Happy Zombie Jesus Day

Half a lifetime - or at least until I was old enough to actively protest - of going to church every Sunday and Wednesday certainly evokes a particular kind of guilt that can only result from programming.  But I thought that Meridith's posting to my MySpace page (the title of this entry should explain it all) was hilarious despite the "I'm going to hell" laughter it creates.  I never thought of the story of Jesus rising from the dead as being akin to my beloved zombie narratives but it quite clearly falls into this category.  Formerly dead guy with the strength to move a boulder proceeds henceforth to create a following of fellow zombies who sing songs in a building twice a week and - while they don't physically consume your brain - they certainly attempt to do so in other ways.  Very subtle, these zombies.  The knock on doors with sweet smiles and threaten you with hell and damnation, etc.  In all honesty, though, if heaven is populated with this bunch, what's the incentive to get there anyway?

I say this with some facetiousness, of course, so don't write to me to tell me you're offended.  For the third time in two weeks, however, I've had visitors at my door in the name of Easter.  Saturday it was the elderly churchies who meet at my neighbor's house twice per week and they're Jehovah's Crackpots, which I won't even pretend to understand.  A polite woman stood at my door to offer me literature and an invitation to her church because "Easter is such an important occasion we must all acknowledge and celebrate."  She said it like some kind of mantra, and all I could think about was "His name is Robert Paulson.  His name is Robert Paulson."  I'm sure this group aims at us because the neighbor knows that my hubby and I are "living in sin" (can you imagine - we have different last names, according to the postal carrier; this was apparently quite the scandal upon our arrival to the 'hood) and have occasional low-key parties but have tattooed, liquor-swilling, hot-rod driving, smoking attendees at said parties.  They don't even wave when they're out in the yard, and we're generally friendly with the others around us, even though the retired guy who smokes two packs a day and talks in a raspy, cliched New Jersey accent thinks Jamison is the worst guy in the world because I shovel our driveway when it snows.  Truth is, I like it and it's exercise, but New Jersey always hollers across the street to ask "where my husband is" and to tell him that "he can borrow my snow blower if he wants" - I can't borrow it, but my husband can.  I wonder if he thinks I should be in the kitchen and barefoot instead.  Ha.

Nevertheless, I don't celebrate Easter even in the pagan sense; vernal equinoxes are of no import to my aura, don't affect my chi energies, and since I don't generally believe in Christianity either, I can't see the point in being false about the whole matter.  My mother still goes to church regularly, and berates my father into attendance, and they asked us over for Easter dinner.  Dinner I can do; bunnies and eggs and Zombie Jesus I can do without.  Mom gave up quite some time ago in the quest to get me to attend church.  She still offers from time to time or tries to lure me with musical events or guilt me into how she has trouble going it alone (she has MS and walks with a cane), but I've noticed a significant drop in her discussions.  But last evening over dinner, we were talking politics, which I often try to do with my parents because they are woefully uninformed and grew up in 1950's America when the flag meant something and Republican did not equal being in bed with Satan and Saudi Arabia.  When I tell her I like Obama, she asks, "but doesn't it bother you that he was raised Muslim?"

I spit my drink back into my cup and looked at her wide-eyed; my response was, I couldn't possibly care less.  I told her that having leaders of this country who call themselves "Christian" sure as hell haven't done us any favors, so I don't see how that counts for shit.  Furthermore, I reminded her politely that the Koran was written centuries before the Bible and that in the grand scheme of religions in the world, Christianity is just a toddler when the rest of them are collecting social security.  And this is from a person with whom I share genetics.  What should bother us all far more is that despite the tenets of our beloved country that we have separation of church and state, we have never truly had such separation.  I want someone to explain to me why the leader of our country cannot worship in any way he/she sees fit?  Or not at all?  This does not alter this person's ability to be a good leader and international citizen.  In fact, a lack of religious ideals in the White House might actually help our global situation.  Normally these things don't bother me but W - Mr. Uber-Christian, Mr. Moral Values - wields these things like weapons.  He's actively participated in the stigma of Muslim, even though most muslims are peaceful people and what we should be afraid of are the fundamentalists.  My mother is evidence; she doesn't like W and votes democrat, but the poison of this point of view has still reached her fairly naive ears and registered.  I suspect she also gets some of this vitriol - of saying "muslim" like it's a dirty word - from her churchies, but it's out there and guess who actively promotes this belief?  But W doesn't tout that we should be afraid of fundamentalist anything - Christians, Mormons, whatever.  He won an election by pulling out beliefs on gay marriage at the 11th hour because, after all, "God hates fags" and this is an easy sell.  How people who claim any religious belief in the bible can regularly speak for God without fear of being turned to salt pillars escapes my logic.  If the bible I read is the same one - which it supposedly is, being God's Word and all, even though there's a store in Ft. Collins called the Bible Superstore that has so many different bibles that I have to wonder how anyone divines what God's Word may be at this point - then what I get is that God doesn't hate anyone.  IF and that's a big IF, being gay is a sin, and all sins are the same, then aren't we all truly in the same boat?  My favorite commandment is "thou shalt not kill" because we mete out capital punishment in the name of this one, but I think even in the original language, there is no specificity there.  The commandment doesn't say "don't kill other people"; it simply reads not to kill in general - wouldn't that include then anything that lives?  Plants, animals, spiders, bugs, the earth's atmosphere, our natural resources, etc?  We're all killers of something, and at the genocidal level.

Woof.  That was a tangent.  Don't even remember where I started.  It's Monday morning, the coffee is mud - can you tell by the intense verbosity of this entry - and it's the first day of a new term at DU.  I don't want to go; having the whole place out of my system this last week has provided many deep breaths and some great sleep.  I guess it's back to anxious tossing and turning again.