After Sunday School, Momma would either take me home, or we would have to spend, what seemed like an eternity in church. If you ever had to spend any time at all in church, you know how boring it can be for a kid. I spent church time drawing all over the Kids Bulletin, drawing mustaches on faces and playing tic-tac-toe. I tried to slump down in the pew so nobody would notice if I wasn't kneeling for confession, or standing to sing. Gramma wouldn't let me get away with that though.
Usually every-other Sunday we went for Communion. Everyone lined up to get the "Body of Christ" and "The Blood of Christ". I was to young for communion then, but I went up to kneel like everyone else. The pastor would touch my head and say something like, "Linnea the Lord Blesses you and Keeps you," then he would go on down the line, "Bobby, the Lord Blesses you and Keeps you,". Then momma would get the wine she said tasted just like cough syrup, and the bread that tasted kinda like a vanilla wafer without the vanilla. I always asked about some church thing about every time I went.
"Why do you have to get the bread and wine?"
"What does 'Hosanna in the highest' mean?"
But nothing really ever made that much sense to me.
All the worship, the blessings, the reminders of God's grace were completely lost on me.
As I grew up, I really could have benefited from a better understanding of faith, or an understanding of reality. There was no helping this, there is no way that anyone could have explained these things in a way I could understand. Like Christian beliefs, I had some pretty confusing realities flung at me.
When I was about 8 years old, my dad went on vacation for a year. I had to go live at my Gramma and Grampa's house for a while because Mom was always working late. It was a very comfortable and loving environment. Gramma and Grampa took good care of my brother and sister and I.
But I was a very depressed kid. I didn't know it then of course. I felt sick and tired every day.
I missed being home and all of my familiar things, I missed having friends, and I missed my Mom.
I didn't know why things had to happen this way. I knew how they had happened, which was not an easy burden for a kid like that to bear. But, I didn't know why the Lord would choose to punish me by having me born into this family that was being torn apart. Why did I have to know so much sadness and not my brother or sister, or my friends at school?
I felt so anxious, and sad, and nauseous and restless. I didn't know what was happening to me.
My Grampa used to watch the Buffalo news every night, and there was always a story about AIDS or Cancer killing children. I didn't know how you could catch these things, but I knew that they could kill you, I could catch something.
Because I felt so bad all of the time, I thought that I might have one thing or another. I became convinced that I was going to die. I didn't see any connection between all the stress I was under and the pain I felt. My heart would skip a beat or I would feel like I stopped breathing in my sleep. I would think about My Little Pony, to distract myself with good thoughts. But when I felt like I was at the end of my rope I would pray to the Lord.
I remembered,
"Linnea, the Lord Blesses and Keeps you."
I remembered The Lord's Prayer, and to pray for our sins to be forgiven, for the ultimate goal of being taken to heaven.
I would beg the Lord to please spare my life. I would pray that if I had to die, that I would please go to Heaven, and if there were no other option than death, that he would please not let my Mom and my Gramma be sad forever. I was more upset with the thought of Mom being sad and alone, than I was with the thought of losing my life. If I wasn't already crying at this point I would be when I thought of everyone having to go to my funeral.
I never told anyone how I felt, not back then, not now. I felt this way for a year, and was haunted by the feelings for so much longer. Eventually the feeling lifted. I can't quite remember how. It makes me feel really ungrateful that I would take the feeling of relief for granted. Obviously, I realized that either the Lord had come through for me, or there was nothing really wrong in the first place. It was kind of a combination I suppose. I would feel like I would have to pray sometimes in exchange for keeping me well. But as time went on and I felt confident that I was okay, I stopped praying.

Church.

Some of my earliest memories were of the days when my momma used to take me to Sunday School. I remember going upstairs with all the other kids to sing songs with Miss Donna.
We would all gather around the piano, and recite the books of the Bible, "Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers....". Then we would struggle and bicker over which instruments we would play along with "Jesus Loves Me". Every kid in class wanted desperately to wail on the triangle like there was no tomorrow. I always ended up forfeiting my turn on the triangle to bang the empty Country Crock butter tubs, or the sticks that you smack together (To avoid the younger or more annoying kids from having screaming tantrums).

Miss Donna and the kids would totally jam for like 30 seconds on this song:
"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,
little ones to him belong, they are weak but he is strong..."

After that we would go sit down and get a Bible lesson from a pamphlet about doubting Thomas, or stories of Jesus riding into the city or walking on water. We would do things like cut out paper fishes and loaves and write what we were thankful for. Usually I was thankful for my momma or our cat Raisin. At the end of class we would say "The Lord's Prayer".

While we said the prayer we had to close our eyes, bow our heads and clasp our hands. I didn't understand at the time what these gestures meant. At that point of my childhood I was still kind of afraid of closing my eyes. Every time I took a bath and momma had to pour water over my head to wash the shampoo out of my hair, I always pictured images like hooded phantoms spiriting me away to their dark land and I would never see momma or Raisin or Mickey again.
I have no idea where I could have gotten these ideas.
So when it came time to bow my head for prayer I got very anxious, and wished that prayer was oooh so much shorter. When Miss Donna got to the part about "thy Kingdom come" I always pictured a dark starless night and extremely spooky medieval castle with the battlements on fire. "Give us this day our daily bread," put a much nicer image in my head, thank the Lord for that, but that fleeting image was quickly smashed when trespasses were mentioned.
Trespasses, I had learned in Sunday school, were all of my sins, I was really a pretty good kid at that age but there were those rare occasions I pulled Bobby's hair, or punched him. I thought about those old Loony Toon cartoons where the devil would sit on a characters shoulder and tell him to do bad things. If the character did end up ignoring the angel on the other shoulder you would know by the end of the cartoon where he would end up.
This is kind of how my concept of heaven and hell was formed. Not by what was taught in Sunday school, but cartoons and stuff I saw on TV. I was just a kid you can't blame me. All that is hard to follow when you are kid. ("So you're trying to tell me there is a Father, Son and Holy Ghost--a three-in-one combo.")
Forgive us our trespasses was kind of heavy. I was asking God to forgive me for things I had done that might land me in hell. If I had died a moment before I was forgiven I might have gone to hell.
So as "The Lord's Prayer" goes on, it says "forgive those who trespass against us",
(not if they don't deserve it, was and still kind of is my philosophy.)
and as it goes on: "deliver us from evil," which was probably the worst part.
Just think of it, Evil is always out to get not only me but my entire Sunday School class and Miss Donna and everyone else. Hopefully the praying kept the Evil away.
Eventually praying would be too much for me and I would open my eyes and see everyone else praying. It seemed that if Evil or Phantoms didn't take them when they prayed, then I was going to be okay. I learned that it really didn't matter if I opened my eyes or not. Nobody noticed if I was praying because everyone else was. Sure my teacher told me it was disrespectful not to be humble while calling up God. But she didn't know, she couldn't have known. God probably knew, but I didn't care, there was no way I was gonna be put through that every Sunday.
I really didn't feel that there was anyone listening anyway.
It was just so bizarre to me, the act of praying. I would recite a bunch of words I didn't understand, (hallowed be thy name) to a being I understood even less, some kind of medieval, Middle Eastern overlord with, like a beard or something. My spiritual well being depended on this crazy God guy. I was being taught to feel shame for my actions, and feel happy about praising something I could not understand.

"The B-I-B-L-E
Yes, that's the book for me.
I stand alone on the word of God,
The B-I-B-L-E."

"The Doxology"

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen

When I think back on 2006,
I'll remember all of those moments of sadness, despair, loss and shame,
I'll remember all of my personal failures, embarrassing mistakes, and bad choices.
But most of all, I'll remember how my friends were always there...

..to laugh at me behind my back.

Happy New Year 2007!

Just kidding!
(Not about the Happy New Year part.)
By all means, have a fucking fantastic year.

But seriously..
2006 went down like bitter medicine.
Not even, probably more like magic Hitler potion.
That turned me evil, and messed shit up.

New Years Resolution: Ther-a-pyyy!!!