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*As in "Welcome to" and where "Gator Country"
means "Los Angeles"
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Gator Country: it's hot in kansas and there is a lot of god
i’m not a church going person. to think, once a week you ask for forgiveness and then hit ihop for pancakes. isn’t that a little sociopathic? though i wish i could do that: pop into church, purge, eat pancakes. i’m actually a little jealous.
when i was eight, i made the decision to get baptized. it was in Connecticut at an Episcopal church, so it was a pretty antiseptic, formal affair that didn’t involve getting dunked in a river in my skivvies, though now i would have preferred that. my sister and i wore matching dresses. the next sunday morning, when my dad woke me up for church, i asked him why i had to go back if i was already forgiven. he stared at me, and then said "good point" and walked out. i slept in every sunday after that.
there are a lot of churches here in Kansas, on nearly every street corner. you don’t have an excuse not to go. every variety is here and they surround you. born again, recently born, just born, jason bourne, church of the everlasting gobstopper, and my favorite, first family church. [note to self: do the Obamas go there? shouldn’t it be called “family first church”?] there’s one called the church of the resurrection--of course, what else would it be called--which looks like a supersized noah’s ark. when the next great flood comes, it’s going to pull anchor and sail off with its weekly donors while the rest of us drown. naturally, there is a place next door that offers breakfast specials.
it's hot here in Kansas. it's hot and there is a lot of god.
recently, when it was 186 kadillion degrees out, i bought corn from the back of an old man’s truck. he sat on a foldout chair under a tiny parasol, pulled the green off an ear and told me to take a bite right then and there. so i did. it was crunchy and sweet and he told me that’s how you know it’s good. i bought a lot of corn that day. my little son and i spent hours shucking and saving the caterpillers in a mason jar with holes poked in the lid. this weekend, we’re going to catch lightening bugs. that's my church.
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