It was a Jebus play!!!

Well I dont generally get up on my soap box about religion or politics only because its fruitless.  People are going to believe whatever it is they choose to believe ad quite frankly that is none of my business.  I am friends with and associate with a wide variety of different people, from different backgrounds and with different belief and faith ideals and I respect each and every one of them...I can't say that I agree with them in every situation, but I respect the fact they believe what they believe and that helps them get through the day.  In all reality that's all that really matters when it comes down to it. 

Personally faith doesn't mean much to me.  I was raised Catholic.  I went to church every week, I read for mass, I helped out at the nunnery (no idea what its really called, that what Ive always called it anywho), was christened, communioned, confirmed and all that jazz...I am VERY familiar with Catholic doctrine.  I will also preface with this - I know when I launch off about this that it isnt EVERY single solitary Christian & Catholic that I am referencing, its just the ones that make the most noise and cause the most bullshit, so no, I am not making broad generalizations about all churchgoers...so chill out.  And also remember - I respect your right to believe in God, you really should respect my right to think hes an amazingly powerful work of fiction...I dont think thats too much to ask for...and if it is, stop reading now, you're just going get all pissed off here soon.

So I get a call at 8:30am Saturday from my 9 year old nephew telling me he has a play Saturday night and he wants me & Mister to be there to see it.  Ok now realistically one of the last places on Earth I want to be on a Saturday night is sitting in a Nazarene  church the South Hills, but I dont come around real often, he asked me himself and this will not kill me so I tell him we will be there.  Just showing up is going to make this kids month and hes had a rough time of late with my sister & her husband separating...so if all I have to do is carve a couple hours out of my weekend to make this kid so happy he will explode then so be it, I will adventure to the South Hills to watch this play.  My sister never really has said much about this acting group he's a part of outside of the fact that nephew absolutely loves it and it has done amazing things for his self esteem & confidence to be a part of it - so win all over the place for the kid.  He's shy and quite sensitive so getting him out of his shell is hard and being a part of this group has really helped him in alot of ways.  I tell Mister we are going, he says he will in his best "I am only doing this because you want me to and I will sit and behave myself for the duration but realize you are testing the limits of my patience and if you even THINK about making me spend the rest of our night with the kids I will be a total asshole" tone.  Message received loud and clear...we've done this once or twice before ;-)

So we go. And for the record in the 2 hours before all hell had broken loose at 2 of the 4 restaurants by way of power outage followed by gylcol pump explosion at one and a sewer backing up and causing mayhem and closed bathrooms at another...you know - the Murphy's Law bullshit that occurs EVERY time the Wizard goes out of town for a couple days, that had me on the phone and texting about 4 different people as I finished getting ready and we drove there.  It was ridiculous to be honest, and if I hadn't promised that kid that I would be there and I didn't know that he would be so upset if I didnt show up I would have gone back into work.  But I did promise, and he would be hurt, so i walked in late due to pacing on the phone in the lot, but I got there.

We sit down and I listen to the lyrics...it's a jesus play.  And not like a little bit of jesus thrown in for good measure, but full on jesus play, like with scripture quotes and shit.  I was kind of stunned.  My sister isnt particularly religious, neither is her hubby and I just wasnt expecting it.  Yes yes yes it took place at a church...but that didnt mean it was going to be all churchy - they do have multipurpose rooms and shit in churches.  I texted my sister since we werent sitting with them "you coulda warned me this was a jebus play", she responds "I wasnt sure youd come..." and I kind of chuckled and thought yeah I would have come, but I definitely would have left Mister at home.  I have some pretty harsh opinions on organized religion but he has a pure hatred of it...and to his credit he sat and tolerated all of it, remained pleasant and did what he had to do to support the kid.  He was rewarded with Danny's hoagies & pizza on the way home. LOL

So I listen to this for the better part of an hour, I watch these kids who all seem genuinely into what they are doing, I hear the message they are trying to convey...and I grew more and more annoyed as I sat there.  So to sum up the play - a boy has to join a new baseball team of ultra goody goody teammates that all work in perfect harmony and hes this loose cannon with an attitude problem.  They meet a gigantic grasshopper & "praying" mantis that introduce them to a giant talking lily and tweaking out huge bird that who in turn introduce them to 3 historic biblical characters - David from David & Goliath and 2 other stories that I am far less familiar with.  Either way the moral of this hour was that if you just put your faith in god and except jesus into your home and heart that you will always be loved, accepted and will never fail.  That no matter what as long as you have this blind faith in jesus you will never be lead astray and you will always have whatever it is you need or desire.  That jesus and your faith is all you need to succeed in life.

This offended me. This offended me alot.  Pardon my french here but what a crock of shit. Especially coming from the fucking church! Maybe if they were even close to telling the truth - you know the part where all of this applies as long as your aren't different than their ideal - I might have felt less offended.  They were lying. Out and out blatantly lying. They stood up on that goddamn alter and proceeded to have a group of about 50 7-12 year olds spout that as long as you believe is jesus you will get everything you want.  And I talked to my nephews about it after, both the 8 &  9 year old, and they believed it.  Granted we didn't get all into a deep conversation about it, they are kids, but they still bought the basic premise.  And its a freaking lie. Faith may help, faith may provide strength in times of weakness, faith can give you a place to turn if you want or need it, but faith will never solely give you success.  For some people its an integral puzzle piece that allows them to accomplish things...and good for them, but its a PIECE of a whole thing that makes the success. Its not like you can pray for money and get it, or pray for groceries and they appear, or pray to have a better job and you'll be magically made smarter and more employable.  Faith can help you gather the tools needed to be successful, but its not going to just make anything magically appear. They almost made god sound like Santa Claus - if you just believe in his existence you will be magically given a life worth living just like a big pile of presents under the tree at Christmas.  Faith in a jolly man dressed in red did not make that pile appear - but our hard working parents did. 

And I think my main issue with the whole thing wasn't the message...I know they are kids and maybe that level of realism isnt really appropriate - I just happen to think the average kid is much smarter than we give them credit for and bullshit like that can be damaging. But when it was all over the Director gets up and thanks everyone blah blah blah then launches into this diatribe about money money money and how all this costs money and they only ask the parents to contribute very little so its an affordable program but they were going to send around the ushers with the collection plate and ask everyone to donate what they could afford to help the children ram more overly conservative tea-party-esque messages down our throat to a snappy beat. This grated on me. Just charge for tickets then, seriously, dont stand up there and in your best condescending tone try to make me feel guilty. No one sitting in those pews was a fucking idiot. We know shit costs money, tell us what you want and we will pay it, no need for all the mellow dramatics.  So while they round up the collection plates she keeps talking about how this program helps kids get to know god and how this faith will make them powerful and how good it is to be accepted with the church it is support forever.  Then a soloist stands up and sings a song about how even if youre not perfect you are loved by god as individuals with flaws and imperfections as part of the deal.  And I got even more annoyed.  That may be the crap you are spewing at plays, but its bullshit. If that was what any of the larger organized religions believed there would be so much less judgment and alot more acceptance of individuals and that isnt what happens. 

I hadn't been to church in awhile. I highly doubt Ill be going back any time soon. The whole thing just rubbed me the wrong way.  Youre telling these kids it ok to be an imperfect individual, its ok to have flaws, just accept jesus and have faith and no matter what everything will be ok.  And yet every day you hear about people hurting, killing, abusing other people over different beliefs about religion, politics, sexuality all stemming from their faith and the rules of their faith. If the god they talk about in plays like that was REALLY the god they believed in it might not be such a hypocritical load of bullshit...but all evidence says it IS a load of hypocritical bullshit that is enforced by religious nutballs the world over every day. Thats sad to me. It would be better if that was what it really was all about, love and acceptance...but it isnt, and thats going to be a harsh dose of reality if this is the smoke being blown up their asses through their formative years.  I know it was to a very small degree for me. Nothing notable ever really happened that made me turn from any faith, it was just the realization that there was no way in hell there was some great deity sitting above the clouds who judged my existence based on how much of the "cover charge" I paid every week at church.  I decided many many moons ago that church, for alot of people, is just a way to make them feel better about being assholes all week long.  If your faith is genuine, I applaud you and hope it does for you whatever it is you need it to...but overall I think those of genuine belief are far outnumbered by those that are there for far more self serving reasons.  Going to church every Sunday does not make you a good person, living a good life, doing what you can to make the most of what you are given, working hard and abiding the golden rule...those things make you a good person. And I dont need to give a church $20 a week to do any of those things, I just have to be aware of how I effect those around me...that's free.

I will go to another play if I am invited.  I will cheer that kid on until I'm hoarse because he deserves it.  I wont care that any of it is religiously themed, thats not why he does it. But it will bother me....I just wont feel the need to post about it again.

On a non-religious rant note I am going to bake up some snickerdoodles today. Its shit cold out, so if the weather is gonna be all sucky I will make my house smell delicious!!!