Jesus Loves Me?

I don't go to church. I have a major mistrust of religion, especially the evangelical kind promising salvation. Today though, I went to church, and it really chapped my ass. I'm not sure why I can't stand it, maybe it's the fact that I feel obligated to go, even if, that might be stretching the truth a little. Today I went to church because I knew it would please my father. No doubt I have spent a significant part of my life trying to do things that would please my father, even when I would rather eat shit and die rather than please anyone else. In any case this was less about approval and more about just making the old man happy. It amazes me sometimes how much older my parents have become as they make their way slowly through middle age and into the AARP set. Really it isn't the they're old, it's more that I always get that feeling that nothing bad could happen to them if I was there. 

In any case church, organized religion, the reason I fear it like almost nothing else in my life (except for becoming old and gay and dying alone- I mean you've seen middle age gays right? I mind as well just end it all now). I didn't realize it until recently but I was raised in a fairly religious household. I can remember as a young child, my favorite book was a My First Bible and one of my favorite stories was about the three men who were burned as heretics but saved by God. My brother and sister and I were sent to a Lutheran school and Vacation Bible School, and we definitely were more than Christmas Christians. In my teenage years as the new age pop-Christian, "non-denominational", uber strict interpretationist movement reached it's Zenith I did the whole Bible Study, daily devotional thing. Don't get me wrong there isn't anything wrong with that. I still pray every day. I try to give thanks for my many blessings and more importantly I know God has saved my ass on many occasions where I used less than the best judgement. I could just never figure out the whole being religious and being a homo at the same time thing. *IF YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT I'VE SAID SO FAR YOU MAY WANT TO STOP READING* (Keep reading and you may learn something ;) ). 

Right about the same time I was joining many suburban white kids my age and getting-down pop style with Jesus, I was also coming to terms with the fact that I was different. This emotional battle that teenage boys and girls have with themselves if they happen to be gay is nothing but a triumph of the will. For me personally it was a struggle that lasted the better part of a decade and took an eating disorder and a strong relationship to alcohol to come to terms with. Subconsciously and not always subconsciously this has dictated most of what I have done in my life, including how i pray. As it turned out I turned my back on the church when it told me I didn't belong for they way God made me (and yes, I believe I was made this way but that is another blog entirely). 

I no longer pray conventionally and despite still identifying myself as a Lutheran, I do not attend a regular church service. I am weary of most clergy and anyone who claims to have intimate knowledge of the bible, even if that sometimes I happens to include my parents. 

In any case I was planning on getting really deep in this blog about the whole going to church thing and all the questions and self-discussions it raises when I do. In the end though I guess the only thing that is important is that me going to church yesterday, despite how angry it made me was that it made my dad happy. Who knows how far that might go in the near future...