Comedian Jim Gaffigan has the line, “I do want everyone to feel comfortable, that’s why I’d like to talk to you about Jesus.”
Not to be outdone, George Carlin doesn’t mince words on the subject.
Queuing the way back machine to my youth and the subject. My dad was raised strict Catholic, went to Catholic schools and was a lector at the local church wherever we were residing at the time. With that, it was tradition for the family to hit mass every Sunday. They dragged me to catechism (literally, one of the memories of my youth was crying my ass off as I was being dragged into a room of other kids). My brother was an altar boy and while I was either drifting off to day dream world when it went down or other, but the story goes that my brother was holding a lighted candle and just about burned the person’s hair standing in front of him if it weren’t for someone interjecting at the last minute.
As we grew older, my parents left it to ourselves in attending. I eventually became an annual attender. Observations at that point:
- What is with all the kneeling as most masses have quite a bit of elders?
- There was always that family that would bolt after communion and that was frowned upon.
- The awkward time after mass when everyone would hit the donuts/coffee in the back room.
- My dad took his lecturing seriously as you would hear him practicing around the house quite a bit.
- My mom was going to join the church choir but us kids talked her out of if (we are either going to heaven or hell for that action but my mom was tone deaf).
I currently live across the street from a Lutheran church and couldn’t ask for better neighbors than the pastor and his wife. She can belt out “I’ll fly away” better than the Gillian Welch/Alison Krauss’ version. They have helped me out from time to time and vice-versa so one Sunday morning I walked across the street and attended a mass. What is the difference between Lutheran and Catholic? I had to look it up but not much. My friend Greg calls Lutheran “Catholic-light” and that rings true as there is no kneeling in the Lutheran world, attendees have tumblers of coffee in tow within the pews, one of the ushers regularly wore a Packers hoodie and instead of the Catholic “peace be with you” hand shake tradition where folks more or less shake hands of the people directly around them, the Lutherans will walk around the place to shake anyone and everyone’s hand (I stay at home base during this time). I’m not looking for salvation, it’s just a nice peaceful hour of reflection and giving thanks, no more, no less. Kind of like what we do when we fish, a lot of reflection time while waiting for the fish and giving thanks when the whopper hits your hook. The religion of Tim I guess is to be cool to your fellow brother. If they are assholes, ignore them and move on.
Funny I got one of my rare A’s in college taking a religion class and had never gotten so lucky on guessing on some of the quizzes. The gods were shining on me that semester, I guess.
Is there a heaven/hell, doubtful but someone created these funky bodies we maintain with all the parts.
If there is a higher power looking down, as the song goes, "Thank you, Lord, for thinkin' 'bout me, I'm alive and doin' fine. Woo!"
Trail Head
