When I Sinned Against Love

by Donna Poole

It was getting old, this standing, red-faced, in a new classroom in the middle of a school year, trying to help a teacher pronounce and spell my name. Why couldn’t I be Donna Smith instead of Donna Piarulli?

We moved often because Dad worked for an airline. I was in eighth grade now, and I really hoped this would be our last move. I looked with a critical eye at the little town of Maine, New York, population around 5,000, and sighed. I’d loved the few years we’d lived near Taberg, New York, in the foothills of the Adirondacks. If my parents asked me—they didn’t—this town had about 4,950 too many people. I wanted my wild, isolated country back.

Once again, a truck backed our ten-foot by fifty-foot house trailer into yet another spot in yet another trailer park.

I felt a little better about the move when I discovered the nearby Nanticoke Creek. At least my sisters, Mary, Ginny, and I had somewhere close to wade, swim, and ice skate.  And we had our bikes. Who knew what adventures awaited?

I didn’t relish the adventure of finding a church, but I knew we had to do it. That’s one of the first things Mom and Dad did whenever we moved. A new church was as bad as a new school, especially a church where all the kids had known each other since they were born. When my parents chose First Baptist, I had a feeling no one would even talk to us.

I was wrong. First Baptist, Maine, New York was easy to love. The church orchestra forgave Mary and me when we played our clarinets off key. They patiently explained we didn’t have to try so unsuccessfully to transpose our music because it was already written for B-flat instruments. They didn’t even laugh, at least not in front of us.

We were welcome in the Bunts’ home anytime. They had fifty-seven children, or maybe it was only eleven. No one there cared if everything was perfectly neat. They just shoved things aside and made room for us in their hearts and home. I loved Mrs. Bunts, always smiling, never ruffled, never saying her kids were going to give her a nervous breakdown. Not only that, but Mr. Bunts worked for a dairy, and we could drink all the milk we wanted.

Bonnie Ward was only a year or so older than I was, but she was a serene, comforting mother hen. I still remember her tiny bedroom with its lavender flowered wallpaper. It was beautiful, just like she was.

I had so much fun at Jim and Judy Cole’s house. They taught me to play pinochle. I didn’t tell my parents. Playing cards was on their rather long list of sins.

Half the girls in the church had a crush on one of the older boys, Donnie and Jack Olson and Rodney Post. Many years later, my sister, Mary, married Rodney’s younger brother, Steve.

And then there was Ronnie Lewis.  I thought he was cute; he never knew I existed.  I remember getting an awesome fleece hat with a long tail and a big pom-pom. I wore it when we church kids went Christmas caroling. Maybe, I thought, Ronnie will notice my hat and say he likes it. He didn’t.

Time passed with youth group parties and outings, water skiing, bowling, and roller skating. We had struggles at home about many of the church activities. Water skiing happened on Sunday afternoons; that was the Lord’s Day. Bowling was another issue because they sold beer in the basement of the bowling alley. And roller skating? That was an awful lot like dancing. Mom and Dad finally did let us do most activities with the other church kids. One thing they refused to budge on was letting us dance in gym class. The Piarulli girls sat on the bleachers and watched while some of the other church kids had fun learning dance steps. I wondered if anyone from church who did let their kids dance wanted to adopt me.

Some kids dread going to church, but I loved it. Looking back, I don’t remember a single sermon. I just remember how the pastor and people made me feel: warm, wanted, and loved. If more churches made kids feel that way today, they might lose fewer of them.

By the time we were high schoolers our church youth group had our own room for prayer meeting. We met upstairs with no adult supervision. Pastor Barackman said he knew he could trust us. We had wonderful times in that room. We talked, laughed, prayed, and mostly behaved. Until that Halloween night.

Someone said, “Hey, where’s Ronnie?”

“I don’t know. I think the Lewis’s had to go out of town.”

“Really?”

The pastor’s son just happened to have a dozen or so bars of tiny soap, the kind you get at motels. Someone suggested we go soap Ronnie’s window. I don’t know if anyone objected; I’m pretty sure we all went.

We had all heard the warning. Soaping windows was strictly prohibited. If anyone was caught, the offender would get arrested and must wash all the soaped windows in the town of Maine. But we didn’t intend to get caught.

We snuck down the creaky stairs and passed the open doors of the auditorium where the adults were praying. Had anyone heard us? Nope.

Giggling with relief we hurried the few blocks to Ronnie’s house, getting more nervous the closer we got. It was a dark night, and we had no flashlights; it felt spooky. We didn’t see anyone else.

When we got to the house, the conversation started. “I don’t think we should do this. I’m scared we’ll get caught.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Well, someone should do it. The rest of us could keep look out.”

“I’ll do it,” I said.  “Which window is Ronnie’s?”

I was terrified, but I wasn’t going to admit it. Through the dark, shadowy yard I crept, finally arriving at the window. I gave it a good soaping. Then, feeling as triumphant as Caesar on a victory march home, I ran back toward my friends, laughing. I was high on adrenaline; nothing had ever been this much fun, not even the amusement park at Harvey’s Lake.

“You guys! I did it! I. . . .”

That’s when I noticed my friends were strangely quiet. No one said anything. Not only that, but two tall men were standing with them. I squinted into the darkness. It couldn’t be…but it was. Cops. Two of them. They turned on a flashlight and shined it in my face.

“What were you doing?” One policeman demanded.

“Ummm, I was soaping our friend’s window,” I said.

“Whadda ya know,” he said, sarcastically, looking at his partner. “We got an honest one. The rest of you who told us you were just out for a walk? Do you think we’re idiots?”

Fortunately, none of the kids answered that question.

The policeman pointed his flashlight at the ground. There was a big pile of soap the kids had ditched when they had seen the men coming.

Those policemen scolded us until our stomachs churned. Then they marched us back to church and into the auditorium where the adults were still praying, heads bowed reverently, murmuring in hushed tones.

“Who’s in charge here?” One of the policemen shouted.

Prayer stopped. Parents looked at us in horrified disbelief. Pastor Barackman looked at us, hurt on his gentle face. “I guess you could say I am,” he said.

Then the policeman scolded our pastor. “If you can’t be responsible enough to keep your church kids under control. . ..” he said. I can’t remember the rest of it. I just remember how betrayed Pastor looked when he glanced at us.

I don’t remember what Mom and Dad did to us; I’m sure it wasn’t fun. I do remember that was the end of our youth group having our own prayer room. The adults said we couldn’t be trusted.

I can still see our pastor standing there, taking that tongue lashing from the policeman, and it was our fault. It was my fault. The adrenaline rush long gone, all I felt was regret, not for what might happen to me, but for what was happening to him. And there was nothing I could do about it.

That was the day I learned it doesn’t pay to sin against love.

Isn’t that what every infraction does though, sins against love? Inexplicable love sent Jesus to the cross to take the sins of the world into his heart, to suffer the guilt, to feel the shame, to pay the price so that we lost sinners, every last one of us, could be offered His gift of eternal life.

Well, so many of those people who looked at us in shocked disbelief that night are in heaven now, Mom and Dad, Pastor Barackman, and even Ronnie Lewis. With their glorified sense of humor, perhaps they will forgive me if I still get a trace of a grin when I remember flying through the shadows, soap in hand, a triumphant night warrior.