Losing my Religion

It was a budget meeting. I was curious. It was the grown up thing to do, it seemed.

I had aspirations. It was clear I was being groomed. Tom and Brian had already left, and I was being told that is was contrary to God's will that I maintain my friendship with them. Sinful, as it were.

yet, with the lure of leadership, I lingered. I was a pleaser. I wanted to please the elders. I wanted to please my parents. I lingered.

I had questions, but I lingered.

But then... then... I stayed. I stayed that one day and listened to the elders lead their meeting. Everyone was invited, but no one stayed. They had to get to their Sunday brunch, the f0football game. The Sunday nap.

The practices, the policies, the prejudices, they didn't seem to match the scriptures. No good deeds were being done. The money from the faithful was paying a mortgage on a large building. It was also paying a fat salary for a dim-witted pastoral staff. And suddenly, a switch was flipped.

The blood drained from my head. I felt numb and I began to shake. It was crystal clear, yet I did not want to see it.

Physically, I reacted like I had the flu. The flu, on top of a a hangover, with a looming sense of doom and mourning.

Was it the devil setting up shop in my heart? Perhaps.

More likely, it was the visceral reaction to losing my religion. Losing the only Truth I had ever known. It was a dark epiphany. Maturing in one moment to see that every sacrifice, every decision, every grasp for good was little more than purified bullshit.

My world view collapsed. My suspicions were confirmed. I found myself in anguish having lost faith in a benevolent father, grace, redemption and hope, to the stark realization that there was nothing more that the cold lonely material universe. Death is the end. Life is a mere vapor.

The sobbing began shortly thereafter. I was on the freeway. I was alone.

It continued into the afternoon in my room back at home. My parents were visibly concerned, as well they should have been, but there was nothing they could do.

It was done. I had passed through the practical approximation of Douglas Adams's Total Perspective Vortex. I was a monkey, clinging to a rock spinning around the sun. That, I saw, is the sum of human experience.

I am on the cusp, and I'm sure you see where it is going, but I am losing another religion of sorts. This is Good Friday, the symbolic day of Christ's burial. On the third day he arose, as the mythology goes. I will arise this Sunday as well, born again as something new...

Yes, I have lost my religion, once again, yet this time there are no tears. There is only white hot political anger.