"I think it's alright to feel inhuman now. I think that's alright."

What follows is an apparently exaggerated editorial exploiting and somewhat sensationalizing what church is like for children. It may seem an impertinent editorial, and quite candidly it is - in one or two respects, but let me be perfectly understood....I don’t intend to mock the belief that the dignified, glorified and beatified Jesus Christ was savagely and gratuitously beaten, crucified and subsequently resurrected, bringing about the end of The Devil’s grip over humankind!! Enough people have done that already, and whether they’re right or wrong is a matter I endeavor to dodge with diligence. Instead, I’m spiritedly mocking the compulsory nature of the ceremonious buffoonery we have attached to its memorial. Thinking now of what is to come from what will certainly be considered subversive mockery, it seems my intent is merely to sympathize with the youngsters who are bound and shackled by imminent participation…I guess because I was once one among them. So with a tease on my tongue and some fray in my fingers let me now begin upsetting the order of things. Let it not be forgotten by any reader who chooses to continue that this editorial is a tabloid and a cartoon; however, let the avowal that what follows comes from a measure of truth and memory be kept in mind.

~

As a gift to my disconsertingly devout mother on her 52nd birthday I agreed to accompany her to a Catholic Service on Easter Sunday(I got her a book too.) In consequence of this, I found myself surrounded by sad spectacle, alarming imagery, and formidable finish. As the morning oozed on I came upon one woeful revelation. There were those come through the doors who did not volunteer. I stood, sat, kneeled and mentally prostrated...my eyes darting all the time, from row to row...never failing to find a child...dragged to this dismal tomb by pious palms and feral fingers. There’s no disclaimer as they’re marched through the black-iron-bedecked oak doors beneath an ancient archway. No warnings but for the ominous churned-gut sensation cautioning them at the threshold that they’re entering a place where reverence turns to worship and parenthood turns to surveillance! Hush now, Hansel! Stop fidgeting, Gretel! Be still. Be quiet. Be "good".

I suppose I should continue by confessing that I’m an admirer of the crying baby….the petulant pouty toddler, even, and perhaps most especially when the crying, wailing, weeping and whining come without pause or concern, in an irreverent intervening fashion, at the very center of a parochial gathering. It isn’t hard to spot the adoribly theatrical little “sinners”, all dressed up like Smarties and Cotton Candy for Easter Sunday. They’re marched in, directed by an elderly man masked in a perma-grin he slips on for church when it’s certain there will be children about, to a wooden torture rack known in this Year of Our Lord 2009 as a ‘pew’. The fortunate sons of firefighter fathers manage to elude the traditional sweet n’ sour look most associated with Easter and are dressed instead like 20’s gangsters, no shortage of pinstriped vests and slicked back hair in the lot; an entire gang of John Dillinger copycats. If they weren’t so terribly frightened of their surroundings you could imagine them orchestrating an attempt on the offering basket. The little women aren’t quite so lucky in the garb department. While they may have the sprightly station of “daddy’s little girl” and be favored enough to avoid the precarious clutches of the pew, parking it instead on their father’s lap, they’re gaudily cursed in Sunday’s worst. The garniture is simply abounding; every ribbon flailing about with each turn of the head like a distress signal to other little girls at home tossing the candy-basket grass in search of a chocolate bunny-rabbit. Here they sit, and here they stay until that time when the old man speaking in riddles puts a lid on it, and the choir takes one last stab at utterly devastating any appreciation of music...or, well, sound I guess.

The service begins with a “red light~ green lightish” stand-up, sit-down ritual that seems eerily reminiscent of a military command-response exercise. This becomes instantly amusing because the congregation range anywhere from 2 to 7 ft in height(yes there was an enormous man in the crowd) and appear clad as if cartoon extras from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. This redundant action continues over a 5 to 10 minute period accompanied by an idle soundtrack of precisely implicit songs about JESUS RISING! JESUS RISEN! JESUS COME AGAIN! The little boy to my immediate left is confounded by an exhausting indecision of what he should be most concerned with, the ZOMBIE SONG, or the fact that his parents have become zombies themselves! Everyone in this joint is in attentive "Simon Says" mode; each participant a fine example of diligence and ritual savy. The preacher man says a little somethin’ and the audience says a little somethin’ somethin’ back. I may be the only person who considers what’s happening a performace, so “audience” may be a stretch. The preacher is doing the ecclesiastic version of “You down with O.P.P.!”, and when he removes his mits from the HUMUNGOUS BIBLE on top of the podium, he lifts them chest-level in expectation of a response; sort of like Jesus revealing his nail-punctured palms. Everyone then proceeds to give him the old “Yah, you know me!” And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Everyone snaps out of it, of course, but all at the same time, which manages to rattle me more than the boy, but that’s an instance of apprehension from my own vault of misgivings. I’ll be attempting to have you recognize what this haunting situation is like for very young people, not myself. The children outshine me with their courage and boldness in this environment, so the floor is theirs.

Now if I could just take a moment to address the humungous bible. I'm sure you noticed my liberal use of caps-lock back there. I just find it funny that the bible is so monstrous. I can't help but wonder if it's the ill-concieved notion of some clerical despot who whole-heartedly believes size is relative to importance.....I imagine a gang of angry monks surrounding an old man clad in the very definition of opulence, holding an ancient scroll and saying, "This, my children, is the word of God.....(long dramatic pause).....Now take it to Kinkos and have it bound in the most obnoxiously large leather and have the word "BIBLE" knit in gold across the front!.....Who would dare not follow it's contents?!" I'd wanna find that fella and tell him the story of Fievel or Frodo. I'd say, "Small's in, pal......Ever see an 'ipod shuffle'?"

Now imagine, if you will, a mother and her youngster two rows up and to the right, against the wall. This wall has an explicit painting of Jesus with blood dripping from his thorn-crown adorned forehead, and eyes that scream what any creature on the face of the planet can identify as extreme pain and suffering. The child chances to glance up at this very 'un-Blues-Cluesy' artwork and immediately sets sail into a storm of shrieking and twisting, bawling and breaking away. Now we, good Christains that we may or may not be, indentify this as the mark of a petulant brat too bored to sit still and be quiet, right? We would NEVER let anyone know we think this. We sigh, nod our heads and smile at the mother in selfless empathy, but deep down, deep-deep down, we imagine, if only for a moment, what the child is like from day to day, or what he will be like on the drive home...Don’t we? I think alot of us probably do. Just think, though...an addled, undeveloped mind in a cold, dark, drafty room with wooden benches and candel-crammed corners…..not to mention an alter strewn with chalice and cross, golden chain and shining cutlery……the quintessance of a Van Helsing safe house. To not expect the child-speak shouts of "LET ME OUT!" would be counterintuitive and careless. I could continue my deprecation of church decor for some minutes on, but the ceremony itself is far more interesting and strange. I think it best to head in that direction.

We eventually come to audience participation. This is the portion of the service where parents and other adult-types stand at the podium, while ceramic, crucified Jesus watches them from behind and up above. What they read aloud sounds like drunken Shakespeare and awkwardly bursts out of them like slightly sped-up batting cage machines, instead of flowing from them like, well, sober Shakespeare I suppose. They wrap up this annunciated anti-poetry by saying something to the effect of, “A reading from (instert name).” This is really the only moment in the entire service when the physiognomy of the children matches the physiognomy of everyone else. It’s a sort of puzzled look...perplexed even. Whether this is because the reader doesn't understand the material or because it's antiquated dialect forces the reader to audition for a Broadway production of King Arthur is a question that doesn't deserve any deep inquiry. After 10 or 15 minutes of what I will charitably describe as ghost stories, the priest...who, clad in a snow-white gown seems like a shaven, labotomized Gandalf, clears his throat a dozen or so times and reads what he calls “The Gospel of the Lord”. Everyone, children included, seem to prick up their ears just a bit more when the priest reads, probably because he at least makes it seem like what he’s reading can be allegorically applied to one thing or another in our lives. When he finishes the Gospel……which, I have to say, was a little violent, the choir cuts out the tongue and gouges out the eyes of music with a punchy little number about world renewal and forgiveness. When the bedlam subsides…reborn, brainwashed Gandalf comes back and reads something he’s prepared himself.....an essay jotted the night before or this very morning. His delivery is dry and daunting. The unsteady rhythm of his inane blathering leaves the children in a state of repressive desperation. The parents begin to observe the mutiny of concealed discomfort and covert fidgeting. A baby cries. A toddler lets a huff disguised as a sigh escape into the air-space surveiled and registered by her parent's radar.......ALL HEAVEN IS ABOUT TO BREAK LOOSE! The baby gets the hook from mom and undergoes the showy and conspicuous operation of fleeing the area so as not to interfere with the priest's watchwords and caveats. The toddler is whispered something by dad that I couldn't make out, but the look it drew lead me to believe it was a threat worth heeding; perhaps the vanishing of candy until she learns to behave. It's sort of like telling someone not to be afraid......Man, if only fear worked like that.

The priest’s essay seems to subtely suggest that everything we've done Monday through Saturday is somehow wrong and unworthy of the church. I remember having a very funny, albeit much too brief day dream in which everyone was forced to strip down and get blasted by a firehose previously blessed by the priest. They sanitize the sacrilege right outta ya'! The effect of this prison-treatment would make clean the unclean and, in turn, afford them entry. When the 'priest pitch' has ended, I take a look around and see with an inward feeling of admiration that most of the children have maintained. Like prisoners of war they've abided their plight with the knowledge that they may somehow breath the free air again.

We now come to my stupification. I get that parents feel they're doing their Catholic duty by dragging their kids to church and brainwashing them with religious fantasies....but "holy communion"? COME ON! It's like witnessing Pink Floyd's The Wall! Here kids.....a spoonful of sugar to help the faith go down. And the cadence! My GOD, the cadence! I'm sitting in my oak shuck attempting to stay these malevolent reveries in which the children turn to tiny prisoners marching to a stainless steel panel where stands an intimidating woman in a hair-net droppin' the slop on their trays with a "plop". And why it is that the "breaking of bread" isn't actually a BREAKING OF BREAD is beyond me. The "host wafer" is the result of a geared machine. It's manufactured. That's got "relationship with God" written all over it. When the children march back to their seats they seem solemn and, pardon this please....."uncomfortably numb". I'm so unbelievably tempted to saunter up to each and every youngster in the place and say, "Don't worry....10 to 15 years from now you'll be free to decide whether or not any of this makes a lick'a sense all on your own."

From here to the end I've seen the worst and I'm fit to burst with limitless bewilderment. Before this day, the last time I went to church of my own accord was 10 years prior. I was a fifteen-year-old know it all that didn't quite know - it - all. The fifteen year stretch of being alive had alot of unanswered questions; namely, "Why do I believe in this?" If you can ask yourself that question and give an answer that isn't at all lofty, trite, or well-traveled.....then "May the Lord be with you always!" But if you ask yourself that question, and come to the conclusion that this belief system was introduced to you at a time in your life when challenging a structured religion just wasn't in the cards.....and it just...stuck....you may want to slip on some introspective lenses and rethink the issue. You may be surprised how many rusted chains you can shake off with just the one key.

I myself am in a fixed state of confusion. I've been pushed and shoved. The smithereens of my faith have been slowly collected and suddenly scattered. I hope for illumination. I shy away from too penetrating an inquiry. I tease. I pray. I feel right. I get scared. I have doubts. I have a choice. I'm standing up and staring at the sky shouting, "I DON'T KNOW!!! OKAY!?" I've been given the bible and a church....a book and a building. I hear faith....the indefineable word that's said to be so powerful because it's indefineable. I'm confident and frightened. I feel like.....if I were to die right now, this very moment, and demanded an audience with God....should he exist.....and God asked me for an explanation in reference to my levity and lack of respect, I'd say, "I wasn't sold. If I'm to experience my eternity in a perpetual state of torment because I didn't buy the bit, then I'm not sure you're fit to be God of anything.....let alone ME!"

I wrote this because when I see a child in a church...all fancied up and kept quiet....I remember when I accompanied my mother to church in my youth. I was uncomfortable. I didn't understand. Then, all of a sudden I'm 13 getting confirmed. That doesn't even sound right. "CONFIRMED!" I see the monks and the despot again......"Yes. It's confirmed. He's one of us." It doesn't seem right. I can't help but hear this one song lyric I'm very fond of. It's by Modest Mouse.... a song called "Parting of the Sensory". The lyric reads, "This fits like clothes made out of wasps!"


This editorial was not written or discreetly designed to subvert any traditional family values, no matter how nonsensical or insane I find them. I simply endeavored to illustrate that perhaps Church is as inappropriate a place for children to be as Intro to Calculus……not because these places are dangerous, but because for one, there’s a time when reason and understanding plant their flag in the growing mind, and secondly because……maybe they don’t wanna learn Intro to Calc.

Theme song for this blog: "For Reverend Green" by, Animal Collective

If you got through that.......thanks for reading.

Talk to you soon ;)