Battle of the Bibles

I have observed with fascination and quiet detachment the churches on the Tampa streets near where I live. Four in particular line up side by side on Palm Avenue. They appear to the outside observer to be in perpetual competition for business, and to this end display their messages to all who pass by via their ongoing, onstreet advertising signs… those classic and ubiquitous 8 foot by 10 foot low to the ground white signs with everchanging plastic black block letters….. announcing their messages… their Good News…. their judgments….. the promises of salvation to be found within……………… As I drive home from the YMCA, where I get yet another dose of organized religion, there are two of these small churches on the left side and two on the right. A bit ironic this configuration, a metaphoric mirror of our current political divide in this country, each side confidently armed with their endorsement from God. The two on the left seem to me a bit more moderate, and have signs outside saying ‘Pre-School Openings….. APPLY WITHIN! 3 and 4 Year Olds.’ ‘Sunday brunch en Espanol. Todos Bienvenidos!’. And ‘A Child needs a role model more than a critic’. The ones on the right blare our messages to all passing by such as ‘1 Cross + 3 Nails = 4Given. Jesus’s Math’ And my old favorite ‘DUSTY BIBLES, DIRTY LIVES’, proclaimed with the surety and volume that can only be conveyed by using all capital letters. One day, on my drive home from taking Drew to the pool, I witnessed a very surreal scene playing itself out in front of these two churches on the right. It was a still tableau. A ‘slice of life’ Caravaggio painting, taken in at high speed as I passed by in my car, allowing me the vantage point of the detached observer in my hermetically sealed ‘pod’, almost like going through ‘It’s a Small World’ at a Disney theme park. Outside one of the churches was the groundskeeper, down on bended knee with clippers in hand, pruning the weeds that threatened to swallow up his sign. In the church occupying the next lot over was a person sitting down on the low concrete wall surrounding its sign. As I passed closer, I saw that this person, looking unkempt and homeless, was sitting there completely exposed from the waist down. His pants were down hanging around his worn out brown shoes. He was using this low wall as a toilet. He was having a shit. Right there on Palm Avenue. Calmly. Unabashedly. Serenely. Was this a calling from the Lord? A God-Almighty sanctioned bodily fuction? ‘The lord is my toilet I shall not want’. He was simply there, facing out into the traffic passing by with no apparent shame. This was his lot in life. The weed snipping person had caught notice of this situation as well, and his expression changed to one of pure shock and anger, and had rose from his crouched position to walk over and confront this ‘sinner’ at the church next door. Then, as quickly as I entered into it, I was out of it and the scene was gone, and my ride was continuing on into the more mundane… The Sweetbay Supermarket. The Panda Express. The CVS. The stoplight. It made me think. What is the purpose of the House of God? Is it Universal? It is the same for all of us? Or like this homeless shitter…. are we each to give within our means and to take what we need from it? What if what we need is a place to rest and have a shit because we have none? Who decides?