Part of an answer to a letter from a fellow church member….asking was it something I said.
I am seriously tempted to say yes, just to f)ck you up, but you haven’t done anything to me & your wife and kids haven’t done anything to me either.
The simple fact of the matter is that I gotta be me, and I can’t be me at church (yeah, I know that’s not the point). I thought that I’d be a better person if I got involved and did some work, but I’m a (deleted because I’d kill you if you forwarded this part) with an extremely rude sense of humour and all I did was come to the realization that I’d run out of spots on my tongue to bite. All church wants out of me is my work capacity. I’m going to get away from all you terribly serious nice people and go hang out with people who don’t get upset every time I make a joke about Michael Jackson and George Bush (because I’m not being respectful enough to them.) Yes, this really did happen to me. I nearly stomped out at that point, but at that point I really did think I wanted to be a more pacific individual and I thought she ‘was offering me a valuable life lesson’. Oh, and I nearly stomped out during the meeting at deleted last summer, and there are a number of other people who have nearly met death at my hands (note this is called EXAGGERATION FOR THE SAKE OF EFFECT), or at least the verbal abuse I am capable of when I either feel safe (my poor husband!) or when I’m pushed to the wall of niceness. I’m the one with the problem, not the church.
Oh, I know I’m going to get lots of people sniffing about how I am abandoning the church and I just didn’t get the culture here, which is one of respect and tolerance, but that’s not how I see it.
OF COURSE I SHOULD LEARN TO BE RESPECTFUL. To the people who love me most of all. But THERE ARE PEOPLE TRYING TO KKIILLLLL ME in this culture. Am I supposed to be respectful of them? If I’m not actively trying to kill them back, that’s about as respectful as I can be. But there’s no law yet against making fun of the people who are trying to kill you, and that’s what I plan to do.
All the church did was make me long for ‘my peeps’; the people at work who sit around a campfire with me drinking beer and talking about science and relationships and useful gadgets (while the church is full of people I will never see drunk (added after I sent the email, enough to make you wish we were Catholic)) and then we sing and play and drink some more, and my family, who support me with love and nonsense and appreciation and stoic acceptance of my many sins. I’m going to go drink beer with the sinners, and help them with their events, like the time I was the MC for the newlywed game I put together for two coworkers, and we all fell about laughing. I am a committee of one. If I want to make a difference, I’m going to do it on my own terms. I’ll make biscotti and hand them out to audience members. I’ll give out gift certificates to the people in the audience who have most recently had sex. (The best part is asking them to prove it, of course… I have a whole routine worked out for that). I’ll have a prayer meeting in which I ask a bunch of atheists to ask something to fry George Bush because science teaches us that the prayers of an atheist are just as valid as those of the Dalai Lama. I’ll teach the new game Lizard Scissors Rock Paper Spock to people who can’t do the Vulcan salute. I’ll walk on stage half naked and (with difficulty) keep a straight face and after about half a minute ask “Got Milk?” Then I’ll put my top back on, saying I was distracting myself. Then I’ll spend the rest of my career telling drunks that I will NOT take my shirt off, because I’m tired of the perverts who look at my gall bladder scars instead. Yes indeed, my future is crowded with incident.
Anyway I have to go to work now. Daughter Katie is a little stiff but very happy to have soaked in the swirlpool down at Canada Games last night. I’m leaving the kids rest… it’s a PD today.
