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Spiritual Boost

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Hi; this is Cripto once again.  One question I get a lot from the fan mail I get is this (or a variation thereof): "I used to see you at the church a lot, but we suddenly stopped seeing you because you went straight into being the frontman for Furry Fury.  Did you turn into an atheist or something?"  No, I haven't.  Christianity has always been my religion, and it has shown in my efforts to be a kind, caring, and compassionate tiger.  (My autism may also have something to do with it.)  But the fact I had that long period of absence from the church, which my autism had triggered, came from me not handling other people's behaviors very well, which is why you sometimes read about the meltdowns I had in my school days (although they do not stack up to the ones Leo the Patriotic Lion had when he was doing all the bellowing; the Supreme Court, the ICC, and INTERPOL announced he and his parallels have been exonerated of any wrondoings that needed exoneration now that we know CNG was trying to control them like puppets).

In this case, the recurring problem was that I was the one tiger in a Sunday school class full of humans, and some (but not all) of the kids went to the same school I did.  One of the kids wrote me an apology letter about this, because the problem lasted all the way through my high school years, up to approximately about the time that I earned the GED I earned and ultimately became a superhero.  Quite simply, the kids teased and bullied me for being the one tiger in a Sunday school class full of humans.  For whatever reason, they had it in their heads that the religion was a religion for humans and humans alone.  There's a matter of debate as to whether or not that is the truth, but it's really about the soul.  When one dies, their soul departs to be with the Lord in heaven (if they have prayed the prayer of salvation and accepted God's gift), or drops down into the flames of hell (if they were not saved).

I prayed the prayer of salvation when I was just eight years old, but nobody noticed it until later on, because I did it silently.  It was during a nighttime service on a Sunday evening when the pastor was leading everybody through the rituals of the Lord's Supper.  This is when the congregation partakes in the elements regarding that event in the Bible, when Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and distributed it among His disciples (which my church uses crackers to represent), and then served wine afterwards (which was represented by grape juice so that nobody gets drunk).  Note that the pastor still does it this way today, and the church does this approximately once a month.  The crowd will eat the crackers in their own personal time, but they drink the grape juice simultaneously on cue.  When the pastor gave them the signal to drink the grape juice, that's when I bowed my head and silently mouthed the prayer of salvation.

I let my parents and relatives know that I did this after the service.  I wasn't baptized, however, until later in that year.  I guess I didn't understand what it was all about, but since I have a tendency to do everything on impulse (although I had given it some thought), I walked up to the pastor at the time after Wednesday night activities had ended and said, "Bob, I can't take this anymore.  I need to be baptized; I have not done it yet."

"Oh, you haven't?" Bob replied.  "I thought maybe that you did that already."  He then talked to me to make sure I understood what I was doing.  We agreed that I was ready for this, and the following Sunday morning, I was baptized, with extended members of my family (including both my grandmothers) there to witness it in person.  (Most people when asking about my grandma ask about Chloe Clements, but they don't talk about my other grandma, Connie Knight.  Just to confirm in case there is any confusion, Chloe is my mom's mom, while Connie is my dad's mom.  Connie may be getting close to the end of her life, though; she turned 90 years old this year.)  It was one of the rare times that Grandma (Chloe) was happy with what I did, because she told everybody about it when we went to lunch after church.  She even talked the managers into giving me a free smoothie to go with the meal I had.  (Frankly, she should not have done that, but she had a history of haggling, and the managers didn't want to argue with her because even back then, she had the reputation she ultimately came to be known but hated for in the end.)  I went with the strawberry banana option.

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As for the boys who teased and bullied me, there were seven of them in all.  Their parents used the traditional (but unsuccessful) method of telling them they were guaranteed to go to boot camp if they didn't get their act together.  Four of them did go to boot camp in the end, and the shock factor from all the yelling their commanding officers did was enough to put them back in line.  But the problem I have with this is that it shows where the parents failed.  The problem may have been your kids disobeying you if you did try to raise them right, but if you didn't do it right, then what makes you think the military will do a better job?

Two of the four went to the Army, and two went into the Navy, while the other three did not serve in the military (but since some of WU's instructors were once drill sergeants, it shocked them into line).  The two in the Army ended up dying overseas in battle when the Tailban fired on our troops, while the two in the Navy just recently finished their service and are now transitioning back into civilian life.  When the parents of the two in the Army received visits from a casualty assistance officer to let them know their offspring died in battle, they wept all day and all night.  (CNG would later kill one of the two couples as punishment.  Why it let the other couple live remains a mystery, but the wife, having smoked for a big part of her life, now has to have an oxygen tank.  What I cannot remember is whether or not she suffers from COPD, but I wouldn't be surprised if she does.)

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As I wrote in another response letter to someone, "My story is a complicated one, but I haven't really abandoned the faith like some people think I have.  I guess I just got distracted by my superhero duties, but also, the band (Furry Fury) and I wanted to have the broadest and biggest appeal I could have.  All of Furry Fury's music is clean, though, so it's safe for even a Christian to listen to.  (This includes both our original songs and the covers of songs we've done, many of which are covers of songs from video games starring Sonic the Hedgehog; SEGA actually commissioned us to do those songs.)"  True story there, folks.  My band and I were (and still are) big fans of Sonic, so it was only natural that he was on the list of canon characters who came to our real world through the freak accidents caused by the wishes of autistic beings with superpowers identical to me.  (Mind you one of them was me, but still, it prevents a time paradox instead of causing one.)

"I didn't have an interest in contemporary worship music, however, because I felt it wasn't appropriate for a church to use; the church my parents attend (which doubles as my church in a way because they have me listed on the register) has gradually shifted to this music, but they also used fancy light shows and smoke machines whenever they can.  They think this will draw people in; instead, it was ultimately pushing people out, so they had to abandon this and just play the music with the lights on.  It turned me and my family off because nobody sings hymns anymore, and hymns are God's real promises set to music.  I'm old-school, and old-school is something people stick their noses up at, only to discover they were wrong about it.  I would always function better if the church just uses a chorus and a piano and/or organ.  However, the church I go to does have the contemporary music, and I've chosen to not complain about it."

When COVID-19 broke out, temporarily putting a halt to the CNG crisis (although CNG would later work alongside COVID-19 in order to punish the Chinese government for lying to the world about it), I felt that I needed a spiritual boost, considering that I had let my other careers get in the way, and so I started streaming the services on YouTube.  I now attend in person whenever I can, although sometimes the obstacles still get in the way.

The current pastor, incidentally, is another example of an amazing redemption story.  He used to be among a different group of bullies that would attack me periodically when Louis Loserberg was doing so (although Louis often butted heads with them, claiming he was the only one worthy of destroying me.)  Eventually he was expelled for too many behavioral violations, while the other boys in the group just got an out-of-school suspension.  The act that led to this was him and the others beating the stuffing out of me on behalf of the whole class, because I had scored 100% on an English final my 8th grade year, but every other single person in the class did no better than a 69%, and a 69% is a D.  (Their parents, needless to say, were really ticked off with them.  I don't think they got sent to the military, but when you factor in the fact they got 300 hours of community service for harassing me, they took the punishments to further extremes that showed they ultimately failed as parents.  These stories are used to illustrate that what happens in Wildcat City stays in Wildcat City.  Bizarrely, CNG did not kill these parents.  You'd think it would, because nobody was saved at the time.  Everyone is now, however.)

When the boy (now man) in question was expelled and began to do his community service, he lamented, "I might as well do this for the rest of my life, because clearly, my life is over."  God began tugging at his heart during this time, and he gave his life to the Lord upon completing all 300 hours.  He began to dig deeper into the Word, and eventually he attended and completed seminary.  Now he is the pastor of the church my parents attend, and to make easier on myself, the Baptist church in question is also the one I attend.  (It is a bit of an odd location to some because the building was a Walmart once upon a time, but with all the Walmarts closing down in recent years for various reasons, many of them are becoming churches.  However, this is the only Walmart Supercenter that closed down in Wildcat City; the city still has three other Supercenters and five additional Neighborhood Markets.  And yes, when it is appropriate to do so, even I buy a few groceries here and there online from one of the Neighborhood Markets.)

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It's not just me, however, that has returned to church attendance in need of a spiritual boost.  Multiple (but not all) G-52s and allies began attending church for similar reasons.  But here's the big twist: even Dr. Alfred Coats Bendraqi, Ph.D. (that's how he's known to all, even though he doesn't actually have a Ph.D. in anything) began attending the same church I do!  It upset a few people at first, because they weren't willing to believe he had made a U-turn and repented of his sins; they preached, "Once a villain, always a villain!"  Bendraqi, however, was able to convince him that he had turned over a new leaf.

Today was one of the biggest days of Bendraqi's life, no doubt, because while he hadn't prayed the prayer of salvation, he had decided it was time for him to do so, because he needed the spiritual boost more than anybody else (or so he felt), given his checkered past was trying to take its toll on him in the form of haunting his dreams.  Our pastor didn't normally ask for audience participation in his sermons, but he did today because he used a few stories of Bendraqi's dirty deeds to help illustrate the points that God had wanted him to discuss with us.  To allow for Bendraqi's input, the pastor called him on stage and handed him a microphone, and he answered any questions about how he operated the way he operated when he was still a villain.  (The pastor's microphone was of the headset variety, while Bendraqi spoke into a handheld microphone.)

"I'll be honest; some of your members did not want me to even come in the building," he said, "because they weren't willing to believe a hardened criminal such as myself would completely reform, but I did.  Still, I felt something was missing, so I called Nathan (meaning Cripto) and asked him about it."

The pastor had me up on stage with a microphone also, so I added the comment, "I said to the doctor, 'If you're looking for a church to attend so you can find some answers you're looking for, how about the one I go to?'  He said, 'Okay; I'll try that.'  And he did."

"And after learning more about what Christianity teaches and how it differs from some of those other religions," Bendraqi continued,  "I decided that it was for me to pray the prayer of salvation."  The crowd broke into applause upon hearing this.  "I haven't done it yet, but I wanted everybody to know I was doing this."

"We'll help you do that," said the pastor, and he led Bendraqi in the prayer of salvation.  I put my left hand on his shoulder as a representation that I would help him grow in the faith.  Upon completing the prayer with the word "Amen," the pastor turned to Bendraqi and said, "Congratulations; Jesus erased your sins!"  This led to a standing ovation from the crowd, and Bendraqi reminded himself that it was actually the Lord that was receiving the standing ovation, not him.

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After the service was over, the congregation, in church tradition, came up to Bendraqi to shake hands with him and give him a few words of encouragement.  It wasn't until the week afterwards that he was baptized, but now that he was somebody who did all his work from home (since he no longer works for Green Light Operations, or GLO, making license plates, but instead works on service robots and other forms of technology that benefits mankind), he had plenty of time to think about it.  As a gift, the church also gave him a Bible with the translation they use to preach the Gospel (which is ESV, or English standard version; my Bible is a NIV Bible, or New International Version).  Since then, he begins each day by reading a chapter from the Word.

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This completes the news flash (if you think of it as a news flash).  Thanks, everybody, and keep it pure out there.

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THE END