There is a certain arrogance in Christianity. The belief that one is the chosen one. Ones god, ones beliefs, that all things will work for good to those who believe. Those who bought it. If it doesn't work, then YOU didn't pray hard enough, or right, or your heart wasn't in the right place, or...the answer was no. NO. Simply you don't get what you want, not even that kiddo, you don't get what you need. Do you know why you don't get what you need? You are not the favorite, the charmed or blessed one. You do not count for anything on this planet, you are a bug.Including the six billion people that inhabit this planet you are on the bottom of the list, do you know why? NO? Neither do I.
The simplicity of belief was easy to accept when I was a child. I needed something when I was a child, and I clung to my belief, even when my infant son died. Everyone from the church... the prayer warriors were gathered around my bed holding hands and asking in Jesus' name to spare my baby to heal me to let us live another day. Then the unthinkable. It didn't work. WHAT? How could it not work, we followed the directions on the box. TO the letter. If any three shall gather in my name and ask anything then it shall be given unto him... or something like that anyway. And the Doctor came into my room still dressed in scrubs, pulling his mask off his face and he stood over my bed, my husband was curled up next to me in an exhausted sleep. "I'm sorry we lost him." And, I said the first thing that popped into my head, "Well find him, he can't have got very far." I was sure that they had misplaced his little bassinet and he was around somewhere, you see he was going to live and be my son, the child of my heart, I was only twenty, and I wanted my baby very badly. I had prepared a drawer for him at home with soft cloths and baby blankets borrowed from other church members. Everything was washed and clean, and ready for our son. Caleb Michael Neff. But they lost him.
This did not put a dent in my belief. Though to be honest, I cried for years, I cried every Mother's day, I cried on Caleb's birthday August 14, I cried at Christmas, the sadness lasted for years. I had two baby girls, and I love them deeply, but I still cried for my son. I was told all the reasons that god took him home, and I didn't believe any of them. I followed the rules dammit!
Twenty years later I found myself divorced and expecting a baby at the age of forty. Alone. for my birthday I made home made key lime pie, because no store in the city of Elko carried it. I had a baby boy, it was odd and hard, I was forty now, and I was not young and married and yet I was transported back in time. I was in Missoula Montana, I was young and lovely, and traffic stopped for me and I didn't know it. If Caleb had made it full term he would have been a big baby, Daine was nearly 11 pounds and removed by a C-section. Too big to be born Dr. said. Even then I still believed, even when things were always shit and we were so poor we couldn't afford a bottle of shampoo, and no one cared about us, I still believed, and I still thought all things would come together for good to those who loved Jesus. They never did. My life was a series of wonderful things wrapped up in bad things. I was thankful, I was loving, but I was not happy, and I could not hide it behind all the christian philosophy that amounted to a pile of garbage. I even wanted Dain dedicated and the minister said to wait till I got back to Brookings and have my own pastor do it. SERIOUSLY? this man was an adulterer, he had an affair with one of his congregation, left Brookings to start a church in Elko with his new wife and he would not dedicate my baby? MORE of the same hypocritical bull shit I have come to expect. He did not really like me in his church because I knew all about him. He had left Brookings about the same time I had, and I found him because I Was so homesick I wanted any connection I could get.
I prayed for a father for Daine, I prayed for an abundant christian life, I never got any of those things, but I got education and I got enlightened, and I was glad I could see things very clearly, and it was Philosophy class 101 at Boise State that finally killed the last little bit of faith. I had stood up in class and gave a glowing rendition of why I believed in Jesus Christ, it was so very good it brought tears to the other students eyes. Dr. Shitslinger, didn't even bat an eye, but the next week he explained how he, a son of a missionary and raised in christian boarding schools had come to doubt all that was religion. And his argument made sense, too much sense, and I think about it all the time, and his solemn words when a student asked, "Dr. Do you believe?" and he replied, "In a personal god? No I believe the world was created, but I do not believe there is a personal god." And I thought the greatest sin of all is robbing someone of their faith. A few left class crying, stunned and insulted. BUT I Stayed, out of morbid curiosity, and I stayed out of wonder. And I had to know more, I had never met a true agnostic before. The argument touched something in me, something that I still believe today. It would be easier to be a Christian, even with the hypocrisy and the people who hide their true evil behind religion, and it would be easier to be part of the group, but I do not believe it. Christianity is a word, and it means naive, misleading and exclusive, and I have never liked to join exclusive clubs, so there you have it, the death of my beliefs, and thank you Mr. Shitslinger for giving me nothing to look forward to except a long dirt nap.
