Arceneaux - I Cant Date Jesus

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An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Copyright 2018 by Michael Arceneaux

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Atria Paperback edition July 2018

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Interior design by Dana Sloan

Cover art and design by McCandliss and Campbell

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-5011-7885-6

ISBN 978-1-5011-7886-3 (ebook)

Once an old high school classmate told me at the Pappadeauxs off of 610 in Houston that I would end up working at Burger King because I had majored in journalism.

This book is dedicated to dummies like that who dont know when to shut the hell up.

Also: pay fast food workers livable wages.

I know where Im going and I know the truth, and I dont have to be what you want me to be. Im free to be what I want.

M UHAMMAD A LI

But in the long run, no matter what I do for the rest of my life, Ill know I did something wonderful by saying what I felt.

F IONA A PPLE

B efore that day, I hadnt been to church in five Beyonc albums. Well, not for service, anyway. In that span of time, I had stepped inside two separate churches for three funerals, but as my mama and most faithful churchgoers will promptly make clear, solely stepping into the House of the Lord isnt the same thing as attending mass or church service and truly engaging in praise and worship. Until that April morning, the closest I had come to church attendance was watching WeTVs Mary Mary , an eponymously titled reality series about that gospel duo, and body rolling to tracks of theirs like God in Me. (But only the chopped-and-screwed versions, because as a native of Houston, Texas, everything sounds better to me chopped and screwedjams for Jesus included.) Other quasi-religious activities for my church-less life included posting contemptuous social media updates about the Baptist church across the street from my Harlem apartment and how the incredibly bad singing coming out of it is disrespectful to Jesus. Even if I had become an estranged acquaintance of Jesus, I didnt feel He deserved a shaky-vocals-having soloist and an equally terrible choir shouting off-key about Christs love. If Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross in order to die for our sins, the least any church singers can do is find the correct note.

I often describe myself as a recovering Catholic, but when a more pointed question such as So what do you believe in? surfaces, I struggle with specificity.

I know that I am not an atheist. For me, to let go of the idea of God altogether would mean completely sinking to a level of cynicism and jadedness that could ultimately devour me whole. That is not to speak for atheists in general; its merely what an embracement of atheism would mean for me. I cling to the idea that there has to be something bigger than us. Perhaps God is not, as He is so often depicted, the old white man with a white beard as long as a freshly sewn-in, twenty-two-inch Peruvian body-wave human-hair weave. Maybe God is not a man at all. Over time, Ive grown weary of using male pronouns to denote that Divine Being. In all the years of my absence from Gods house, I have continued to fall to my kneessometimes on a random sidewalkto pray, if for no other reason than to leave some line of communication open. As for Jesus, Ive swung back and forth from Thats my nigga! to treating Him like a friend with whom Ive fallen out because I hate a lot of His punk-ass friends (e.g., so many Christians) and never really had a proper sit-down with Him to make amends. Many with a firmer stance about their religion have mocked or at least expressed befuddlement at those who say they are more spiritual than religious. It is their belief that such a noncommittal position reads as lazy, like its putting the tip in with respect to faith, but not really going all the way. For them, its merely a matter of effort: You can do it, put your back into it!

Such opinions are a reflection of their own lack of will to step outside of themselves and their experiences and see how those on the other side feel. How can you be obedient to dogma youve found oppressive? How can you cling to tradition and exalt a vision of God that minimizes you and expects you to suppress what is innate to you? Is it not an exercise in futility to place your faith in a belief system that doesnt completely believe in you? Some of us either do not know the answers or have found ones that leave us on our own respective journeys for clarity and understanding, independent of any organized religion. It may not be a definitive position, but there are periods in life during which a gray area may be best. For those who do not understand or refuse to understand, such is their right. They also have the right to mind their own damn business.

Anyway, in the midst of this cloudiness over my religious ID, I found my way back inside of church to attend service. Naturally, I would go on Easter Sunday, one of three specific days when a bevy of lay Christians or full-fledged heathens opt to go check in with God. (The other two are Christmas and Mothers Day.) Funnily enough, there was no grandiose moment that got me back inside of a church for the first time in well over a decade. It was just a simple request from my best friend, andr (he prefers the aesthetic of lowercase lettering, and I respect it). dr and I were at brunch a week before and he asked me if I wanted to come to church with him on Easter.

I dont recall what number Bellini I was on, but I was of sober mind when I replied, Sure.

Now, for years and years, my mother had been encouraging me to go back to church. The most opportune times for her to push her agenda were whenever I felt my lowest. My mother may not have always seen me as wholly as I would have liked, but she was one of the very few people who could see through my veneer, a person who knew that beneath the flexes of strength and feigned indifference to a hostile world was a man often struggling to hold it together. In these weak moments of mine, she would push me to go back to Gods house to renew my faith and, by extension, be in a better place in every facet of my life. I liked my methods better: Mary J. Blige albums and maybe another prescription to a generic form of Celexa. After a while, she did take the hint that I was as firm in my choice not to go as she was in hers that I ought to. She would continue to encourage me to pray, send rosaries and prayer books, and sometimes casually mention that I might want to tip my toe into Gods residence. But in time, she majorly fell back.