Joshua Arnold - The Altar Call 

 

Well, I didn't really expect to do this, but okay, here we go. [audience laughter] I think I'll just say I lost a bet. But you would suppose that if you went to church, that's supposed to be where you experience love. But most people, when they look at me, they don't get an accurate read on what I am. What they do is they see the chair, and they remove me from it and they put themselves in it. I'd been dealing with this most of my life, all my life, and especially in church. My cousin one time, he asked me to go to this church down in a very small town in Alabama. There's less than 600 people there. I don't think anything about it. I go with him. 

 

The church, the service is good, the music's good. I'm not really uncomfortable until it's time for the altar call. Those are supposed to be emotionally uncomfortable anyway. [audience laughter] The guy that came up with them actually said that. It was written down somewhere, though I forget his name. Those are supposed to be uncomfortable. But I began to especially feel uncomfortable as he kept-- the minister, whatever his name was, kept saying, “Is there anybody out there that feels they need some help? Is there something they want to let go of?” I began to get suspicious that, “Oh, shit, he's talking about me. [audience laughter] It's always me. Why God? Why is it always the cripple boy?” 

 

This is not about me. This is not about me. I was really nervous, a lot more nervous than I am now even. So, I was like, “This can't be about me.” And then, I hear the minister start telling a story. He said, “Normally, I walk down the left side of the aisle. I felt compelled to walk down the center aisle. I didn't know why until I saw a man in a wheelchair.” “Oh, God damn, this is about me.” [audience laughter] So, let's just go get this over with. So, I didn't exactly walk down there, but I went down there very slowly. [audience laughter] I guess it was the stroll of shame or horror shock or something. So, I get down there and they say, “Can we pray for you?” 

 

Now, I'd read in the book they were supposed to read [chuckles] that when a certain Jewish guy asked people if they wanted help, he asked them specifically what for. Apparently, they didn't read this. [audience laughter] I thought they might know something I didn't know. Hell, I was trying to quit smoking that week. [audience laughter] So, I said, “Sure, go ahead and pray for me.” They began to pray for me and they began to put their legs or hands on my legs and push into them as though the Holy Spirit needed help to get in, like it didn't know where the hell it was supposed to go. [audience laughter] 

 

And then, they pulled out. They did this thing called the Anointing of the Sick, where they poured oil on me. And by this time, I'm shut down and “Let's get this over with. Let's let them have their show and I ain't never coming back.” When somebody said, “Give him a microphone,” and I thought, oh, yes. [audience laughter]. Please God, if you have never heard anything else, let me have that microphone. [audience laughter]

 

So, the minister leans in and he says, “Do you have anything you want to say?” I said, “Yeah, I do.” He said, “Well, what do you want to say?” I said, “Please quit.” [audience laughter] He said, “Excuse me?” I said, “You heard me. I said, please quit.” He was a little surprised. And he says, “Why?” I said, “Because I didn't come here for this.” I said, “You know, you didn't ask anything about me. You just saw the chair. What you don't know about me is that less than two years before this happened or this is happening to me now, I had a really bad drinking problem. I don't have one today. 

 

Also, at the same time, I was a slime atheist, and I'm not now. As a matter of fact, I'm skipping the church where I'm the associate pastor to come down here to make my cousin happy.” And I say, “You just assume that you know what God wants for me to do. As far as I know, God has told me, or it's been told to me that I can do what I'm supposed to do with or without the chair.” He looked at me and said, “Do you want to tell the congregation that?” I said, “Yes.” And I did. He got up to his credit, he's like, “I think we've all learned a very valuable lesson here today that, you know, we can look at people and assume that we know what they need and we don't.” 

 

Now, to their credit, they thought they knew what they needed to express love to me, and they did not. I don't really fault them for that. And for my part, I thought that if I said anything, that I would just being rude and I didn't have shut up. But the thing about it is for me, is that whether or not it sounds polite and sweet, the biggest way to show somebody love is to tell them the truth even when they need to quit.