To church or not to,,,

So it's Monday again but at least it's a holiday! Presidents day 2012, yahoo! I have a feeling if our founding fathers had any inkling of what a fucking great big mess our current world leaders have dragged us into, they would be turning over in their graves.

My parents just left after a weekend visit. They are wonderful people but drive me absolutely crazy in about zero point seven seconds. I really must learn to be more patient. The thing is that we could not be any more different. I would swear that I had been switched at birth and if it were not for the fact that I look to much like them to question the matter, I would have demanded some type of genetic testing a long time ago! Let's just say that I'm about as far left as you can get, I hate rules, regulations or being told what to do by anyone in general ,especially by the fat old white man. Which unfortunately is the majority of those making decisions for the rest of us. I am the epitome of all that is unconventional. Mom and Dad on the other hand are some what conservative. They used to be democrats but somewhere along the way they crossed over to the dark side and before I knew it my dad was listening to Rush Limbaugh, whom I utterly detest, and they were both voting for Bush a super sore spot for me, especially for the second term. I'm still harboring just a tiny bit of resentment. I will get over it. I have to because I love them. I know they are always thinking of me and doing sweet things for me and my son. I do wish that they lived closer at times especially when my son was smaller. It's probably a good thing now that he is a teenager, nearly a man by legal standards and a senior in high school, that they can't just stop in whenever the want. We have to grandparent proof the house every time they visit.

I am sort of the original bad girl of the family. The only girl on my dads side of the family and the oldest. I sort of paved the way for the rest of them. I was the first one to get married and the first one to get divorced, twice for that matter. I was the first to move away from the area and the only one of us who does not live in the state of Pennslvania. I was the only one to live in another country for an extended period of time or date people from other cultures and religions, a fact that drove my mother absolutly crazy. The fact that I'm not religeous at all drives her even more crazy. I am of the opinion that religion is the downfall of society and in short is just another version of organized crime. I grew up going to church every Sunday and for the most part as a young child I remember thinking it was pretty fun. Then when day I actually started paying attention to what the preacher was saying and I felt nothing but curious nagging doubt. No deep strirring of my spirit at all not even a little bit. I remember just sitting there feeling judged with the rest of the so called sinners, asking for forgiveness so I get to go to heaven when all of a sudden it dawned on me that this was all a bunch of b.s., and I was never going to believe it. I was probably about 10 at the time. Needless to say I continued going till I was about 18, mainly because my mother made me. As soon as I was old enough to make my own decisions on this subject I stoped going, it just did not feel right to me. That is not to say I do not believe in God, it's just that the and I do not like the fear tactics that religion uses to control people, just like the mob and just like the government. It's all about the money.

When I had a child of my own the question arised, do we take him to church. My ex-husband who is british was never much of a church person so we would go occaisionally. After we got divorced when my son was still in elementary school he asked me one day "Hey Mommy, what religion are we?" Mommy obviously had some explaining to do. So I told him I was raised as a christian but that there were many different kinds of religion world wide and that there is good and bad in all of them, then asked him if he would like to go to church and see what it was all about. He said he would so I took him to a few different variations of christian based churches. He decided after about five times that it was very boring and that he did not really want to get up that early on his weekends. Over the years however I did take it upon myself to educate him to the customs and beliefs of as many different religions I could. I feel that it is so important to understand our world nieghbors and their convictions as long as they are not trying to persuade me to see things their way. My son is now 17 and has a very worldly wisdom about him that makes me so proud. I have raised a true, compassionate, citizen of the world for which I am extremely proud of.