Church

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, yours truly attended church this Sunday. "But Simply, you're an atheist!" you cry, aghast at this confession and a bit frightened by the idea that I may have gone round the bend. But fear ye not my faithful readers (all three of you)! It is not what you think and it is not the same as Teacher, who wasn't really into church but wanted to marry his wife and so had to do some church stuff and then BAM!!! was born again. Naw, this was completely different.

The Bat seems to run something of a halfway house these days. He's got House Keeper (HK), who is trying to get back on her feet after her husband died and a tornado destroyed the hotel she was staying in. She's been here since late May I think. And now he has LSMG (stands for Little Shit Made Good because that is sort of how the Bat - and LSMG himself - describe the guy) staying with him for a couple of weeks because he has been on the outs with his old lady. LSMG is working towards getting home but there are legal things that have to happen before he can so he's presently camped out at the Bat Cave. LSMG comes down to the farm with us to help and I've gotten to know him better because of it. Previously I just knew him in passing for the most part because I'd only really see him when we'd stop to get firewood or we'd go shoot on his property and he and the Bat would shoot the shit while Trucker and I shot the ammunition.

Well, LSMG has a lot going on in his personal life and is in a bad spot at the moment. He is also religious and he stated that he needed to get his act together, that he wanted to get right with his lord, and that he wanted to be saved. So I offered to go to church with him last Sunday and he was happy about that. Unfortunately, he had to start a job Sunday morning so he ended up leaving early. So we went yesterday instead. I like church when you get the right one and we lucked out. Everyone was very welcoming from the get go so you didn't know who was the pastor (the husband and wife were as it turns out) and who made up the congregation. The town is extremely small so of course everyone really knows everyone else. But they were happy to have us and introduced themselves to us and were just very pleasant people. The service featured a lot of singing and hand clapping, which I found delightful, and the dude pastor talked about some stuff that was uplifting and positive (I just filtered out the God parts because church is fantastic if you remove the God stuff). Community, kindness, neighborliness and all of that. I enjoy it and it leaves you feeling good and ready to face your week.

Then we tithed (LSMG gave me a dollar so I could do it) and then there was more singing and then there was the praying. Oh lord was there praying! Chick pastor tells the congregation to step forward if you are in need of prayer and so LSMG did and he was with the dude pastor and other members of the congregation for a good ten or fifteen minutes while the rest of us kept singing holy is the lamb that was slain and my god is great. After LSMG, a couple of other people needed prayer but, thankfully, they weren't nearly as longwinded (in LS's defense, these other people are regulars so probably get their shit sorted weekly). Then dude pastor told a joke and talked a bit more about god and then, as he was about to sit with his wife and go over the book of Philimon, he announced that he knew we were pressed for time but that LSMG wanted to be baptized. Chick pastor was the one to decide to skip the scripture reading (though she encouraged us to do it on our own) and get right to the baptizing because that right there was really where god was.

Yup. After about twenty more minutes I watched three grownups walk into the lake to get baptized. It was weird. I mean, it was kind of what you expect and what you see on television only there were no robes being worn. It was really nice for LSMG and he felt fantastic afterwards but I find the practice a bit suspect. My brother was rebaptized and was born again but he only did that once about ten years ago (well, so I think. I have no idea but I've never heard mention of him doing it again). I have a feeling these people do it somewhat regularly. This one guy called out to LSMG saying that the best part was that everything in your past was washed away and you got a clean slate. He was so excited about it that I kept thinking "what kind of cocaine fueled adulturous benders are you going on, kid?" That and one of the people getting baptized (daughter of the pastors), stated that she wanted to because she was going through a divorce and it was a really rough time for her right now. It was like baptismals are therapy for her or something.

To each their own and I'm obviously not religious but it seems like these people treat it as a get out of jail free card and it irritates me enough that people think that through religion you will be saved. From what? Original sin? Yeah, OK, well, you're going to die anyway and if someone stabs you, it's going to hurt as much as it would if you weren't saved. That and I hate when people attribute successes to god rather than man. You want to thank the lord for saving your precious loved one from dying? Yeah, fuck you doctors, nurses and medical staff. Next time these assholes come into the emergency room, go ahead and just keep on with your conversation because your efforts don't do shit. God's got this one.

Rant over.

So yeah, other than my concerns over baptismal abuse, it was a really nice experience and I think I'll go again. Oh, wait, there was one other thing that made me uncomfortable. While LSMG was being prayed with, the guy next to me came over and grabbed my hand as we all sang and I did that fucking thing where you put your arm up in the air. Why did I do this? Because for some reason I thought I was supposed to! I haven't been to church in a long time and I've never really 'attended' church so much as tagged along, so I was following the cues of other people, clapping when I was supposed to and standing when I was supposed to and then all these people had their arms up and it took me a minute to remember that I didn't have to. That and it felt really uncomfortable and like I was saluting Hitler or something (just how it looked, I am not saying these people are racist or anything). The Bat's mom said that she's thought about going to church again to see what it is like and for the community and to meet people. Maybe she'll go and maybe she won't but if I continue to enjoy it, I see no reason not to.

That and I want to study the Bible because that seems like something you should do so you can be really well armed if you get into debates with people who are super religious (that and the Bat's mom told me there are some great stories in it). And now I feel like I sound as if I'm on the slippery slope towards redemption and seeing some light and being saved so I'll end this by saying that I really enjoy fornication outside of marriage and drinking and carrousing and all of that.

No, I'll end this properly, with a quote. "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" That is my favorite quote and I think it sums things up beautifully.