A Confession

Image borrowed from Bing

a confession

When I was little I didn't care much for Sundays.
Nothing much on Sunday mornings cartoon-wise,
aside from Davey and Goliath...
which was a little too preachy and lacked the slapstick,
pie-in-the-face humor this kid required
of her animated entertainment.
It also meant that I had to get dressed up
and go to church.
I was a fidgety kid who was constantly feeding my nerves
and touching everything, so sitting still
in a hard wooden pew listening to a man
who looked he could be God's Uncle Bob was torture.

I never paid much attention to Father as he said Mass.
My wild imagination wandered elsewhere.
Hats, hairstyles, the way Mr. Davis
kept blessing himself and the way Mrs. Mangiotti's
feet looked like hams stuffed into her strappy shoes.
But mostly, I got lost in the details
of the stained glass windows.
Each beautifully colored window honored a saint,
and at first glance it looked like a truly marvelous,
gold crowned, red robed kinda life.
But looking closer, each saint was either
in some state of unimaginable torture,
getting rained on by tongues of fire
or had their hands raised heavenward
with looks of agony on their faces
as if to say, "Why me, God?"


"In honor of our Lord, Jesus Christ"
was written in a Gothic style above each window.
I remember expressing my displeasure
with the way our Lord, Jesus Christ
was treating the saints,
to my Grandma seated right next to me,
and without missing a beat she said:

" Sweetheart, you gotta go through hell to get to heaven".


Rene Foran~ 2010

Posted over on her site Not the Rockefellers
Listed as #65 over on Magpie Tales 45