religion

I used to believe…

When I was little I had these ideas of what God and Jesus looked like in my head. I saw God as being Lex Luthor from the Superman show from the nineties, and Jesus was this giant toddler with a really big head who went around crashing cars just for the fun of it. Now that I think of it, I was quite a cynical child, wasn't I?

I went to a religious school and they told us that there was one night a year that the heavens opened up and you could see God. I stayed up all night trying to see him but it didn't work. Then later they taught us that God was so powerful that if anyone ever saw him, they'd be burned to a crisp. I thought, "Good thing I never saw him!"

I used to believe…

When I was in 4th grade me and a group of friends thought that the devil was trying to take over our school (I have never been to church) so everyday we wore crosses and at lunch we would investigate the school and anywhere we thought that the devil would try to get us we would sit down by the place and pray.

i used to believe that in your next next life depending on how good you were you came back as an animal an the gooder u were the better the animal

I used to believe…

This is not for me but for my 7 year old sister. When she was 5 she came home from school and started asking to me about what religion we were. I said "we are muslim2 and she said "my friend is a crystal". I said "what" and said she wanted to be a "crystal". After a while pondering what this meant, i realised she meant she wanted the be a Christain. I guess she what to be a crystal because they are really sparkly and shiny things and they sound pretty.

I used to believe…

When I was little I would say a prayer with my mom before bed. For my prayer I'd say, "God bless mommy, God bless daddy, God bless Grandma" and so on.

On night I finally broke down and asked the question, "Mommy does that mean all those people sneezed today?"

I was eating with my sister and her family one night when my sister asked my 3-year-old nephew if he knew who Jesus was. My newphew, who has never been inside of a church, prompty asked "Chucky Cheese's"? We had a good laugh. But were also a little disturbed. ;)

I used to believe…

While in church, I would constently hear the words "glory, glory to god in the highest." Thought I would hear it as "glory, glory to god in the high lands." since then I still get the metal image of god in "high land" or what I thought was yodaling on a mountain.

I used to believe…

When I was about 9 years old, I went to my little cousins baptism at a Catholic Church. It was the first time I had attended Catholic Church, and when I talked about the sermon later, I said "that pope was really boring", and my mom had to assure me that that wasn't a pope, it was a priest.

I used to believe…

Growing up in church, I heard lots of details regarding heaven. I used to imagine that once getting there, Jesus was seated at a HUGE picnic table (with the red & white checkered table cloth and everything). In front of him was the largest platter of vanilla & chocolate sandwich cookies (you know, the kind with the white creme in the middle) which were my favorite at the time. Also in attendance was all my deceased relatives, and Elvis, dressed in gold lame' jumpsuit, sunglasses and guitar playing for us all. I was probably 5 or 6 at the time.

I used to believe that when the priest was blessing someone who had died and they said "God Bless so and so. In baptism so and so died with Christ..." Well I used to think that the babies drowned during their baptism, when in reality they were older people who had died...my cousin believed that too.

I have some really interesting relatives. One of them is my cousin Tim, who is close to my dad's age. He has a really twisted sense of humor. On one visit when I was about five, Tim showed me an old ceramic sculpture of two praying hands. He told me that they were Jesus' actual hands! I was both amazed and disturbed! Such an ancient, perfectly preserved, holy thing as this was right here in Eastern Kentucky! But those were JESUS' hands! Why were they here? Wasn't this wrong? I couldn't understand why my parents weren't upset by this and every time we went to visit them, I stared at the hands in awe!

I used to believe…

When I was about 8, I knew that sin had been passed down to all of us through Adam and Eve. It wasn't until a couple years later that I stopped being mad at Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit--my logic had been that because they sinned, we were destined to sin--if they had only obeyed, that must mean we would all be perfect no matter what! I was especially frustrated cuz they had it easier than the rest of us, with only half a life to be good for (no childhood)--so what was wrong with those inconsiderate people anyways??

I used to believe…

when I was 5 or 6 I remember my mom explaining Heaven as a place "in the sky" where a person's soul goes when he /she dies. I spent a lot of time checking out clouds, I always imagined them as being some sort of transport system for all the dead souls.
I truly thought I saw people at the edges of the clouds as if waiting to get to someplace-heaven perhaps? hmmm maybe I have the shining...

I used to believe…

My little sister misunderstood the word of kid's hymn "Joshua and the Battle of Jericho" in Sunday School class. She sang "Joshua took the cherry from the Cherry Coke".

I used to believe that the rays that shone through the clouds from the sun were "escalators" that beamed down from heaven to take people up who had died. To this day when I see them I still think that. That heaven is "beaming" people up.