July 3, 2005

•      All righty…in my
  defense, I tried.  I really did, but
  even my super patient, forgiving self can only take so much Christian crap
  before I either spontaneously combust or stand up and start yelling at the
  pastor. We’re visiting my childhood church (although now there’s a different
  pastor) and right now I’m studiously writing away in my little notebook, which
  I conveniently found in my purse.  Me,
  who am almost never prepared for anything, actually had something useful when I
  needed it. (this coming from the girl who can’t even remember to keep a tampon
  in her purse)

      

       I’m getting
  impressed looks from the people around me. 
  I’m sure they’re awed by the exhaustive notes I appear to be taking on
  this sermon.  Truth is I couldn’t be
  paying less attention. (go ahead, start throwing rotten fruit at me…at least a
  self righteous gasp)   I was obediently
  attentive for the first forty-five minutes (I swear I must have adult ADD and
  forty-five minutes was pushing the limit). 
  However, when I realized we had only covered the first three points in a
  twenty-point sermon, and we were digressing from your typical, boring sermon to
  using scare tactics combined with “key” verses from Proverbs to produce some
  sort of hysteria about our country’s safety (apparently terrorists are going to
  kill us all…and…lets kill all the Muslims) I decided enough was enough.     I’m now humming la la la to myself and
  trying to figure out how many skittles I can have…  if I have twelve skittles and church
  supposedly gets out in an hour, then I can have one skittle every five minutes.    The distraction is not working, I
  accidentally catch a snippet of what the pastor’s saying, “…It saddens me to
  tell you that statistically, only 65% of Christians have ever led a person to
  accept Christ” Aghh..!!  I’m about
  to start mentally arranging the skittles in a pattern based on color ranging
  from my least favorite to my favorite, when my husband leans over and whispers
  in my ear “Arrogant bastard (meaning the pastor)…statistically speaking,
  100% percent of Christians have never led anybody to accept Christ.  Last I heard, Christ did all the leading and
  accepting”.  Ahhh…thank God for
  Jim.   Knowing this one sermon will
  provide at least an hour of entertaining conversation for us, I’m almost convinced
  I can survive the experience.

   

      Up until now,
  I’ve managed to combine humor, sarcasm and skittles to keep myself from being
  truly bothered by what’s being said, but now church is over, people are
  standing up to leave and I’m sitting here holding a little cracker and some
  grape juice in my hand, wondering how I missed the most important part of the
  service.   I look awkwardly around me
  and see everybody else has already partaken of communion, how did I miss the
  blessing?  I wonder, when my sister
  informs me there is no blessing, no prayer…nothing.   I hastily swallow my grape juice on my way out the door and
  humbly pray for God’s forgiveness.

  It feels like blasphemy.

  • 3:42 pm
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