Welcome To Our Church!

The last words that any of my friends would expect to hear from me are: “I went to church last week”. Hell, it’s about the last thing I would expect to come out of my mouth too.

Inside and out, the building I went to sure looked like a church. The congregation got up a few times and sang songs out of a book that looked like a hymnal. There was a call and response that reinforced their commonly held beliefs. We had a guest speaker give a sermon-like talk from a pulpit area at the front, and yes, the plate was passed for donations.

Never forget the passing of the plate.

I had to hold onto my chair to not indulge the screaming voice inside me yelling, run! run for the door! Save yourself!

Needless to say, church and I have a long standing adversarial relationship. That’s due in no small part to my early involvement, starting at age 7. That’s when I joined the choir of our hometown Episcopal church. We rehearsed three nights a week and sang one or two Sunday services. It was a great choir, one of the best in the US that sang in the English tradition of men and boys.

Thankfully, no castrati.

I learned a lot about discipline and working as part of a group. It was my first paying job, actually. We got an envelope every two weeks with about $12.00 in it. No small change for a kid back then. We made a few albums, toured the great cathedrals of England, and then I was done, off to college.

The down side was listening to a man wearing an overly tight white collar, turn beet red and pontificate for 30 minutes at each service. If you are what you eat, he was martinis and steak, and was perpetually angry at his congregation. People didn’t give enough money in their Sunday donations. Everyone needed to ramp it up, dammit. The good reverend looked like he was going to blow a fuse in his overly tight collar, and was generally overly tight himself. Too much left over communion wine, intentionally over-poured and chugged down after everyone was back in their pews.

I was contemptuous of the parade of housewives in their finery, vying for seats in the front rows where they could be seen and envied. It was more about the social hour than anything else.

A string of priests came and went, men who struck me as weak, flawed, corrupt, and inept. Unable to make it in the real world. Sorry, but that’s how it all struck me.

In a one-on-one class, I asked the priest about the wine and wafer deal. You know, transubstantiation. “The change of substance by which the bread and wine offered in the sacrifice of the sacrament of the Eucharist during the Mass, become, in reality, the body and blood of Jesus.”

Whoa, hold on there! The wine and wafer REPRESENT the body and blood, right? The priest said no, they become the actual body and blood of Christ. So I’m thinking: Do I really look that stupid? I think I know what you put in my mouth. It was a dry, tasteless wafer and a sip of red wine about three turns of the chalice from where that sweet little piece of ass, Sue Defoe, just had her lips. And when I swallowed, it was still wine and wafer. If it had actually turned into blood and flesh, I would be blowing chunks all over this communion rail right now.

From the very beginning, I found all of the hard-to-believe stories, hard-to-believe.

None of it got any better with age.

When Carla and I planned to marry, we wanted to humor her mother, a devout Catholic lady, and get the approval of the Catholic Church. I had been divorced, ending a five-minute marriage to my college girlfriend. That hadn’t been my finest hour. She had already graduated when I called to propose marriage because I lost a game of Ping Pong to Howard and was just too damn bored to sit still and wait for my turn to come back up. I didn’t know what to do with myself for ten minutes or after my own graduation. Don’t most people get married after college? I wasn’t ready, dumb move.

So anyway, the Catholic Church assured me that Carla and I could marry, eventually, after all payments were made. Payments? Yup. No counseling, no one-on-one talks, all they wanted was to set up a payment plan. After all 12 monthly payments had been made, we would have the blessing of the Holy Catholic Church. No wonder they’re the third largest land holder in the world and one of the richest extortion groups out there. The Mafia learned their lessons from the Catholic Church.

I diplomatically suggested that the priest demanding payment should go have intercourse with himself. Jesus would approve.

Did you know that centuries ago Catholic priests were allowed to marry? The problem arose when the priests died and left their possessions to their families. The church knew that wouldn’t do. So the great CC declared that from then on, no girls allowed. Like Spanky and Alfalfa’s  “He-man woman haters club”. Priests would have to go without and only marry Jesus. The guys thought that would be a tough one, but the upside was the promise of masturbation booths. They’re called confessionals. The priests can ask any teen age cutie just exactly what she did in private on her date last week with the sweaty boy who has terrible acne, sitting in the pew three rows back right now. Be specific. Take your time. Say that last part again? 

Why do you think those guys are always carrying around a silk handkerchief?

Religion is crowd control; church is a business. Almost 100% of the people who follow a religion, follow the one they were born into. Early childhood indoctrination locks them in. It’s why we wear the clothes we wear, eat the foods, follow the sports, and embrace the traditions of the culture we’re born into. Early childhood indoctrination seals the deal. We think we’re right and we’re willing to fight over the name of god.

If I am bitter about organized religion and the church, why did I go to church last week you ask? Well, my friend was the guest speaker. A 30 year Methodist minister who now sees things…differently. He spoke of the metaphor of it all. The teachings, the stories, all metaphor. Many great lessons to be learned there. The trouble starts when we take it too literally. Often, on one side of the fence, everything is taken literally. The wine and wafer actually turn into blood and flesh. Jesus was born of a virgin and arose from the dead. All of it. On the opposite side of the fence, the cynics point at the first group and mock them for their stupidity. How can they believe that stuff, they wonder? Both sides are so busy trading barbs and put-downs, all of them miss the metaphor entirely. That’s a shame.

Last Sunday I attended a service at the church of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Atheist, Agnostic, Jew, Buddhist, gay, straight, black, white, all are welcome. They say their mission is “to bring together individuals of diverse backgrounds and to encourage them in their search for truth and meaning.” Works for me, I thought.

In the past, people have suggested that I was too much of a loner. Maybe I should join a group, become a Moose, Elk or Eagle, especially since church just doesn't feel right to me. Celebrating my veteran status, I did go to a VFW club one time, in the middle of the day. There were a bunch of creepy old guys (who looked like me) sitting around a bar telling lies and getting drunk. Not for me, I quickly decided as I drove home to sit around the house and get drunk, telling lies on Facebook.

But I was never a good fraternity boy, Boy Scout, Real Estate group member, whatever. I get hives from all that stuff. At the morning Realtor meetings when it was time to hug your neighbor, I made a beeline for the coffee machine and hung out there until all that squashing of the flesh was over. 

Something similar happened last Sunday too. Nice people, great values, liberal and easy going. But I got good cheer overload and passed on the mixer afterward and doubt I’ll go back next Sunday.

Maybe I’ll look into a different way to be a real part of something spiritual. It couldn't be in a church building though and it would be best if no humans were involved either. They tend to screw things up.

For now, I'll just sit here, pondering the question in a padded Adirondack, a light breeze carrying the scent of shellfish off the lake below. Both dogs flank me, prostrate in worship. Brilliant sunshine, intermittently successful, runs a gauntlet through the oak canopy to nip at my forehead, a welcome sting.

No tricky wine or wafer jerky, my home church is multicolored, a rounded steeple of branches, arms intertwined.

No collection plate, no pontificating. Just the company of two dogs who will love me endlessly whether I give them the offering of a treat, or not.

hmh

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