This Scary Season

This scary season


I think I'm getting a handle
on why this time of year
makes me want to hide somewhere
until it's all over.

Hide in bed
with several blankets over my head.
Pretending that there is no December.
Or Christmas.

Religion, let's face it divisive.
That's what it's all about.
Separating the wheat from the chaff.
With me being the chaff.

Christianity especially.
Jesus' job on earth was to select the "true believers"
and take them to heaven
so that they would be safe
when God killed off the rest of us.

The fact that that didn't happen
doesn't seem to signify
with those who choose to continue
to reject, discriminate, and abuse
those of us who try
to look life in the face
and ask questions.

So somehow,
being one of the "rest of us"
at this time of year
makes me a bit apprehensive
when the believers start
one of their orgies of "worship".

For most of recorded human history
being an "atheist" was a capital offense.
That means that the church would hunt down
and kill guys like me.
Not because I don't recognize
the importance of the spiritual
in the human heart.
But because I'm not willing
to let the church, any church,
stand between me
and my own relationship with the unknown.

So while all the "good" folks
are getting drunk
on their goodness, nobility,
and assuring their reservations
in the grand hotel of heaven,

I have to watch out
for their rapturously abandoned Hummers
jumping the curb
of basic human social civility
and sending me to everlasting
3rd, 4th, and 5th degree or more burns.

So it makes me nervous.
At the same time insisting
that I remain cheerful and bright.
This is not easy.

Not easy to keep the anger,
fear, and other ugly internal
fight or flight responses
from manifesting themselves
in counterproductive ways.

Doug Palmer December 2008
[A classic Christmas Rant--Glenn]