Jesus Freaks: Sins of the Father(16)

The song comes to a close, and after two more energizing and passionate numbers, the lead singer of the band asks us to bow our heads.

“Father,” he begins, slightly out of breath from the singing and moving across stage, “we thank you for bringing us here this morning for the start of what promises to be an amazing, Spirit-filled year.”

Around me, my peers offer their agreement in mumbled words.

“Amen.”

“Yes.”

“Hallelujah.”

I’m finding it hard to focus on the words he’s saying because all I’m praying for is to not fall apart when Roland takes the stage. Part of the reason I kept my eyes closed through the songs was to avoid searching for him. I don’t know how he operates during a service. Does he stay backstage until the band is done? Does he worship next to the parishioners?

I simply don’t know.

The last time I saw him was a week before my high school graduation in June. Mom asked him not to come to the ceremony. She said she was afraid it would attract attention from anyone in our liberal town who might know who he is. Trust me, no one would know who he is. I think she was afraid it would take my attention away from her. So I asked him for lunch afterward. Before that, I saw him in the fall of my senior year when he was in town and I met him for lunch to tell him I’d be applying to Carter. When I was a sophomore we got to meet up—you guessed it—for lunch when he was in town on “business.” I think I was the business, to be honest... Lunches have defined our relationship up until this point.

This morning, though, and the year ahead, will change everything.

“Please be seated,” I hear as my knees give out. I’m sure it was the lead singer of the band who said it, but in this moment I’m having trouble distinguishing between human voices and His voice.

Just because I wasn’t raised like the kids around me doesn’t mean I’ve been deprived of spiritual connection. My heart has felt God since before I really knew what to do with it. All I can do now is beg God to keep me in one piece.

There he is.

Without introduction, Roland strides to the microphone in the center of the stage with his classic charismatic swagger. He sets his Bible and what looks like an iPad on the small stand to his left. He’s wearing dark blue jeans, a short sleeved black button-down shirt—untucked—and the black Converse sneakers I’ve come to assign as his trademark. His sandy hair is longer than I’ve ever seen, and I account this to the fact he returned from Africa only yesterday. The front of his hair seems to stay away from his face with a little help from styling product. I wonder idly if he does his hair or if there’s some Spiritual Beautification Team on his side.

Roland takes a deep breath. His eyes scan over the crowd and I can’t help but wonder if he’s looking for me.

I lift my chin, swallowing hard to keep any overzealous tears at bay as I study him. The man who signed away his paternal rights to me without a second thought.

Sure, I’ve heard the sermons. The ones about his guilt and agony over decisions made in his sinful flesh, rather than under the guidance of a loving Jesus he discovered at the bottom of a bottle of bourbon.

He smiles and I see the dimple. In the cheek opposite the one mine sits in, it looks like we’re two halves of the same smile. It’s infectious—much more so than my smile has ever been, I’m sure—but, man, if it doesn’t look like I’m staring in a mirror… Our hair is different in color—my waves are from him—but that’s where the dissimilarities stop. In appearance anyway.

I’ve not let myself get close enough to him emotionally to see what other commonalities we share. What if discovering similarities in our personalities make me angry with him, myself, or Mom? Or God?

It hits me in the chest again that I’ve enrolled at Carter University to learn just as much about myself as about him, this man of faith preparing to address 1,500 enlistees in God’s army.

If he found Jesus, I find myself wondering, where was Jesus for me? Did Jesus think it was a-okay for me to not have my birth father around? Was Jesus hovering over the moment Mom met Dan, and I was granted a “normal” life I might not have had otherwise? Did Roland ever ask to be an active part of my life? Mom never told me if there had been any conversation about that, and Roland’s never said anything to me.

He’s been nothing but respectful of the strict boundaries my mom set between the two of us. He never talks with me about the relationship he wishes we’d have, always going on about his gratefulness that I choose to let him in even a little bit. And his gratefulness toward my mother for not telling him to take a hike.

“Good morning, Carter University,” he starts in a remarkably soft tone. A few students quietly respond with their greetings.

His accent is muddled. Southern, but only enough to catch my ear. I doubt my friends notice. It’s always sounded like this on TV, but never in person with me. His Wikipedia page clearly indicates he’s from the Midwest, but I know too little about that region of the country to know if this is authentic.

That dimple grows deeper and from the jumbo-tron I can see playful mischief in Roland’s eyes as he bellows, “Good morning, Carter University!”

I jump as shouts and applause crash through the crowd at a deafening volume. Roland seems to gain energy form this response, and he paces quickly to one end of the stage. “Who’s ready for a God-filled, Jesus-centered year?” he inquires passionately with the perma-smile I’ve come to associate with his on-stage persona. It could very well be how he is in real-life, too, though I haven’t had the opportunity to study that for any meaningful length of time. A disadvantage I’d planned to rectify as I sent in my application for the university.