Friday, March 14, 2008

Dunkin Donuts Dilemna

I flared up in anger I haven’t felt in a while the other night as I sat across a table from an old friend I haven’t seen in years. Jenna kidnapped me from my studying to take me to Dunkin Donuts, and we ran into a group of her friends from a Bible Study she attends at a college down the street from ours. One of her new Bible study friends is an old friend of mine, Jesse. His mother was the secretary at the CMA, and he and I had gone through many years of Sunday school and youth group together. I’ve only seen him a few times since I left my church 5 years ago.
“So where do you go to church now?” he asked me.
“I don’t.” I looked at the table. “I haven’t gone back.” I looked at the floor. I wanted to just blow it off, but you can’t really do that with people like Jesse.
“Well,” he said, with that sick, holier-than-thou smile his father used to wear every goddamn day, “we’ll just have to work on you, won’t we?”
Jenna, in her oh-so-helpful-way, responded, “I’m already working on her. We’ll get her back.” I’m sitting right there, right fucking there the whole time. Bataboo, batabang, I’ve become these good little Christian college students’ project. They must fix me, because I need to be won back to the Lord since I’ve left “the fellowship.”
I got back to my dorm room an hour later, fuming. I vented to my roommate and just about threw my computer through a window. Nothing can excite the rage I try so hard to keep under control like someone pushing me towards church for righteousness sake.
I find that if that’s what I need to be righteous, I’d rather not be, thank you very much. It's so unfulfilling. I'd rather just have something broken, but honest, than this fake holiness and faith in an institution that's clothing the nakedness of what real faith is.
Jesse wants to take me out for coffee again so we can talk and catch up. I feel like I'm going to pestered the entire time with invitations to church events. Do I go and humor him? Do I go and try, for the thousandth time, to explain my situation: the abuse, the ugliness, the hypocracy, the damage? Or do I just forget about it, like I've been doing for so many years now, and get on with my life?

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