Most of you may not be aware that in my wild younger days I was deeply involved in the Catholic church. It started innocently enough, playing violin in the choir on Sundays, an occasional youth group meeting. However, as the years passed, my problems got worse and worse. I began flirting with the idea of becoming a priest, ostensibly with the noble goal of reforming the organization from the inside (ah, the naiveté of youth). At my lowest point I found myself teaching a Sunday school class. It was an ugly period in my life that I’m not proud of.
At some point during my whole ‘experimenting with Jesus’ phase, I got myself appointed to read from the lectern during Sunday masses. Owing to my relatively young age and the fact that I had passable public speaking skills, I was asked to be one of the readers during the Good Friday Passion service. Unlike usual masses where the priest reads the gospel passages in their entirety, the Passion service has three readers: the priest who reads the words spoken by Jesus, another reader who reads the words spoken by anyone else, and a third who acts as narrator.
As I was standing at the lectern, reading the narrative bits as clearly and distinctly as I could, I remember being overcome with a deep feeling of dissatisfaction at the story. Where I had previously felt awed and humbled in the face of the story of ultimate selfless sacrifice, I instead was left with a familiar and unpleasant taste in my mouth. The more of the words I spoke, the stronger that taste became. No matter how I tried to find the beauty and majesty I had previously found abundant in the tale of a god humbling itself before its own creation in order to build a path to salvation, for some reason I just couldn’t conjure that feeling of sorrow and gratitude. … Continue Reading
Crommunist 