Baptist Sno Cones

A friend of mine is starting a blog and her search for a title brought back memories of the summer that I became a Southern Baptist. I was ten; my family was living in Corpus Christi, Texas, where my father ran a satellite tracking station for NASA. It was incredibly hot and there was nothing to do. Every other kid on our block went to vacation Bible school at the local Baptist church and would come home every afternoon licking sweet, icy sno cones that came in every color of the rainbow. My parents believed in the Chinese restaurant menu theory of religious studies, i.e., try a little bit of everything, and I wanted a daily sno cone, so my sister and I joined up.

I did really well too, winning a prize for memorizing the most Bible verses: a highly varnished slice of tree trunk with a decoupage picture of Jesus praying at Gethsemane. On Sundays, we had Communion (Grape Hi-C drink and saltine crackers) and wore red robes and sang in the choir. By the end of the summer I was ready to be immersed in the big tiled baptism pool by the choir loft. My sister was baptized that same Sunday. The very next morning, two adult members of the church showed up at my house to tell my parents that since their daughters had joined the congregation, my father was required to tithe 10% of his salary. That's when I stopped being a Baptist. I knew instantly that they never wanted us. All they wanted was the money. It was the biggest betrayal I'd ever experienced from anyone outside of my family.