More Religious Stuff

When I was growing up in religious circles, it was all about being saved. Jesus was the savior, and his very name meant salvation. We children lived in fear, not so much of going to hell if we didn't get saved right, but in fear that our parents were saved right and we might screw it up and be left all alone, without them.  

     Aleister Crowley, famed junkie, occultist and pervert, immortalized in the song "Mr. Crowley" by Ozzy Osbourne, whose home Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin purchased with his first endowment of wealth, raised in the same fundamentalist sect (Plymouth Brethren) that I was, wrote in his self-indulgent, gaudy memoirs about that universal evangelical protestant experience: finding one's self alone and imagining for a moment that Jesus had come to take all the people who were saved right to Heaven with him, and that he'd been left behind. 

     I think we all went through that, at one time or other, maybe aged 9, imagining there were no Christians left in the world, and that we had no parents or relatives left. We were alone with the ordinary people of Earth. Now THAT was hell... 

     But really, aside from the occasional terror over that, we grew up without any real fear of hellfire, feeling that we'd probably gotten it right, had said the right words to God, or believed the right thing or whatever. And for me at least, I don't think we lived in fear of being horrible sinners either. We didn't really have the opportunity to do much in the way of sinning. Perhaps the occasional small lies to our parents or stealing little things like food were possibilities, but most of us didn't even do that. 

     We grew up feeling that we'd been born into a system whereby our almost non-existent sins had been taken care of. We knew right well that we'd not done much in the way of sinning, and it was a little hard to take seriously a God who was so finicky as to be bothered by things like sneaking over to a neighbor's house to watch Airwolf. Did Jesus need to bleed and die because I occasionally watched television, or wanted to? 

     Only in moments when the brainwashing was taking full effect could I believe anything like that. Whatever sins I'd committed, even ones that I didn't really notice, but which bothered God, I was comfortable with the idea that Jesus died to deal with that, and that his blood was a kind of payment for my little crimes. 

     But there was a whole other thing to consider. Mankind wasn't just separated from God due to habitual sinning, but also due to being sinful inside. It wasn't just how much or little we indulged our tendencies to do bad things, there was also the matter of us being just generally bad inside. We knew that we kinda wanted to do any number of things that, had we indulged in them, would have been pretty bad. Worse things than watching TV, that was for sure. Things like shoplifting, vandalism, maybe hitting the Sunday School teacher in the back of the head with a two by four. Alcoholics walk around needing to drink. Everyone walks around needing to do bad things. But the work of Christ (the life, the manner of his death, his comportment throughout both) was to take care of that. This was a harder concept, but one which helped quite a bit. 

    The idea was that Jesus was Man+, that he was an upgrade, that his life had made the point that a human being could live a life that God wouldn't be pissed off about, and would be proud to point to, that a human being could live a life that helped and didn't hurt, that gave and didn't ruin everything for everyone. The idea was that Christ was catching, that our fates were tied to his, and that we were to live, not only the way he did, but also that his spirit, his heart, would live on through us, and that the world, which had known God through him, now could know Jesus through us. We were to be Jesus to the world. This was a beautiful idea. 

     What I wasn't sure about was why people felt you could only do this in Africa, or when being a preaching asshole to people who didn't ask you to start in on them with your personal beliefs. Jesus wasn't a preaching asshole. He couldn't get rid of people. They kept asking him things. It wasn't like he accosted people, or handed out pamphlets, or went door to door, or started a church and put a sign out the front of it or anything. How come you could only act like Jesus to people who'd never heard of him? 

    Other religious people sure didn't treat each other like Jesus would have. They had that whole lifelong "competitive piety" contest going on, and were wont to cheat. So I lived my life and felt fairly comfortably saved from my tendency to do bad things, and from my affinity for wanting to do bad things. I felt safe and that I would be taken care of after I died. The trouble was, I didn't feel there was any salvation for me from my daily life. My daily life was empty. It was all about not sinning. It wasn't about actually doing anything much. It was all defined by not doing things. 

     People like Aleister Crowley couldn't stand it, threw the baby Jesus out with the holy water, and started exploring intravenous drugs, occult rituals and orgies in a big way. I, however, did nothing. (Well, I got a TV, started to go to movies and listen to rock music, but even going out to the occasional bar for a moderate drink of alcohol didn't, by this point twinge my conscience, nor give my life meaning and make it feel worthwhile. It was all part of passing time.) My life was about finding a bit of comfort (like a decent futon) and passing the time any way I could (like watching TV). 

     Other people were breaking up and making up, having babies, wrestling with children's issues, starting businesses, buying homes, getting mortgages and loans, travelling the world and pursuing dreams of various kinds. As for my life, I've managed to get dumped far more often than I've managed to get anyone to go out with me, somehow. No babies. Fighting with kids only in a professional capacity. No business, no home, no mortgage; giant loans I can just make payments on. No fear of getting in any major trouble for not paying them, nor of paying them off anytime soon. 

     I went to England and Wales once and don't know if I'll go anywhere much again. It's kind of pointless going far away to be alone. My only real dreams are of making CDs, but people don't really listen to or buy CDs anymore, and I don't have the dream of being a full-time musician to go along with it. So, I feel like I need to be saved. Saved from the nothing. Saved from the safety that is perpetually surrounding nothing in particular. 

    I'm so sick of safe that when I'm yearly in the position of maybe losing my position at the school where I work, I don't care. I mean, I don't want to lose it, but I don't have the heart to fret over it or stress out. I just sigh and think "Whatever. Bring on whatever. I'll survive it, but whatever happens, I'm not going to like it." 

     Hope means looking forward and expecting good things. I wasn't raised to hope. I was raised to hang onto my principles and try to keep a blank slate until death, at which time the temptation to do things would be over. The bible suggest that where no hope is, the people perish. "Perish" means to be lost. So I haven't done much, for good or bad. 

    If you asked me "What's the worst thing you ever did?" I'd have real trouble answering that one. I'm the product of my upbringing. Almost no swearing, lying, stealing, cheating and the like. Apart from being late on doing my taxes, I suppose my one great sin will always be the religious assholery I took part in when I was younger. The pridefully feeling part of a special group who had it right. The looking down on others just because they did things we didn't feel free to do. The subjecting other people to my views on stuff when they didn't want to listen. The being of no earthly use to anyone, yet walking around feeling like, if they'd only listen to me, I could tell them what was working for me, as to Life with a capital L. 

     If you asked me "What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?" I'd have more answers. And the worst thing of all that's ever happened to me, though it might not seem like it? Not my friend shooting himself through the head and dying. Not all the girls I was going to spend my life with announcing they were dating other people. Not getting unfairly fired. Not people spreading rumours I was gay. Not being out of work and in debt. Not eating peanut butter for three meals in a row while waiting for a paycheck. Not my closest friend of 10 years deciding he wouldn't forgive me for our band not working out, and refusing to speak to me ever since. Not all the various people who died unexpectedly for various reasons. Not everyone I know being too busy fetching apple juice for their children to answer the fucking telephone. Not dislocating each kneecap twice. 

    No, the worst thing that has ever happened to me is all the nothing that has been my main companion in life. My life has been nothing, about nothing, and full of nothing for far too much of it. Full points for "Not doing bad things" and yet, not a single point earned for actually doing much of anything. Usually I'm just in front of a computer or TV screen, or reading crappy books to keep my brain running on a track, rather than spiralling into the horror that comes with all the silent, empty nothingness. 

     I work hard to keep this life funded and organized, but I can't take it seriously. I'm obligated to manage and maintain it, but I don't believe in its direction. God has a way of revealing what's really what. It's almost all He does for some people sometimes. He showed me that I had nothing to tell people, to give people, so long as my life was empty of good and bad in equal proportions. He showed me that people need something other than platitudes and religion. He showed me what He and everyone of sense in the world thinks of religious assholes. He showed me that I was one, had been raised in it so that anything but an environment steeped in religious assholery seemed foreign, unfamiliar and horribly wrong. He pointed up the emptiness, the meaninglessness, the idolatry in the numbing, comforting rituals. He saved me from all of that. 

    Why do I attribute my getting free from all of the religious assholery to God? Because it was a miracle. Because I'm just not that smart. Because the indoctrination was just that strong that people don't just "get free" of it, if it's something they were willingly addicted to in their formative years. Now I can't imagine attending a church just so I can feel that I'm the sort of person who attends church, or so that others will understand that I'm that sort of person, or to know what to tell people who ask me what I believe, when all the while I know very well that church as we conceive it in the modern western world isn't doing anything for God or me, let alone having anything to offer the rest of the world. 

    The origins of the Plymouth Brethren movement were part of an attempt to throw off the formality and structure, magic words, costumes and props that most churches still employ to this day. The idea was to do it right. To do it plainly, simply and without extra crap. Many early Brethren simply hung out in people's homes and talked about God. They didn't just talk about how great it was to be part of a group of people who loved to be part of a group of people who could very well talk about God, but chose instead to talk about how wonderful it was to be able and willing to talk about Him, without really, in any real way, actually doing so. 

     Just like most of the things in the western world, church was always done so we could say it was being done, rather than actually being done in any way that worked or did anything much. It was for bragging rights only. Purely to go on a spiritual resume. And God lit a fire under me and showed me what was really going on (and not going on) with all of that, and I just couldn't STAND it. I just couldn't sit there anymore. 

    And what did I do? Well, I was used to emptiness, meaninglessness, and making idols of numbing, comforting rituals. I'd grown up doing that and seeing it done. It had always been comforting and familiar. I realized that listening to an idiot who knew nothing about anything, let alone life and God was no more useful an activity than lying on the futon eating chicken and watching reruns of M*A*S*H*. 

    So I lay on the futon and watched the reruns. Instead of drinking the koolaid, I ate the chicken. I made my own little place to be in and not live or think much. It wasn't a church, but it served exactly the same function. And just like with a church, I wondered why no one came. I need to be saved. I need to be saved right now from all the nothing. It yawns open at my feet and nibbles at the edges of my consciousness whenever I'm not occupied with something else, like a bottomless pit. 

    I think it's dark down there and I think there's consuming, numbing fire. I think nothingness is the worst thing of all. Worse than doing something wrong, or something selfish or badly. It has taken me until now to grow to hate this little life of mine, to have a fire lit under me and realize that it isn't enough. 

     There need to be people and things going on. I need to go places and do things. It would be great to have something to offer. (I have no intention of going to Africa) I don't think the world needs more people preaching, more people trying to make everyone see the world their way. 

    If Jesus were here in the flesh right now, that's now what he'd provide. He wouldn't have a show on which troubled couples would ask him for advice, so he could give them books from his book club, and sweatpants from his exclusive clothing line, or perhaps a bottle of his own personal Frankincense 'N Myrrh fragrance. He wouldn't sing a crappy pop song on American Idol and get a record deal. He wouldn't volunteer to live in a house (or on an island) with four assholes and survive to win money, or marry a rock star or run a company. He wouldn't get on TV and ask for money, even to send it to Africa. And he definitely wouldn't feel that what the world really needs right now is another church with a sign out front with his name on it. 

     He'd go around and talk to people and do stuff. He'd say what he really thought, and he'd care. He'd tell the truth to self-deluded people. He'd refuse to help people lie to themselves and others. He'd make it very, very hard not to think. He'd make it very hard to "just keep doing what's always been done." Sometimes he'd call religious assholes names. He'd be suspicious of rich, successful, powerful people and encourage others to be likewise suspicious of them. He'd do honest work so he could get food. Sometimes, just sometimes, he'd lie down to chill out, because he'd been going around doing stuff. And lying down would be sweet. And sleeping would be restful, rather than something done recreationally, to shut out the hours of nothingness.