Saint Jonah the Garbled

     Bear with me: the following is my attempt to explain some new directions my life is heading in lately to those unfamiliar to my daily doings. Namely attending church, a real honest-to-goodness church with Jesus and all the trimmings, every Sunday morning for the past few months. And studying, nay, casually leafing through my bible fairly often, taking relatively seriously what I find to be the message of… whatever the hell I’m reading about, giants or talking snakes or flying gyroscopes with animal-headed freaks at the wheel. Let me backtrack before I lose you-

     When I was a kid, I can claim that I had genuinely good intentions. I used to drop to my knees and, crying, pray next to smeared roadkill when I'd come across it. I wasn't appealing for some weird ex post facto conversion to Christianity on behalf of what looks like might have been a possum, but for God to make sure whatever it was knew that it was loved, that it's death was noticed, and mourned. I was the kind of kid who probably wouldn’t have stuck up for himself anyway but actively turned the other cheek when his inherent queerness or obvious fatness caught the negative attentions of the current rulers of cool. I knew how to share, and liked the experience. Kindness seemed second nature to me. I believe all these things are, to some degree or another, a result of practicing what I thought Christianity was and what I did in a gleeful attempt to fulfill my obligations as a believer in the faith I was raised in.

     Obviously a lot has changed between then and now. But I can’t say I’m thrilled with all of those shifts in myself and the way I scornfully look at the world. I know that attending church again, even my very liberal one, isn’t going to change the way I act or view things. But the language it speaks in is HARDWIRED into me, something I tried to exorcise for a very long time, and I desperately long to be close to the divine again. I want to feel the presence of God like I did when I was a kid. And the other faiths I’ve tried on haven’t fit because their brand of nonsense wasn’t the special brand of nonsense I’d long ago made my own. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking Christianity or any other religion. In fact I think spirituality is one of the most beautiful, most human traits, for me essentially so. But I also think buying into the “my way or the highway-to hell” with any faith is just… bonkers. And missing the point entirely.

     Anyway it’s all about the person I want to be, and taking all the steps I believe will lead me there. My church is a beautiful place that accepts people I snicker and hiss at, and I want to be that kind of beautiful. I know that it isn’t necessary, but it’s what I find grace in and what I choose, which is what I think the whole point really is.