F.I.R.E.

I woke up one Saturday morning years ago and my parents told me we were going to the convention center for a "fire" rally.

When I asked what it was, they wouldn't answer me. They said I HAD to go. My dad gave me a look like "If have to go you're going too"

I gathered up a couple of adventure mercenary books and some gun magazines just in case it was something boring. On the way there my mother was upbeat and more smug than usual.

Once we got inside I saw that it was a Catholic rally of some sort. It was in that part of the place that held the professional basketball games back then. The place was filled with nuns, and glassy eyed people dressed in their Sunday best.

I was not excited, but I wondered why I was even at this thing. I hadn't been to church with my family in years. My parents never went either and this whole thing seemed pretty pointless.

I picked up one of my books and started reading. "Put that garbage down" my mother said between gritted teeth, "you are here to learn about god"

My dad raised me with Hindu beliefs which are more philosophical than dogmatic and my mom didn't complain back then. So why the fuck was I in a room with more penguins than the south pole?

I figured it was a another crazy phase that I had to ride out. I wondered how long this event was going on, figuring that it was only going to be an hour or two...I grabbed a program and saw that it went on until 7pm. Twelve hours of craziness, I couldn't believe it. To make matters worse I could see the gun show going on in the next room. Talk about torture....

I was sitting there bored, miserable and fantasizing about a giant meteor crashing down and killing everyone in a ten mile radius of this hell on earth. Then a big haired preacher went up on stage. He was a televangelist who was colluding with the Catholics or something...He was a good speaker at least and managed to distract me from my misery by talking about how queers are evil and the sins of fornication...funny stuff!

Suddenly, he started calling people up on the stage to be faith healed.

Oh my god... what the fuck? From what I understood about Catholics is that that stuff was bullshit. People were falling down on the stage weeping and being carried off...oh what a fucking pathetic scene. The nuns were doing the wave and when I refused to participate they grabbed my hands and lifted me out of my chair. Those were some strong women.. I looked over and saw my mom lapping up this horse shit like it was pudding. Then I saw my dad packing his stuff up. I asked if we were leaving, he said HE was because he had an appointment...sure....dickhead leave me here with the crazies....

The nuns next to me were very concerned that I wasn't having such a joyous time as they were. They made it a point to include me in their chanting and hold hands with me for a couple of hours. They seriously needed some lotion, thats for sure.

If the US in insistent in torturing Muslim prisoners this would be the place to do it.

The whole thing ended with a Mass done by the arch bishop of our area. Actually it was the only part of this whole ordeal that I was familiar with.

On the drive home, I expressed my relief that rally was over with. My mom then told me the news that I was going to start bible study and get confirmed in the Catholic church.

This is one of the few times I defied her. I said, "you have ignored me all these years, haven't taken me to mass and let my father raise me with the principles of Vedanta. Now as a 16 year old you want me to start believing in faith healers and people who preach about hating faggots?"

I could tell she was really really pissed off but she didn't say anything else about it. She ended up going full time Catholic but thankfully left me out of it for the most part.

These days I'm really down on organized religion, I don't mind people who worship and attend church. If they can get something out of religion and still respect my decision not to, I'm all for it.