Odd

I find myself in a weird place.  I mentioned that a cousin died a little over two weeks ago. I didn’t attend the funeral because the day before is when they finally pulled my Tomahawk in for the avionics upgrade. I could’ve driven, but it would’ve been a five hour one-way drive into Manassas, VA. For those who don’t know, Manassas is DC-adjacent with everything unpleasant that comes with that unfortunate circumstance.

The church where the funeral was held is a sister congregation to where we attended as a family from when I was nine years old, plus or minus a year, until adulthood. Please don’t misunderstand, I hold no love in my heart for what was “my” church for most of my childhood. Nothing to do with the church itself or the doctrine they taught, but the controlling assholes in charge at that location.

They had always micromanaged the flock, making unreasonable demands and imposing restrictions beyond the already ultra-strict teachings that the church in general taught. I didn’t realize this until I interacted with some folks from other congregations and found out that many restrictions I thought were normal weren’t required or expected by the pastors of other congregations. I still didn’t think much about it, but simply accepted my fate.

After my father died when I was fourteen, the local church leadership applied significant pressure on my mother regarding the family farm and financial decisions in general. I wasn’t old enough to understand/know all of it, but I knew enough. It wasn’t right. Far from it. And I still, almost forty years later, think the surviving members of that group need to be tortured in unspeakably horrible ways. They wanted her to sell the farm and line their pockets with the “tithe” from the proceeds of the sale. Eventually, Mom went along with it, albeit very reluctantly.

She continued to attend church there for several more years, but eventually couldn’t take their shit anymore. I’d quit going a couple years before she did.

I sporadically attended a few different churches over the next five or six years, mostly while I was in the Air Force. My wife at the time had a similarly strict religious upbringing, and for a while we tried to find a church home. After my discharge and our divorce, roughly a quarter of a century ago, I swore off all organized religion.

I’ve made no attempt to live anything remotely resembling a Godly life. I still have strong feelings, beliefs and opinions as to right and wrong, and most largely match those I was taught as I was growing up. But you’d never suspect such from how I live. I’m not going to dive deeply into doctrine, but I do want to hit one point briefly.

I believe that if one claims to be a Christian, they damn well better walk the walk. “We’re all sinners” is a cop-out – an excuse to do whatever the hell one wants to do but claim to be on the path to heaven anyway. It’s bullshit. My Bible says that all have sinned, not that all do sin. And that’s how I see it, whether I’m right or wrong.

Even when I was trying to live right, I failed more often than not, so eventually I quit trying. I refuse to be a hypocrite and claim something that I’m not really living. I’ve done most of the bad things one can do, including lying my ass off on a regular basis. But being a hypocrite is one lie I just can’t abide. Hence the walking away and making no profession of faith.

Over time, I got to realize that I enjoy quite a few of the sins that I regularly commit, and eventually I didn’t think much about how I was living. I’ve tried to be a good person by worldly standards, honorable and decent. Reasonable work ethic. All that stuff. But there’s never been any doubt in my mind where I’m headed when I die. And that destination hasn’t bothered me much.

But here’s where it gets odd. After Cousin Doris died and I read the obituary, I got to thinking about the church. And my youth. And how central church and God were to how I was raised. I know that most of what I feel is about my lost youth and a desire to recapture it. That might be all it is to it. Or maybe not.

I still enjoy my sins. I like to drink. I cuss incessantly. Lots of other shit, too. This isn’t confession, but you get the idea. I don’t have much desire to change. I certainly don’t want to give up all my vices, although I’d be a much better person if I left at least a few behind.

Even so, I found myself watching the online stream of the services this past Sunday. They had a revival scheduled later this month that I was going to try really hard to attend. At least one night anyway. But it was just canceled due to “unforeseen circumstances”. For some reason, that really disappointed me. There might be five people in the congregation now that were there thirty years ago when I knew everyone. None of those five would be likely to recognize me, or me them now. I know I can’t turn back time. And that’s probably all this is. But part of me misses it. Misses the fellowship. Misses trying to live right.

Odd.