Rituals

When I was little, if I had a problem, I would ask god to fix it. I would pray when I needed help, when I was happy, when I wanted world peace, when someone died and even when I wanted a VCR. When I got older, I started to feel more that a father figure would never allow the horrible things to happen with no intervention, and would never indiscriminately dislike certain groups of people because of the way they were born. I also came to realize that I could not love myself and god at the same time--it simply didn't work. I eventually concluded that the idea of an all knowing father figure didn't make sense. But I can't shake the comfort I get from singing hymns and even praying.

Every Christmas eve I am a little forlorn because I no longer get to go to church to sing. The Christmas eve service at the church I grew up in was always involved a ton of singing and candles. Every year when we get close to Christmas, I can't help shake the feeling that it's time to go to church--even though I haven't been in 7 years. Sure, I could go and sing even though I don't believe in the things I'm singing about, but 1. Churches always find a new way to annoy me every time I go in 2. My husband will not set foot in a church for any reason and 3. If I went with my mother or mother-in-law, they might get the idea that I want to, or at least should, go to church on a regular basis.

I have no desire to go to church on a regular basis or be pressured to go on a regular basis. Every time I go to a church, I find a new reason to be uncomfortable there. Of course, lately the only reason I've been going to churches is for funerals, and those are naturally a little uncomfortable. However, I've been to a few funeral services where they took a naturally uncomfortable situation and turned it into the kind of uncomfortable you only feel when doctors stick their fingers in special places. At both my grandmother's and great grandmother's funeral they prayed the prayer of acceptance, which basically says "you all suck and will go to hell if you don't become God's submissive right now!" Okay, so it doesn't directly say that, but they do go on and on about how the deceased has nothing to worry about because they had god in their hearts and then they ask you to ask God into your heart. As someone who does not believe in God, I automatically hear "Since Grandma had God in her heart, she went to heaven, but since you refuse to, Hillary, you're kind of fucked regardless of the fact that you are an angry human being who constantly feels like a worthless piece of crap if you believe in God and the bible."

Even with all this hostility toward the church and hatred for funeral services, I still pray my little heart out every time someone dies. A couple of years ago, I used to say that it was because "Even if I don't believe in God, *if* there is a heaven, grandma deserves to go there, and praying could help the process." I think this is part of my reasoning for praying at funerals or when someone is in the hospital. Mostly, however, I think it comforts me. I think that I pray because when I was 6 and didn't know what to do, I would pray and it helped me feel better. It still helps now even though I know that a prayer is just a bunch of thoughts in my head that no magic person in the sky is going to hear and take care of. Even though I know nothing is going to happen, I feel comfort in just hearing and repeating the words in my head, and, yes, I know this is ridiculous. However, if thinking a few pretty setences in my head or singing a few words about a baby in a manger can help calm me down in times of stress, I could think of worse things I could be doing.