Salvation

In Salvation, Hughes talks about his experience of being “saved” in church.

When Hughes’s aunt told him he would see a light and feel something inside him once he was saved, Hughes believed exactly what she said, word for word. I can understand why. As a kid, I believed everything and took things literally. When people said they were going to explode, I thought that they were going to blow up right in front of me. When they told me a watermelon would grow in my stomach if I ingested a seed, I believed them. As a kid, it was easy to believe things when you don’t know any better. Now, looking back, I laugh at all the things I use to believe, but I can see how I could have believed in those things.

I felt bad for Hughes when he was the last one the bench and everyone was around him screaming and crying, trying to get him saved. That’s a lot of pressure and I could feel how hard Langston was trying to be saved and how anxious I was for him. I do not like being under a lot of pressure nor do I like the feeling of letting people down, so I could somehow relate to how Hughes was feeling, especially when he was the last person.

If I were put into this position, I would have probably done the same thing as Hughes and would have pretended that I was saved to make everyone else happy and to release myself from the pressure and anxiety put upon me. I would have probably lied so I wouldn’t have to feel the uneasy feeling Hughes had gone through. Hughes wasn’t saved the way everyone thought he was. Hughes was saved from the pressure and the feelings he was feeling while sitting alone on the bench.

If I was on the bench and hadn’t seen or felt what I was supposed to be feeling, while thinking that everyone at the altar had, I would have felt betrayed and insecure. I would probably be asking myself why I wasn’t able to see or feel anything. It would feel unfair that all the other people were saved and not me. Why wasn’t I good enough?

The ending was surprising. I knew Hughes wasn’t going to see Jesus and I had predicted that he was going to say he was saved when he really wasn’t. But I did not predict the end. It was sad to read how he cried that night because he wasn’t saved and that he didn’t believe in Jesus anymore. I understand why he didn’t believe, but it was still surprising, yet not, that he no longer believes.