When Mark Lowry Doomed Me To Hell

a creative writing edition (#1)

Context and Links

Mark Lowry is a Christian comedian and singer. He wrote the modern Christmas classic, “Mary, Did You Know?”

Wikipedia entry on Mark Lowry.

His official website.

A good YouTube clip, with the full context of the “had enough” joke mentioned in the piece.

Another one, with the full context of the “Lord laid down his life” joke mentioned in the piece.

Astonishingly beautiful performance of “Mary, Did You Know?” with Voctave, the acapella group, here.

Comedy Night in Church

Pastor makes the announcement with a small smile.

He and Mrs. Pastor have been greatly blessed of God and are delighted to tell us that our church will have a new member in seven months.

Praise God! Thank you, Jesus! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!!

The congregation rejoices. They jump to their feet, applauding, raising hands to heaven, shouting in excitement.

On the first row—far left side, near the monitors where she can hear better than other places in the sanctuary—a little girl hasn’t moved.

She sits, head tilted down, looking just under the frames of her glasses, staring at her shoes.

She has a lot to think about.

When Mrs. Pastor is pregnant, many things change.

Mrs. Pastor has difficult, dangerous pregnancies; they’re all bedrest and constant threat of miscarriage.

Every time the big announcement is made, a predictable set of changes kick in to the life of the church. The little girl goes to school downstairs, so her life changes every single day.

She thinks about what will happen now.

First, the Ministry of Helps, run by most of the moms, will have a big meeting. They will make schedules of who will be cooking dinner for the pastor’s family every night. Every mom will take a turn. Cooking for the pastor’s family is when the moms bring out their best recipes and their fanciest dishes. The kids all love it when it’s their mom’s turn to cook for the pastor’s family. That’s always the best dinner of the whole week!

Next, a smaller group of moms—the ones who either don’t have jobs or have jobs that they do from their homes—will take turns going to the pastor’s house to help her with their kids, clean their house, and do their laundry.

The little girl’s mom is part of this smaller group. Her mom is one of the leaders. That means the little girl will have to do a much better job keeping her own house clean. And it means she will be alone with her dad more, when her mom is away helping Mrs. Pastor.

The little girl bites her bottom lip. Being alone with her dad is scary, and weird. And sometimes gross.

School will change because the teachers are all moms who take turns, but now the moms will be taking turns at the pastor’s house, too. The nicest moms, the ones the little girl likes best, will take most of the turns.

Church will change because Wednesday nights are going to be movie nights.

Sometimes the movies are of other preachers. Sometimes the movies are of Christian singers, like Third Day, the Newsboys, Amy Grant, Carman, and Rebecca St. James. But sometimes—these are the best times!—the movies are of Christian comedians. The little girl smiles. She loves comedians. She loves to laugh.

She looks up from the floor, still smiling, and locks eyes with her mother, who is glaring from the choir loft.

Oh no, I didn’t jump up and cheer! Oh, no!

Some of the grownups are still on their feet, with their arms raised like capital V, praising God for the new baby.

The little girl jumps up, claps her hands, still staring right at her mom’s angry face.

Her mother is shaking her head slowly. No.

The little girl sits down. She knows what her mom is thinking and she knows what her mom will say.

It’s so embarrassing to have such a spoiled brat who can’t even be respectful and praise the Lord for a blessing.

How am I supposed to explain to Pastor that you don’t even care enough to celebrate his family’s blessing?

You’re so selfish. You never think about me or anyone else but yourself.

I bet you won’t even pray for the new baby’s health!

The little girl tries not to cry. Sometimes when she explains she was only thinking, not disobeying, her mom believes her and doesn’t spank her…but only if nobody else was watching.

Embarrassing her mom at church means going right from the car to cut a switch.

She doesn’t want to make it worse by crying now, so she thinks, instead, about Wednesday nights, when the comedian movies will sometimes be shown.

The movies are all old, with funny-looking hair and clothes, but they’re very, very funny.

Her favorite is Mark Lowry. He is so funny. He makes silly faces and he talks about things the little girl understands, like when moms get mad because they’ve….had enough. (YouTube clip here.)

Five Months Later

It took a loooooooooooooong time to get to comedy night! They watched an 18 part series first. Every Wednesday night for 18 Wednesday nights in a row, they watched a preaching movie. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen!

Finally, they’re having a comedy movie night! And it’s Mark Lowry, hooray! He’s her favorite.

The movie is funny-looking, not just funny, with old hair and weird clothes, but that just makes it funnier.

The little girl is sitting by the monitor, by herself.

The movie is very funny, and she understands almost every joke.

Then Mark Lowry says that he’s 34. Wow, that’s old!

Mark Lowry is 34 divided by 8 equals 4 with remainder 2 and 2 is one-fourth of 8 and one-fourth is 25% so Mark Lowry is 4 times 100% is 400% plus 25% equals Mark Lowry is 425% older than her. That’s really old!

He’s 34, and still single, he says. She laughs when he reminds everyone that Jesus is single. “Everytime you pray, you’re praying to a single adult and don’t you forget it!”

Then Mark Lowry says: “I thought I would get married when I was 33, because the Lord laid down His life when He was 33.”

The grownups absolutely howl with laughter. Mark Lowry says, “The married men are clapping on that one.”

The little girl looks down and starts thinking again.

Why are they laughing?

Mark Lowry can’t get married. He can’t get married! Men can’t marry men!

Wait, what?

Mark Lowry is a boy—no, he’s old, so he’s a man. And he…wouldn’t like to be married to a woman. She knows that, so the grownups must know it, too…?

Is that why they’re laughing?

She looks around the sanctuary. No, the husbands and wives are all looking at each other, smiling and laughing. They’re looking at each other like “I get it and it’s so funny,” not like “ha ha men can’t marry men.”

This is very confusing, so she closes her eyes to think.

She tries to picture Mark Lowry marrying a woman. She’s been the flower girl in lots and lots and lots of weddings, because she’s very mature for her age, quiet and good at following directions. She always walks slowly and sprinkles the flower petals precisely, making a neat trail down the aisle.

She imagines herself the flower girl at Mark Lowry’s wedding, sprinkling pink and yellow petals all the way down the aisle, then taking her place on the tiny x the photographer makes with tape, to stand very, very still.

She tries to picture Mark Lowry waiting by the pastor for the bride, but she just…can’t.

All she can imagine is him making it funny, like wearing a wedding dress himself and walking down the aisle with the bride, both of them getting married in a dress. She tries to imagine him kissing a woman and it’s….weird.

Before she can stop her imagination, it gives her an imaginary movie of Mark Lowry kissing a man.

Her eyes open extra-wide. Men kissing men is bad. Very, very bad. That’s called “sodomite” and God hates those people. That’s why he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sodomite is the worst sin except for having sex, whatever that is, without being married. She knows all the verses about how lust is just as bad adultery, even though she isn’t quite sure what lust is. But she knows that it means thinking bad thoughts and doing bad sins are the same thing.

So picturing Mark Lowry kissing a man is almost like she’s doing the sin of sodomite herself.

She closes her eyes again and prays, asking God to please forgive her for doing the sin of sodomite.

God never talks to her, the way He talks to everyone else. She wonders if it’s because she doesn’t just do little sins.

She’s extremely bad.

She does the sin of sodomite.

Four Days Later, on Sunday Morning

In church the following Sunday, Pastor is preaching about sodomite. She listens very, very hard, staring at the monitor so she can hopefully hear better. This doesn’t make much sense, but it seems to help. Mister Frank, the sound man, always jokes that she reminds him of his grandpa, sitting right by the speaker.

The longer the sermon goes on, the more her tummy hurts.

Pastor is talking about sodomite being the reason why people go to hell, but he keeps talking about men being naked and lying down in a bed.

She pushes memories of….things….out of her mind. That’s not what Pastor is talking about because there’s only one man.

Then Pastor starts reading her mind.

“Have you ever wondered just how in the world something so revolting, so vile and disgusting, can even be tolerated by decent people? Much less desired? Have you ever asked yourself how in the world these sodomites can function normally when they desire something so putrid and disgusting? Sodomites have unnatural desires, we all know that, the Word of God tells us so, but why? WHY are sodomites the way they are?”

Yes, she thinks! She has wondered that a lot, for four whole days! Maybe Pastor will say what’s wrong with her so she can know how to stop doing the sin of sodomite and picturing Mark Lowry kissing a man!

“It’s because there is no hope for them. God has abandoned them. He has turned them over fully to a reprobate mind. They are shortening their lives on earth with their vile affections, even though our government and their scientists have found ways to make most of them live longer, but that doesn’t matter. Eternity isn’t going to get one moment shorter and God has abandoned them to their reprobate minds!”

The little girl feels her stomach drop like when she’s riding in the bed of a pickup truck when it goes over a hill.

No wonder God doesn’t talk to her, the way He talks to all of her teachers and friends.

She has a reprobate mind.

That’s why she could picture Mark Lowry kissing a man even when she didn’t mean to.

Because Satan lives in her mind, God has abandoned her, and there is no hope.

All Grown Up

A young woman, who had once been a little girl, remembers Mark Lowry. She doesn’t know why.

With friends, she uses the internet to find multiple clips of Mark Lowry.

The friends howl with laughter when she tells them that the adults of her childhood pretended not to know he was gay—that they pretend to this day.

That’s insane, they say. How could they possibly keep a straight face? The man wouldn’t be one tiny bit gayer if he went down on a roadie right there on stage!

I don’t know, the young woman answers. But they really did. They do.

Her most insightful friend turns, looks into her face so the young woman can read his lips, and speaks clearly. “That must have been so confusing for you, to know something that it seemed like every adult didn’t know.”

The young woman, head tilted down, looks just under the frames of her glasses, staring at her shoes.

“I thought I had a dirty mind,” she says.

“You had the ability to recognize patterns,” he says.

“And you were raised by gaslighting assholes.”

Echoes of Laughter

The young woman has needed a lot of physical therapy in her life, and she has laughed on her way to each and every appointment, because she remembers the Mark Lowry special where he recounts his own physical therapy experience, after a serious car accident.

One of the fastest ways to make her laugh is still to say, “Pivot on your good foot and walk back to me.”

Epilogue: Mark Lowry Today

Mark Lowry is in his sixties now. He has never come out as gay, and there has never been, to my knowledge, any claims made about liaisons with men.

He remains a Christian who holds, to all appearances, traditional beliefs about the morality of homosexual behavior.

He has also never married.