would open their eyes to their sins, and open their hearts to fearing Your awesome power. We pray, too, that You prevent them from spreading wickedness among the community, that You keep their tongues and hands from causing harm, and prove Your power by punishing them in this life and the next.”
My dad wasn’t big on subtlety, you see. Sometimes I thought he was actually glad I’d stopped going to his church. It gave him the chance to wax rhapsodic about the hellfire and damnation that awaited me. I was pretty sure he enjoyed that more than he would enjoy my return to the fold.
“And we praise You, Lord, for the gifts You shower on the righteous, for the rewards You show those who love and follow You. Truly, You share Your goodness and treasure on earth and in heaven, with those who fear You, to be an example to others. We may only beg to be worthy of You, even as we know that the inborn sin of men and women means none of us can ever be worthy. Still, You bestow Your grace upon us, and we praise You for it. Amen.”
And just like that, it was over, and my dad was aggressively serving himself slices of roast while glaring at me.
“So, what do you have to say for yourself?”
That was his way of asking how my week had gone. Actually, for my dad, that was fairly polite.
So I briefly ran down the highlights of my week. I didn’t mention the evaluation, of course. I hadn’t received the results yet, but I didn’t have high hopes. Actually, my dad would probably relish hearing that I was being targeted by an authority figure. Two peas in a pod, him and Anne.
Instead of giving my dad a chance to remind me how much I’d let him down by not following in his footsteps, I asked Katie how her week had been instead. I was never sure how much my parents knew about Katie’s morning visits to my house, so I always acted like I had no idea what was going on in her life.
She pushed her food around her plate animatedly as she talked about a new stunt they were working on in cheerleading, how it was frog week in biology so the entire school smelled like formaldehyde, and an upcoming field trip to Savannah.
“We’re spending the morning at the city archives, looking at primary source documents for our midterm papers. Then we’re going on a garden tour in the afternoon, and we might even go to an animal sanctuary after that, Ms. Beecham says.”
“Waste of time,” my dad growled. My mom, as usual, said nothing. She was so quiet in my dad’s presence that she might as well not be there at all.
Katie’s eyes flashed, but to my relief, she didn’t contradict my dad directly. Still, someone ought to say something.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think field trips can be important learning experiences. You connect classroom content to the real world. I’m taking my own class to McIntyre Beach this Friday as part of our science unit. We’re going to do a park clean-up, and talk about ecology.
“That’s cool,” Katie offered, but it was buried under my dad barking, “Waste of time,” again but louder, as if volume alone could prove his point.
He glared at both of us. Katie held his eyes for a second, then looked down at her plate and stabbed a green bean with her fork. She pushed it around her plate like she was channeling all her energy into not talking back to my dad. I was grateful.
Never one to let a silence stretch out when he could fill it with sermonizing, my dad cleared his throat and focused his glare on me alone.
“Field trips do nothing but divert young minds from discipline. They distract from the lessons children should be learning. Not that the content of our public schools focuses on what it should. It’s a disgrace, what young people are taught these days.”
Ah, yes. The breakdown of moral society due to the failings of the public school system. All of which I was apparently personally responsible for. It was one of my dad’s favorite topics, and I didn’t even have to listen, once he got rolling.
I knew all the familiar beats. Kids these days had no respect. Spare the rod and spoil the child. America’s schools were nothing but temples to atheism and sin.