Unequally Yolked

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? 2 Cor. 6:14

In the generally freestyle world of Nazarene liturgy, Wednesday night prayer meetings were a mixed stream of extemporaneous spiritual consciousness and random announcements. On crack.

What the little Nazarene church I grew up in lacked in sophistication, it more than made up for with earnest expression. Prayer meeting went like this:

First was Opening Prayer, usually a proferred by a venerated Sunday School teacher or lesser/retired pastor.

Songs and Choruses followed. Not the Powerpoint kind with drums and a lead guitar and clip art of Mount Calvary. These songs were vituperative, instructional ditties that reminded us that one sinful slip would lead to damnation and destruction. They were usually just accompanied by a piano of dubious timbre, although I remember seeing an autoharp more than once, and I myself accompanied them (with my mother at the piano) on a black plastic flutophone. Words were printed either in purple ditto ink or my personal favorite, on the Songs and Choruses trifold published by Preferred Risk Insurance. Preferred Risks were responsible non-drinkers, and the back of the song sheet had a black and white photo of an alarmed couple being offered hooch by some derelict, refusing because they were - you guessed it - Christians and Preferred Risks.

Then came Testimony Time. Some testimonies were simple ejaculations such as "I love the Lord tonight and I want to go all the way with Him" which in retrospect is quite racy, especially given that this assertion was made by a virginal and enormously fat girl who had graduated high school years earlier but still attended the high school Sunday School class.

Other testimonies were not so mercifully succinct. Enter Mrs. Lloyd Anstine. With the regularity of an Activia spokesmodel, she dominated Wednesday night prayer meeting. She wasn't the lay leader or the youth pastor or even the substitute Sunday night pianist. Nay, gentle reader, she was a professional testifier.

I never really dared to look at her head on, it simply wasn't necessary. I knew her from behind by the disordered gray french twist that sat like a sad hoagie on the back of her head and the dacron skirt and blouse combo she was fond of wearing - modest to be sure in its turquoise and black mini-print. It was difficult to really determine where skirt stopped and blouse began because she wore the waistband just under her ribcage, sheltered by mammoth boobs.

Through her weekly purge of praise and concern, I was able to piece together Mrs. Anstine's calamitous circumstances. It seems that she was unequally yoked. She was tragically married to the unbelieving Mr. Lloyd Anstine, a man on the broad road to ruin. Daily she prayed for his conversion and - please Lord - second blessing sanctification. With tears and pleading, she begged the good Lord and her fellow congregants to remember the backslidden soul of apostate Lloyd.

Now, gentle reader, this was not a quickie testimony. Mrs. Anstine was not one to either spare nor mince words. She described in detail his carnal proclivities including Camel filtereds and playing cards. It wasn't enough for her to just inform us verbally, she often included a choreography of sorts, emphazing key points with a gesturing Bible in one hand. I'm guessing that she also suffered not just from her betrothal to a heretic but from dry skin. She always reached a hammy arm up to obsessively scratch her right shoulder blade, right under the bra strap - by all rights a quad hooker with industrial cups.

She would end with a wailing supplication for Jesus' mercy on Mr. Anstine and on her for being unequally yoked.

And I always thought that was funny as shit. Even though I was a little kid, I thought her antics were a theater of the absurd made even funnier by her sweat-stained arms raised to heaven and the fact that I thought "yoked" was "yolked" as in eggs. I had no idea of the Biblical reference and even then wanted to tell her to just scrambled the fuckers and make an omelet and things would all even out.

I have no idea what happened to Mr. Lloyd Anstine. To my knowledge he never made any profession of faith but continued to be a nice neighbor and race mini-bikes on Sunday. I am convinced that on his passing, he was welcomed into heaven with a brisk high five for putting up with her and her certain rejection of his poker buddies and his husbandly advances. In a nod to my future queerness, I always thought he deserved a celestial head start for just having to look at her in that shitty outfit day after lousy day.

In my book, he's the one with egg on his face, having played the sinful patsy to her rantings. If however, any of my gentle readers find themselves in this not-to-be-envied relational imbalance, here is a resource for your comfort.

Unequally Yoked