OT/OOC

I think what creeps me out most about the Catholic Church and a lot of the modern hymns of any Christian church is the continual reference to "Those that eat of my flesh and drink my blood shall have eternal life." And all I can think about is zombies or vampires. Eat my brains, and you're a zombie. Drink my blood and you are a vampire. Do both and you are vampiric zombie, and then I start thinking of the Sims 2, in which you can have zombie vampires... But really, if people started talking about eating flesh and rising from the dead in any other context, someone outside of that context is going to be yelling Cult! Heretic! Let's exorcise them and save their souls!

I end up with heebie jeebies.

The only thing that makes me feel worse is using the mantle of Christianity as an excuse to hate other people. To feel Righteous about I'm better than you are, because I believe this way and you don't. But Christ himself hung about with people deemed unworthy by the societal standards of his day. He prefered the company of the poor and the sick and the dying, to offer whatever comfort he could. He believed in the importance of *giving* and of *sacrifice* not in the gathering to his followers to money.

If I have a patron saint, it's St Francis di Assissi. He believed in taking care of all of God's creatures and in simple contemplative worship and a personal walk with God. When the order he founded became organized and tried to build a large church to "follow his ways and honor him" - he got angry because he didn't want anyone to *follow* him- but to find their own path to God and their own salvation through good works, and not whatever worked best for him, but for each individual and for God.

I do burn when I hear someone tell me what the proper Christian thing to do is, and whatever they say to me isn't Christian. I am not a mindless zombie. What is between my god and me is mine and God's. And in respect, I try very very hard not to tell anyone how they need to believe. Judgement is mine, sayeth the Lord, and then I feel guilty about being Righteous myself, and recognize that perhaps I'm being just as bad by judging what others do as Wrong.

But I'm as mad as Heaven, and I just don't want to take it any more.  ¶ 11:28 AM