How I got KICKED OUT OF CHURCH
HOW I GOT KICKED OUT OF CHURCH
and asked to never return!
I had to answer a quiz recently, about If I was more into religion now, or when I was younger...
When I was younger, I got dragged, pretty much against my will, to church often. I knew when to stand up, when to sit down, and I often knew the lesson materials better then the young wealthy adults who were recruited to try and teach us the lessons.
It was boring, going through the same Bible stories we heard year after year. Church HQ had no guts to teach anything that might be hard or controversial, so the material became pretty much limited to the same small group of safe stories. Eventually it became like watching well-groomed trained seals, trying to perform the same show, over and over again, year after year.My friends and I, were much more interested in exploring all of the unknown, secret, and hidden places in the big old church building (much more interested!).
Unfortunately, though, there were some other bored guys like us around. Only these guys, were much older. Apparently, if you were a really old guy, and you too got bored, what you did back then, was to appoint yourself a Hall Monitor. Then, instead of going to your own class to learn anything, you could stand around the hallways and shoot the bull with the other old codgers like yourself, all-the-while looking useful, like you have an important church duty to perform.
Well, when my young buddies and I began cutting our classes to explore the old building and eavesdrop on other (adult) classes, we ran into those older bored guys in the main hallways. Actually, I should say they chased us. They chased us all over the freaking building. But, we knew the stately old building much better than any of them did, so we usually led them a merry chase. We liked that okay. It wasn't boring.
They, however, seemed to be increasingly serious, and unhappy about chasing us around. Eventually, my parents got a letter from the church, asking them not to bring me back any longer. . . Well, aside from the massive amount of trouble I got into at home, I thought that was just a silly, dumb, shallow response, because I wasn't really attending classes anyway. We were, after all, I reasoned, just bringing some meaning into the lives of some equally bored, self-important, old men. Mom and Dad, however, didn't see it that way at all. No, not even a little bit.
So, how would you rate that? Very religious? Not religious? I knew all the words to the songs, when to stand up, and when to sit down. I was fully loaded with a 3-translation comparison Bible copy with Greek interlinear. When I was forced to sit in class, I could ask cool questions like "You know, in the Greek, that verb has three tenses, why do you suppose this tense is used like it is here in this passage?" "Are you perspiring, Sir?" "We can open that window over there. It's locked, but we've learned how to open them anyway." "Blink, Sir, please, or your eyes will get dry and scratchy."
So, I did all the "religious" stuff okay,... they just didn't like my Sunday Morning Aerobics Class for Bored Old Men!
I was pretty totally immersed in religion, and still had nothing but empty rules and the traditions of men... hmmmm. . . That's probably worth saying again; Empty rules and the traditions of men. . . There, I said it again.. . . Because, I still could have slit someone's throat and enjoyed standing over them to watch them bleed to death. In fact, the only time I really had a good laugh, or enjoyed myself at all back then, was when I was dishing out pain to other people. It was delightful. It was never fulfilling or satisfying, though, just temporarily something to do.
Sort of like religion - is just temporarily something to learn and do.
Hmmm. What to say about my 'religious' experience? . . . Well, I will say this:
"A FAT lot of good it does you to know everything about the treasure map . . .if you never actually go there and seek the treasure yourself!!!"
Religion, like the map alone, is of no personal worth. It truly is empty rules and the traditions of men. But, the treasure, The Pearl of Great Price, is actually there, and has great personal value.
Bottom line; it's much better taken personally.
(C) RLMcCormick
