Just stories

Goddamn it, the brain got stuck thinking about religion again today. I was walking home from my volunteer job this morning and got to pondering the nature of charity, when suddenly Mohammad, Vishnu, Moses and all the rest kicked off a parade through my frontal lobe. Shouts of namaste, amen, shalom and probably some trumpets sounded. Dear Buddha, not this again!

I grew up in a Christian household and went to plenty of church and youth group activities, which seemed normal for a long time to me. That's what we did, that's what it felt like everyone did. I liked to joke around within my limits, but still worried about being respectful, though I guess not entirely. I played Zacchaeus in a skit for our congregation once, and when I jumped out of the tree (acted out brilliantly by my friend Jim), I knocked off my wig to reveal me wearing a mohawk skullcap beneath it. That decision proved to be unpopular but I still maintain it was funny.

But the thing is that even as a kid, you can tell everybody's playing a game with this shit. I could hear the congregants sniping behind each other's backs. At the same time, I could also see how much some other people needed that community, and that's what I still spend so much time sitting on. Religion is poisonous and divisive but can be enormously healing too. It's a thing I respect but don't support, which is the kind of statement you dwell on with a tequila bottle until the sun comes up.

What you need to know about god is this: it's all just stories. People learn from parables, and those should be your guiding lights. Aesop had it right, and more importantly, had an editor. The bible has some nice sagas, but they sure are surrounded by a ton of who begat whom as well as a lot of inaccurate bullshit about how livestock behave. You're safer trusting what's true to you and the tales you love. There's your way forward: what you already know. 

The Last Temptation of Christ is a beautiful novel that outlines much of the life of Jesus I grew up on, but the tangential bit that always stuck with me is when Jesus implores Judas to betray him. In this narrative, only Judas is brave enough to do so consciously and both Jesus and Judas know it. So our beloved bastard does what he has to do, and we've all damned him to an eternity of flames for it. Because that's how the story had to go.

Oh look, here comes that parade again.