Worship

Worship

Like a dagger through my bed sheets, my alarm blared, waking me from my slumber with a startle. I sat up quickly and hit the snooze button before stretching. My arm found its way to the headboard to search for my glasses, only to find they had fallen on the floor. The clock’s bright red numbers caught the corner of my eye, and I turned to see what time it had decided to wake me. It was 10:00am and I stood up to get dressed. As I started making daily plans in my head, I realized it was Sunday, and we would have to attend a church service in the evening. No sooner than I had started getting dressed had my mother begun yelling down the hallway for me to get up. It’s not that we had plans for this morning; my mother just wanted me out of bed so I could get a start on breakfast and my chores. I yelled back down to comfort my mother I was already up as I collected the dirty clothes from around my room, which I would later bring out for laundry. Rummaging through my clean clothes, I found a decent shirt and pants to wear.

After I had completely changed, my large pile of clothes by the door were lifted and brought into the laundry room, which was on the way to the kitchen. I set the pile in my designated basket and exited the unfurnished room after turning off the light. I heard my mother yell down from the kitchen again. “Hurry up and get down here. Breakfast is ready!” I sighed and trudged to the end of the hallway, down the stairs, and into the kitchen where the rest of my family was waiting to get started on breakfast. My spot was vacant at the table, and I was quick to fill it. Father nodded to my mother and she opened us in prayer to bless the food. I closed my eyes and just waited until she was done. The moment she finished, I snatched up my fork and dug into the plate full of pancakes placed in my spot, eating as fast as I could.

“What’s your big rush?” my father questioned before putting a fork full of pancake into his mouth.

“I just want to get done so I can watch my shows,” I replied in between mouthfuls. My mother just shook her head while my father worked to clear his mouth.

“You know,” he started, shaking his fork at me, “you spend too much time in front of that thing. You should go out and get some fresh air, play with your friends, or something else.”

“Yes,” my mother chimed, “You practically worship that thing!”

“I do not!” I retorted as I cleaned my plate. I rushed to set my dishes in the sink and into the family room to turn on the television. “I don’t worship this thing,” I though to myself, “I just have to see my shows. They’re all good stories and I’m right in the middle of them.” I continued to mentally justify my means until the commercials ended, revealing the main programming. I smiled in content and relaxed into the couch, ready for my few hours of entertainment.

It hadn’t been more than an hour before my mother came into the room, demanding I complete my chores. “Just a sec, mom,” I complained, “This show will be over in a couple of minutes.”

“Fine,” she snapped at me, “but you had better get it done or you’ll be grounded tomorrow,”

“Yeah, yeah fine. I’ll get them done.” I lazily grumbled under my breath. She started to walk away, and I began to forget all about my chores and duties, and fall back into the black hole-like suction of our basic T.V. programming. Another hour had passed before I had actually gotten around to cleaning up the dishes and putting them into the dishwasher. This of course had not gone unnoticed. As I sat back down to finish watching the rest of the animated series shows when my mother came in and changed the channel to the History Channel. I was not at all amused.

“Hey! Turn that back!” I quickly yelled, “I was watching that!”

My mother just smirked and held the remote above me before replying, “I know, and you’ve been watching too many of them lately. If you want to watch T.V. anymore today, you’re going to watch something you can learn from.
I grunted and fell back into the couch as the sounds of marching filled the room. There was some special on about Hitler and his reign of power over Germany. There was bound to be some violence, and I was too lazy to get up, so I decided to stay seated and watch it.

Some time had passed, giving a brief history of how Hitler came to power from being but a poor child to such a great leader. The program now showed him standing at a balcony giving a speech with much hot-aired enthusiasm. When he had finished, the entire crowd yelled his name, holding their arms above their heads. Some historian then appeared on the screen explaining that most of Germany literally considered Hitler like a God, practically worshipping him because of how charismatic he and his speeches were. The people of Germany were promised many great things, and just as much Hitler had accomplished. They were all completely brainwashed. As time passed, the segment slowly became boring, so I decided I would to bike to the library to visit my other passion—the Internet.

A few simple clicks and I was in the front entryway, where I began putting on my shoes. My father happened to pass through the room and enquired as to where I was going.
“To the library.” I responded simply as I finished tying my last lace.

“Well, you can only be there for a couple of hours.” he warned, “We have afternoon service today.” I nodded as I opened the front and bounded out, grabbed my bicycle, and pedaled quickly out of our front yard.

When I arrived at the large, glassy building, I locked my bike to the rack and ran inside hoping there were open computers to use. To much surprise, there was little activity, and most computers were available. I rushed to sign in and get acquainted with my much-missed web pages. The first place I visited was my favorite art site, where I tracked the progress of my favorite artists. I was overjoyed to find that my favorite artist had posted a new painting for view. It was a beautiful scene of a quaint, quiet, forest, and it could only be described as stunning. My fingers dashed over the keyboard as I hurriedly typed in my response. I had to praise him; this work was so fantastic. After I had posted my comment, I ran through some of the other comments posted. Of course, all of them were praises, some more than others. We all gave the impression we worshiped the ground he walked on because of these masterpieces. I smiled as I added the piece to my list of favorites and trailed off to other places along the Internet.

Time seemed to speed by, and before I knew it, I had to leave. I closed everything up and rearranged the desk space as to not leave it cluttered. I grabbed the disk from the computer that I had been using and waltzed out the door to head home. The ride was short, and I was back in a matter of minutes. Everything was peaceful, but of course, that all changed as soon as I walked through our front door. My mother rushed me to grab a bite to eat because the service was starting an hour earlier this evening than usual, and we needed to leave right away. I plainly snatched a cookie and went out to the van to wait for the rest of my family.

My brother was the first out, hopping behind the wheel to drive us to church. He was a new driver and needed the experience of our drive. I sighed as I climbed back to the middle seat next to my father. I never really liked going to church; it was boring, and there was nothing to really do while the pastor was preaching to the congregation. After some awkward silence, I finally asked, “How come we need to attend church every Sunday? I never learn anything here.”

My father turned next to me, a bit perturbed, and whispered, “We go to church to worship God. It’s not always about learning something new. You should try singing with us sometime instead of merely doodling on a piece of paper.”

“But I already worship Him.” I whined, “I appreciate my life, and I try to be as good a person as I can by being a testimony to my friends.”

“And you should be,” he spoke softly, “but the least you could do is take a few hours out of one day just to spend giving Him glory.” I pouted with a huff. I knew I wasn’t going to get out of this, so I crossed my arms and sat back in my chair.

The junior pastor (the pastor in training) was opening the service when we had finally arrived. As quietly as we could, we all found our seats in our usual row. Within minutes, the service ran into full swing, and everybody stood to sing. The songs we sang were mostly the same songs from last week, but nobody other than myself really seemed to notice or care. I decided to sing along with them; there was nothing else to do. My father covertly glanced over in my direction and was pleased to see I had joined them in giving thanks through worship.

The minutes during the service seems only as seconds, and I was amazed to find it was coming to a close. Our pastor led us in a final prayer and we were all dismissed from the sanctuary. My father came from behind and patted me on the back. “Thank you for participating with us tonight. I’m glad you did.”

“Yeah, sure.” I mumbled in a barely audible tone. I really didn’t care because nothing really seemed different than any of the other weeks I had been there. But at least my parents wouldn’t be jumping down my throat for a while. My brother drove home quickly, and as soon as I got home, I went straight to my room to listen to music. It was another typical Sunday. Sometimes, my parents can be so picky about my actions. I wish sometimes they would just back off; I mean, who really worships anything?