles that would make me want to cry. But I couldn’t; nope not this man.
It was the summer I graduated from high school. My friends and I would stay up all night inventing games and pranks that would give us pleasure from somebody else’s humiliation. One day I dressed up as an employee of our town’s most ostentatious hotel, stole a set of keys from a bellboy, snuck into unoccupied rooms, and installed tea bags inside each room’s shower head. My friends and I waited in the lobby as we watched the angry guests walk out and express their anger to the hotel staff. It was especially amusing to watch the faces of the older woman who happened to be staying at the hotel. That was how we spent our summer, playing games and inventing pranks, but eventually it did get tiresome. We always needed something new, something that had never been done before. So I came up with the ultimate idea.
When we left the hotel we were greeted outside by two old men dressed up in suites. They were handing out tracts and saying that me and my buddies needed to be saved, or else we’d go to hell.
“The wages of sin is death!!!” he screamed. “But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord! Amen! Halleluiah! Jesus reigns forever! Praise the Lord God Almighty!”
I told him that his kind needed to stop abusing children and manipulating people of their money. As we walked to the car I took another look at the two men. Now they were talking to two woman, a blond and a red head. As the men were getting into their lecture of sin, death and destruction the red haired girl started to get very upset and swung her purse at one of the men. The blond haired girl just stood there looking confused. That’s when the idea came to me. You see, the hotel stunt was Jamie’s idea–and I must confess it was pretty good–so I needed something to reestablish myself as the master of mischief. It was weird seeing how those two old men would have the nerve to stand out in front of the hotel like that, intruding on people’s privacy. It was like they thought they were super heros or something. So that night I created my own superhero, called Gospelman. His motto went something like this:
Whenever a lawless man should threaten the purity of the world, Gospelman will be there. Whenever a prostitute should walk the streets at night, Gospelman will be there… TO SHARE THE GOSPEL!!!! Whenever the poor would be mistreated, Gospelman would be there… to pray for them… if they’d donated $500 to his ministry. For $1000 he’d even pray for them by name!
Armed with his Gideon’s bible, that came from a certain ostentatious hotel, and a tract that two old men gave him, Gospelman would be wherever there was a sinner, ready to preach the message of repentance.
The idea behind Gospelman was to confront strangers, just anyone we’d run into on the street, and make a complete fool out of them by yelling out every way we thought they were sinning. I worked hard to create Gospelman. My costume consisted of yellow tinted sunglasses, a towel for a cape, an old Jesus Freak t-shirt, and as an added touch I wore a blue Speedo over my blue jeans.
It was Saturday afternoon and I was all pumped to see what Gospelman could do. With my friends not too far behind, especially Jamie, I saw Gospelman’s first victim, a young woman, I’d say in her early twenties. She wore an outfit that consisted of a tight and revealing tank top, and those super tight and super low cut blue jeans. She had a determined look on her face and walked at a very impatient pace; the perfect victim for Gospelman. Without being seen we quickly hid behind a newspaper vending machine, and when she was at the right distance I jumped out in front of her and yelled:
“Stop right there! You evil, sinful woman! My prophetic sin-sense is detecting a strong lustful desire within that abused earthly vessel of yours.” It didn’t take long for that girl’s face to turn redder than ketchup. I’m not sure if it was my flashy outfit, which included a Speedo, or the large crowd that quickly started to gather around us that embarrassed her the most. It was probably both. So I begun to say something like: “You know, evil woman, on judgement day you’re facing the punishment of an eternity. What, with every man that you’ve slept with, every person you’ve hated, and every boy you’ve coveted. You’re on the wide path to hell, baby! But don’t you fear. Gospelman is here; he’s the action hero for your soul! And tucked inside his utility Speedo is the message that will save your soul. The message says that the eternal punishment of sin, your punishment, has been paid by Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, if confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead. Then you will be saved.” It really was amazing how big of a crowd Gospelman created. I was really surprised at how a man dressed in a cape and a Speedo could attract anyone’s attentive interest, I really did feel like Superman.
Gospelman provided many hours of fun for myself and my friends. Every Tuesday and Thursday we’d go out humiliating everyone we’d encounter. My most memorable moments were: telling the mayor that even good people like him were going to hell, getting kicked out of The Mall of America, and most thrilling, yelling at men coming out of strip joints. However, just as every good thing must come to an end, Gospelman’s time was quickly approaching. I wanted Gospelman to have a triumphant finale, so on one Sunday morning in a church, just after the offering plate was being passed, a man wearing a cape and yellow tinted sunglasses came running to the pulpit and threw a cream pie in the preacher’s face. As the preacher was screaming and freaking out I started to call everyone in the congregation a sinner, and that their money wasn’t going to buy their way out of hell. I was about half way through Gospelman’s salvation message when I had to quickly bolt for the emergency exit because two police officers were ready with handcuffs.
Now, with Gospelman’s costume neatly tucked away in a box, my normal life resumed. With my new college lifestyle, and the parties that went with it, I quickly fell in love with the world’s most incredible girl. I remember when we first met. It was Saturday night, I was with my friends and Diana was there. The TV was on, and then all of a sudden Diana started yelling at the rest of the guys because they were making too much noise. The guys were too drunk to care, so they just continued making as much noise as they could. Diana couldn’t stand for this. So she grabbed the fresh pot of coffee that had just been brewed and splashed it on the guys’ faces. And as I was watching from a safe, cool distance, I fell in love. We were watching the hockey game, Toronto was playing Montreal, and it was the first intermission. Diana wanted to watch Coaches’ Corner and those drunk guys, who were our friends, just couldn’t stop talking.
I shared a wonderful romance with Diana. So wonderful that nine months later I would become the father of a baby girl… who’s mother just happened to be Diana’s best friend, Jena. I didn’t want anything to do with her, the baby girl of course and trying to convince Jena to get an abortion didn’t work. Also Diana quickly found out, so there was my love life flushed down the toilet. However, I was a college student who had promise. For the first time in my life I was actually getting grades that didn’t hover around the fifty percent mark. I had a crack at becoming someone, someone’s who reflection didn’t look so horrid in the puddles. So I just denied Jena’s existence and my baby girl, and finished school at the top of my class. Immediately when I graduated I got a job at our town’s biggest company, LexBridge and begun working hard to climb up the corporate ladder. Eventually I made it to the position of company vice-president, with great promise of soon becoming president. But just as everything was becoming so good, I received the phone call that would change everything:
“Sir, I have some bad news for you. The mother of your daughter recently died, apparently from a drug overdose, and there’s no one else to care for your daughter.”
Just like that I became the caregiver of a twelve year old girl who hated my guts. It didn’t matter though, I couldn’t stand her either. She would go out to parties all night, spend all her free time hanging out anywhere, as long as it was away from home and there were people around. But it seemed like almost every time she’d come home she would be almost crying, it seemed like that anyway. It took me a bit of time to realize it, but I saw that she was going through the very same thing, exactly the same thing, that I did when I was her age. I really wanted to do something for her. So I decided to have father daughter nights, only it seemed more like Matthew and Joyce nights, and it reminded us of how much we hated each other. She was a freedom wanting teenage girl and I was the selfish dad who abandoned her for the first twelve years of her life. Nothing seemed to work, so I just said to myself who cares, and since she wasn’t taking these nights seriously neither would I. One night, just to get back at her for lying to me the previous night, I said that we were going to spend the next night reading the Bible as a punishment. And ironically, that was the first night we’ve ever gotten along, peacefully.
The stuff we read in the bible seemed to interest Joyce. But it wasn’t the reading alone that brought us closer together, it was the questions she asked. She would ask things like:
“When I die, will I be going to hell? How good of a person must I be to get into heaven?”
I knew the answers that I was giving her wasn’t of any theologic quality, but my experience doing research for Gospelman years ago gave me some clue of what to say:
“Joyce, it’s not going to matter. You know how evil and guilty and sinful you are. Remember that voice inside of you, your conscience… the thing you said you didn’t need when you realized life wasn’t fair because God made mommy a drug addict, and daddy a selfish jerk? But anyone who breaks any commandment of the Lord will go to hell. But the God that we read about in the bible, who created everything we see was gracious enough to pay that price. The eternal punishment of sin, your punishment, has been paid by Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, if confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead. Then you will be saved.”
And, using words very similar to the words used by Gospelman years ago, I was able to express to my daughter my deep concern for her late night lifestyle. Our father daughter nights became regular Bible study nights.
Then Joyce and I started going to church. I didn’t know what to think of church: the sermons were long and hard to follow and it seemed like I’d leave the building getting nothing out of it for the money I put in the offering plate. All the men who were in their forties and fifties would make a vigilant effort to shake my hand and be welcoming. However, none of this stuff mattered to me; Joyce was happy, and that was all that mattered. She met friends who would make her smile, and she instantly became a brighter, more cheery young teenage girl. And I will never forget the night I was walking by her bedroom door and I overheard her praying:
“Jesus, I pray for my dad. I pray that you will look after him and keep him safe. And I am thankful that you made him my daddy.” That was the first time I’ve ever heard her call me daddy, and it felt really good.
When she was done praying I whispered through the door, “Goodnight Joyce.” And she whispered back:
“I love you daddy. Goodnight.”
Thursday night was her youth group night. When I dropped Joyce off at the church I was asked by Linda, the mother of Joyce’s new best friend Rachel, if I would join her for a cup of coffee. I agreed. Linda was a single parent, like myself, and she had become a mother to Rachel during her early college years, also like myself. I guess the only real difference between us was that she was a Christian, a firm believer in the death and resurrection of Christ, and I was pretty much was an atheist. I would agree that the whole spiritual thing was good for Joyce and our relationship with each other, but that was it. And that was pretty much what I’ve thought my whole life, until Linda said:
“You know, I used to hate putting on my makeup every morning, trying to look cute in order to impresses the next jerk who would be willing to sleep with me. I mean, I had nothing to be ashamed about. I was beautiful. All the boys at every party would always stare at me, and they’d be willing to die just to have my attention. And every girl wanted to be my friend. But every time I looked into the mirror I saw a person of whom I was very ashamed. The boys, they just wanted sex; the girls who were my friends, they just wanted to be my friend so they could get the boys. The reality was that sex was the only meaning my life had.
“But then, after I had enough of that life and became a Christian, I no longer see that person. I see a woman who was created in the image of her Father in Heaven, and I see the Grace of God poured out on a life that didn’t deserve it at all.”
She was so very right, and she’d just described something I’ve always wanted, even though I never knew that I’d wanted it. There was a bit of an odd silence, so I asked her the first question that came to mind:
“Linda, if you were living such a sinful lifestyle, how did you get saved?”
“Well, it was a Saturday afternoon, I was walking downtown just past a newspaper vending machine, when some crazy teenager wearing: a cape on his back, yellow tinted sunglasses, and a Speedo over his blue jeans, jumped out in front of me and said, ‘Stop right there! You evil, sinful woman!…’”
I started to cry.
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