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The Bible for Sinners


Like many of my generation, I am ambivalent about organized religion.

That's because every time I've interacted with a church, it's turned into a horror show.

When I was six, I really, really, wanted to go to Sunday school like the rest of the kids in my class. My mother was against it, but agreed to drop me off at church every Sunday where I sat in my best second-hand Rose dress clutching my dollar for the collection plate. After church, she would be waiting in the car she bought for $50 which my grandfather had painted foam green.

I felt at once enveloped by the sense of community and ashamed because my own mother wouldn't take me to church. I believe this was the beginning of my feelings of being an outsider.

Years later, my mother told me that she didn't go to church because, after my father died, the church came to her expecting her to pay a tithe that she couldn't afford. Ironically, my mother is buried behind that church, along with my grandparents. I hope, once in a while, she gives Louth United Church the finger.

My other fond memory involved the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Big was Catholic, so we decided to raise the children in his faith. Each child was dutifully baptized and attended Catholic public school.

When Big decamped for the vagina of the White Witch of Bermuda, I was sent a bill for $7,500 for tuition. It seems because I was a non-Catholic and I was listed on the property roll as such, I was required to pay extra for my kids to attend school.

I found this incredibly insensitive.

I hauled the kids out of there and sent them to public school to be with the great unwashed.

I haven't darkened the door of a church since.

I still talk to God once in a while especially when I find myself in shit up to my eyeballs. I bypass Jesus since I've always been a girl who likes to go right to the top. Nothing happens, but I feel better.

So here is my tribute to organized religion on this beautiful Good Friday.

Cheers J.C.

You're one forgiving dude.

Hope you like it.






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