For the Love of Christ

Escapades of a former Jesus freak who went from preaching to perversion, and took the Holy Son along for the ride

Jesus and I go way back.

You know that annoying Christian kid who runs around urging you to accept Jesus as your savior, or you’ll go to hell? Yup, that was me. My neighbor’s mother once had to give me a talking to after I freaked the crap out of her daughter. Jesus is everywhere, I told her, all the time-always watching, and now she couldn’t sleep without imagining him hovering ominously over her bed.

Jesus does like to watch though. You may even say he’s a bit of a voyeur—a freak if you will. And he’s seen some stuff. I’ll tell you more about that soon…

My relationship with Jesus has evolved a lot over the years. I went from diehard devotee to leaving him out in the cold. I was mostly blasé for a long time, until one day, we saw each other in a divine new light.

At the end of elementary school, as my faith started to slip in favor of the temptations of the flesh, my very Christian grandmother was staying with us. I arrived home from a date with a boy I had just kissed goodnight— sixth-grade style—and found her sitting in a chair in the living room. As always, her long wrinkled fingers were folded over a leather-bound Bible with a gold cross on the front. She was battling cancer at the time, and my first thought when I saw her was,

—How can I grow up and be a teenager with her still alive? I know that I’ll sin. But then, a different thought struck me: If she dies, she’ll be watching it all from heaven — which is even worse.

She longed for it though and would say, I can’t wait to come home to Jesus. I pictured the two of them, perched over a cloud, spying as I pretended to like beer and awkwardly explored my budding sexuality. I shrugged.

Her wish came through not long after. But despite my worries, her ghost, or rather the ghost…

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