Just Practicing

I need to make one thing crystal clear. Me being here, alone, in St John's Evangelist Church has absolutely nothing to do with religion. Or prayer. Or Jesus. Or any other mystical, magical goddamn thing.

It has everything to do with life.

I mean, it's Tuesday afternoon in the middle of January. Who the hell goes to church on Tuesday?

I spent a lot of time here as a kid. Well, maybe not a lot, but what time I did spend here was compulsory. Parental edict.

I was never impressed with the place or the people. There is enough hypocrisy in the world without going out of the way to concentrate it in one place one day a week for an hour or so.

Seemed like a dangerous concept to me.

The building should have exploded. All those people pretending to be one thing, revealed for who they truly are, in the presence of God, seems to me there should have been some kind of reckoning.

But there wasn't. Maybe that reality sowed the seeds of cynicism in my twisted mind towards religion.

It is dark today. Raining and cold. This suits me fine. I don't think I could handle sunshine glorified through stained glass trying to make its way into my soul.

As long as no well intentioned priest makes his way into my reverie, I should be all right.

Maybe not all right. Its going to take a lot more than the House of God to make my life all right. As that thought crosses my mind, I realize it is a pretty heavy statement.

I don't have it that bad. Life piled up on me and backed me into corners I never planned on visiting, but I did end up with a family, a home, a job. Precious commodities in this day and age.

Some sort of health. I'm not incapacitated, I am not dead.

What I am is empty. I could never have predicted the weight that empty can carry.

Slowly, as you make your way through life, your insides get scooped out, little by little. Empty takes up the space and somehow manages to keep you upright and moving.

When I talk to people, it is a horror movie for me. Obscene. I cannot believe the stuff that comes out of their mouths and I have to wonder how their minds function. Do they believe the trash they are putting out there, do they think I believe the bullshit or do they just chalk it up to another grand performance?

Jobspeak, the blatant lies that float the working world. My boss lies to me and I to him. The company lies in their "mission statement" and exploits the customers to greater profits that do not trickle down to the working stiff.

Advertisements. Everything is an advertisement today. Selling you overpriced shit you don't need until they make you think you need it.

The world didn't used to feel this small. There was room to maneuver. There appeared to be room to maneuver, anyway.

I guess it is all about appearances. Smoke and mirrors. If I knew the truth about life early on, I might have.............actually I don't have a fucking clue what I would have done.

I suspected the bullshit. It is in your gut to look at your parents and the world they created and stagger back in incredulity.

Somehow that sensor gets turned off.

I have St John's today. Dark, peace, the weird vibe of hope a church puts out even as your logical mind rebels against it. The rebellion gets weaker as the years pile on.

I would be a hypocrite to pray. Or to ask Jesus for an answer. That is not what I am here for.

I think maybe I am looking for communion, some sort of communion of the spirit. A feeling of genuineness that can grow into hope.

Something to make me believe my life as I created it is not wasted, that I can rescue it, turn it around and walk into, even at this late stage, the life that should have been.

Something to fill the empty.