The Church of You

Alright, I know I just wrote that huge long post about my drinking escapades, and that's really all I've been writing about recently. It's really fun when you're there, but maybe not so much fun to read about, and I don't want everyone to think that that's all I'm doing down here. So I have this little one too.

For the past couple of weeks, this french dreamboat that goes to our school has been trying to get my roommate Chirag to go to this church where he runs the sound desk. Chirag kept saying he'd go, but when it came time to go, he'd always back out. It's no skin off my back. I hadn't been the one that was chomping at the bit to go. But tonight, after a lazy, boring day, "the four" of us decided to go over there. Let me just clarify: usually when I say "we" or "the four", then I'm mostly referring to Chirag, our neighbor Matt, Melisa and I, since we're the closest friends here and we usually do everything together.

So the four of us go over to the church and it's a really friendly environment when we walk in. Instead of pews and a stage for the preacher, there's tables set up and everyone is sitting there drinking their coffee or tea, and right when we walked in, at least 5 people rushed up to us to try to make us feel at home. It was almost a little off-putting. Most of the tables were full, but we found a nice couch off to the side were we found a seat, and the sermon began. With the laid-back attitude of the room, I figured the sermon would be really short and fun, but the preacher starts rambling on about abortion and the devil eating babies, and the rebirth of christ being from an incestuous union.

I really couldn't grab on to a single thing he said, and everytime he tried to back up his comments with facts or figures, he would just tend to contradict himself. But everyone in the congregation was nodding along and adding their "mmm"s and "uhhuh"s at the correct times. And some of the stuff that he said was so ludicrous. Like for the figures that he gave on abortions in the United States to be true, there would have to be as many babies aborted in 5 DAYS, as babies that were actually born in an ENTIRE YEAR. And everyone sits there and gasps at these figures because they think it's so tragic. Tragic indeed. And he ends off with saying that if Jesus Christ was to be reborn today, he would be aborted. He makes it sound like the world isn't pro-choice, but pro-abortion. Maybe it would solve over-population.

So after the sermon, I was ready to take off since I'd taken enough of the bullshit, but that's when the music started, and we got to get a glimpse at what we'd really come for. We went back to watch Jean Luc work the desk and while the other three were asking him questions and taking it all in, I was still captivated by the congregation. Maybe it was because I'd been through it all before, but religion at that point seemed so inane and stupid to me. The people were up there with their hands in the air, or they were crouched down on the ground with a fist to their forehead, being born again.

A guy comes and starts chatting withe me. He's just a couple years older than myself and he starts up about how he just got back from travelling the world doing missionary work. He was a really nice guy and he had some interesting stories, but when I started talking to him about religion, he started criticizing me.

Me: "Well, I kinda think that it's not necessarily as important to be a good church-goer as it is to just be a good person."

Him: "I disagree. There's lots of nice guys out there, but if they don't have God in their hearts..."

Me: "Doesn't that take too much power away from an individual?"

Me: "Doesn't it say in the bible that you should praise God on your own terms, and not to be like the false fanatics in the temple..."

Me: "Can't something just be what it is, and not an act of God?"

And he kept arguing with me. That's fine that he thinks he's right, but he wouldn't let me believe that I was right. And that's the main problem that I've come across with organized religion in the past years. Everyone is too controlling, and really just too worried about the things that should just be left alone. They get so caught up in trying to live their lives through God, that they forget that they can do these things. Look at a child who has no concept of religion and their minds are so vast because they haven't been limited by talk of sin and heaven and hell.

But there was one thing that we could agree on after the entire debate. You do it for the people around you. Back in Timnath, that's what it was. It was never a religious experience for me at church, but the reason I kept going back wasn't necessarily because my parents made me, but because you have friends there and you can always count on them for support for the rest of your life.

So what turned me away from religion? It wasn't the crazies, the ones on the streets that yell of fire and brimstone. That came later. And it wasn't that I "grew out of it" once I got to college. Once I got away and all of my friends moved away and or we consequently broke up, I lost that support in my life, and I started to realize that it was me controlling my life. I needed to make something happen, and I knew that if God was there in the beginning, he'd be there in the end, and I didn't have to make a deal out of it. But I still can't think of any event in my life up to this point that was altered or acted upon by a higher power. And I don't think that we have to pray to God to get a response from him.

OK, I'm rambling and getting pretty sacreligious here, but it all comes down to what I said earlier. I don't need someone to preach to me about a life that they haven't lived. And even though I don't know what it is, that's why I like the sound of the Church of Life. It could be The Church of You.