That Time The Pastor Confessed to an Extramarital Affair From The Pulpit

Thanks for the spiritual guidance, dude.

Photo by Tom Ramalho on Unsplash

The cab driver sat in the driveway, waiting to get paid. It was well after midnight when I arrived — unannounced — at my sister’s house. I banged on the door and when her husband answered, I asked him for the twenty bucks I needed to get the cab driver to leave.

My sister was only a little surprised to see me. I was in the middle of a white-knuckled ride through my early twenties that consisted of short-term, seasonal jobs that had me crisscrossing the country and always looking for a place to sleep. She threw me some blankets and I fell fast asleep on her sofa.

The next day was Sunday, so I woke up to a big breakfast followed by the rush of getting her three kids dressed and ready to go to church. Even though I grew up going to church a lot, I hadn’t been to a service in half a decade.

My sister and I grew up going to a rural, country church in upstate New York. It was white with a tall steeple and hymnals that were published sometime in the 1950s. But now she lived downstate and went to the kind of modern church that had a rock band and had youth group events like “Paintball & Prayer.”

I agreed to go since I had no car, no plans, and no money to do anything else.