One Man's Ceiling is Another Man's Floor

“Dear Corinthians, how are you?  I am fine. Come down to Rome sometime.”

-Dave Thomas’ late night priest character from SCTV adlibbing one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians when his Bible accidentally closes on live TV.

An Okalahoma teenager and his friend were drinking.  They got in a pickup and for some reason the driver swerved off the road and hit a tree, ejecting his friend who died.  Tragically commonplace.  The blood alcohol level in the driver was 0.07 percent, just under the legal limit for an adult, but far above the legal limit for a 16-year-old which is 0.00.

            He pled guilty and was sentenced to 4 years to life with parole.  But the judge said he didn’t have to go to prison if he graduated from high school, spoke about the evils of drug and alcohol use/abuse, took periodic drug tests, and oh yes, went to church every Sunday for 10 years.

I was raised Catholic.  It was pretty much expected that I to go to mass every Sunday until 18 or so.  I don’t remember the day my parents actually said I didn’t have to go any more, or if they ever did, but I do remember how much I grew to dislike church.  To me mass (church) was the same thing every week, literally, the exact same thing.  We would repeat prayers precisely as we said them the previous week, and the week before, and the week before ad nauseam.  Give me a few minutes and I could probably remember the Profession of Faith.  The priest would get up and repeat what he had probably said a thousand times, word for word before that morning, and then deliver (what was to me) an uninspiring sermon, most of which was reciting long passages from the Bible, Paul’s letters to Corinthians and such; I don’t remember a single point from a single one. 

I would watch the clock, daydream, flip through the hymn book or the missalette; anything to make the time go by. It got to the point for me that I would put off going until the final service of the weekend, 8:00 PM Sunday night, so I could sit in my dad’s car in the darkened parking lot where I would listen to the radio instead of going in.  I feel bad about that now with my parents gone and all, but I can’t change it.

Maybe it was and undiagnosed ADD, maybe the priests were just going through the motions, maybe I was lazy, but I feel I got absolutely nothing from the hours I spent in a church pew.  I was curious about God and faith though.  I joined the Christian group Campus Life in high school, maybe at first to see if I could meet girls rather than to build a strong faith, but I did show up and I did listen.  But my constant questions to the poor, under-prepared counselors about why they believe and how they knew, and my obvious dissatisfaction with their answers left both of us frustrated and eager to move on.  I quit after awhile, leaving both faith and those girls I wanted to meet behind.

There are people I love and respect for whom church is the greatest joy of their week, their lives.  I look at them and I get a little jealous.  What did they see that I didn’t?  Were the people working at their church better at conveying the message than those at mine?  Did/do I not have the intellectual chops to “get it?”  Why does something that brings utter happiness to them bring only boredom and frustration to me?  Why is their reward my punishment?

Over the years I’ve tried to find some form of faith that works for me.  I’ve prayed, I’ve talked to some of those loved and respected people from the previous paragraph, and I’ve read.  But I guess I’m still the kid sitting in his father’s car behind Sacred Heart Church on Clinton and Cedar in Fresno, listening to ELO or Led Zeppelin, waiting until it’s time to go home.