Why I Turned in my Membership Card

During the early to mid/late 1990's, I was a card carrying extreme Christian.  I was a bible thumping, soul wrenching, altar seeking born again believe in Christ kind of Christian.

That statement is far away from who I am now. 

Around 1995, I began to have serious doubts about my faith.  The quick and dirty statement about faith is that you have to have faith to have faith.  I can't live like that.  I need to ground my faith in something.  I need to have something concrete that I can stick my faith against.  

For a few years, until the fall of 1997, I played out the part of a card carrying Christian.  I still went to church on Sundays, but I did not practice that faith at home.  I had no more faith.

I had lost Jesus.  I had lost faith.  And neither one of them are hiding behind the couch.

**insert the small print here:  this blog entry has nothing to do with Sean's spiritual travel.  Sean has come to his own conclusions about Christianity that in no way has been influenced by my choices**

**insert even smaller print here:  these are my opinions.   I do not re-read my blog posts once they have been written.  In a way the posts where I purge and get junk off of my chest are like vomit.  I don't look at my vomit after I have spewed it.  I just flush.  This post is similar.  Therefore, if this post comes across crass or rude or...or... OR!  It is not intentional.  I do not edit my work and I will not refine how it is written, even though it may sound offensive.**

I had lost faith.

Faith, like I have heard so many Christians say, is just that:  faith.  Believe or don't believe.  That isn't me.  My mind doesn't work that way.  

A Christian as well can not tell me to turn to the bible for the answer.  I don't believe the bible. As a matter of fact, I never did.  I think that is one of the hardest parts of my studies when I was in Bible College.  I remember sitting in class feeling very dumb-founded that there were people out there - intelligent people - who actually believed that some dude named Abram lived until he was 175 years old.  Even more-so, this old man got his wife pregnant when she was 90 years old! 

Even if during the time of the pentateuch the Babylonians followed the Ethiopian calendar, Abraham was still older than the median age span for that era.  Even with all of the science and medical advancements in the new millennium, 175 is not a "normal" age for a person to reach.

Ok, I digressed.  This post is going to be full of digressions... and perhaps a spice of bitterness, which maybe 90% of is not intentional, but 10% of it is.. (read small print disclaimers)

So, why do I have no faith, no bible and no belief in Christ?

That is a long answer.  Some people will identify with my answer, others, who are perhaps the full blown card carrying christian, will not understand my answers.  Those people will remind me of the old me:  the one who was trying so hard to have faith without faith and who was believing for the sake of believing, without investigating.

My answer can be brought to you, oh faithful reader (for I am sure it is just my cousins who now read this blog...Martijn - I haven't forgotten about your airplane request, I am having trouble with the site) in a series of blog posts.

Not in order of how they appear:

1. midrash - what is it and why in my very humble opinion has the new testament been interpreted incorrectly  (hah!  a person who dropped out of bible college after 2 years is going to refute the learned's - note sarcasm - this is just my opinion from my minute amount of reading that I have done on the subject)
2. the church and how it threw my failings into my face and made me feel like I needed to be an addict to the altar call
3. the people of the church:  why do they think they have all the love in the world?
4. what my opinion is of Jesus and the bible

yah, and there might be sub points in between these and most likely there will be ranting and ravings and ramblings that will make no sense to anyone but to me.  But, who the fuck cares?  I need to get this out there - written down, for it is the only way that I can burn the friggin' couch, just in case Jesus decides to try and hide behind there again.

More to follow.

And now I must rinse.

CG 

Whoa

So, today I was on the c-train, heading west.

Suddenly, I heard a train screach to a halt. Outside I could hear a crowd of people scream "No!", "Stop!". There were also generic screams of horror and screams of shock. Almost concurrent with this, our train lurched suddenly to a stand-still.

Without even thinking everyone on the train I was on got up and rushed to the window. On the 8th avenue platform (the one that heads east) people were either frozen with panic, or trying desperately to get off of the train platform.

A pedestrian had been hit by the C-Train.

From our front row seats, we were able to see the police, firemen, paramedics and c-train officials rush to the scene of the accident.

It was horrifying.

About 20 minutes later, the officials were able to let our c-train go past the scene of the accident, where we were dropped off at the last station for downtown and told that the c-train was out of service.

From there, I had to walk back into the downtown core and I walked past the now taped off c-train platform. On the platform, I passed by a body that was covered in a yellow tarp.

A dead body.

I walked past people who were sobbing, while police took their statements.

And I realized, yet again, how fuckin' fragile we are.

Nutella

I did a blog post in early 2007 about the public bathrooms in my office building.  As you may recall, my post was about the elastic collection that was someone was compiling on one of the toilet tanks in the bathroom.

Slowly, this elastic collection vanished and there were no more mysteries afoot in our public bathroom.

Until today.

Today I noticed in the feminine hygienic disposal bin a jar of nutella.  

This left me pondering:  why does someone take a jar of nutella with them into the bathroom?  Furthermore, why do they dispose of said jar in the disposal bin that is situated in the stall?  Why not toss the jar out in the main bathroom bin, or, better yet, in the office kitchen?

My mind then pictured someone sitting on the toilet, with their pants around their ankles, and their fingers in the jar of nutella, eating the chocolate gooey substance straight from the jar!

Of course, then my mind went back into its comfortable groove in the gutter and pictured other, um, unusual nutella usage options . . . ah, yeah, I won't go into those thoughts . . . just let your mind snuggle up to mine in the gutter and you'll get the idea.

I so wish I could put up a webcam in this bathroom stall to see what else goes on in there!

In other news, an old friend of mine, whom I reconnected with on facebook, has asked me why I have left the church, or, as I so very bluntly put it, "turned in my membership card."  As her question is not easily answered, I have mulled over my answer for well over a month.  I think I am almost ready to put up that post.

Stay tuned for more about the nutella, or about my lack of christianity!

Toodles,

CG 

More about Oliver

So, our latest addition, Oliver is doing well.

For all those who are interested, Oliver is a white devonshire rex. You can read more about them here.

We got Oliver through acquaintances of ours, who can no longer keep him, due to various reasons. We have decided to not change his name, as he really is an Oliver... I wonder if our human friend Oliver will appreciate *that*!

As a cat whisperer in training, Sean & I have been reading up on how to integrate Oliver into our family. When we first brought Eddie into our house, we followed a similar routine, but Eddie was only a teen cat and the integration was over in a blink of an eye. Oliver, however, as a 3rd cat, needs to really get used to us, our boyz and everything else.

So, he has been living in our master bedroom since Saturday. Each night, one of us sleeps in the same room as Oliver, so we have been swapping rooms between the master bedroom and our guest bedroom. Since Saturday, Oliver and our own boyz (Josh & Eddie) have been getting to know each other. We are now at the point where they have met face to face and are not hissing any more... Soon, Sean & I will be able to sleep in the same bed! :-)

In other news, it is great that Sean is back from Toronto. He was able to squeeze in a day of touring - he even had dinner with our good friend Philbert, who now lives in the big TO.

I have been grounded for the past week from running & biking. I injured my hip (an old injury from when I was 5 has reared its ugly head) on my last run. So, now I am stuck with exercises, massages (painful ARTC massages) and with icing my hip everyday. Thank goodness it is freakin' hot, so the ice pack is welcomed!

Well, I had best go back to being a cat whisperer!

Toodles,
CG