religion

I used to believe…

A few years ago, I got out an old picture album to look at with my younger brother, who was 4 at the time. I would say for each picture, "Who's that?" just to see if he recognized everyone. We came across a picture of my priest and I on my first communion. I asked him who it was, and he responded shyly, "That's a picture of you and God."

I used to believe…

when the Priest in my church used to say something about praying "as our lord tortoise"... i thought that God had the ability to change into a tortoise or something

I used to believe…

When I was little, there was a man in our church's choir who sang off-key and just a few beats behind the other singers. When the singers paused for a breath, you still could hear his voice, echoing eerily. I thought he was the Holy Ghost.

I use to believe until theology class in 10th grade, that Pontious pilot was a mountain. And Jesus Crist was crucified in the shadow of this huge mountain. You know, he was crucified under pontious pilot.

I used to believe…

As a child i never really understood many of the messages in hymns, and frankly I didn't care. Anyway I remember thinking the lyrics for a certain hymn were "two-headed eagle in the law", as if by some divine right of christianity a mutant bird was patrolling our streets protecting all of christendom from heaven knows what. As I never took much notice of the Anglican teachings of such obscure lyrics I never questioned whether this was in fact what i was supposed to be singing. And I still don't know but im guessing "eagle" was probably "evil" and it would figure "law" was "lord". Other than that I've not a clue.

I used to believe…

When i was younger i went 2 church with my friend 1 sunday, l8r when i was telling my catholic neighbour about the service, after i'd finished explaining it to her i obviously hadn't mentioned some catholic ritual she was used to in her church she then informed me that this was not proper church becos they hadn't gone thru the same service she was used to, me being from completely non-religious family aged 6 had no idea that there was a difference between protestant and catholic (as far as i was concerned every1 in the world was christian!!!)i assumed she meant that the church i'd been to was all fake and that the people weren't really religious and were just making it all up like a huge game of make-believe, for the life of me i could not understant why they'd gone to all that bother, wasn't until i was MUCH older i worked out what the difference was!!!

I was raised Catholic, and when I was very young and would go to mass with my family, I thought that priests were really Jesus. There was a door in the wall of the church, and I thought that that was a waiting room and all the different Jesuses would just go and sit and wait for their turn.

I also imagined that the Eucharist would taste like JuicyFruit gum.

I used to believe…

When i was young, my mother and father told me after two of our cats died that cats go to "kitty heaven". So of course, if there was a seperate heaven cats got into, there must have been a seperate God! I wondered what he would look like and came up with an imagined pciture of a oscars-style statue of a cat. I never tried to imagine what "real" God looked like, so my thought of the Cat God shifted into my image of the "real" God. Whenever I saw a movie that depicted God as a human, I'd always get confused as to why people didn't think God looked like a cat.

I used to believe…

there was this song called Trust and Obey we used sing that had the lyrics "then in fellowship sweet." I always sang "then in fellows of wheat."

I used to believe…

When I was a child, we just to sing this song in church called Victory in Jesus. Part of the lyrics were "He plunged me to victory, beneath the crimson flood." (to understand the next part of this story, you have to know that there was a small town named Hickory that was a few miles from where I lived). Instead of the above lyrics, I always thought it said "He punched me to Hickory, into a sea of blood." I always hated that song because I could just imagine Jesus punched me under the chin, and me flying across the air into this bloody sea.

I used to believe…

When I was young, I asked my parents where Hell was. They told me it was under the ground. I pictured the Devil living about four inches under the surface of the earth. This, naturally, made me terrified of digging a hole. Not a good belief for a child who lived on a farm and was expected to help with the planting! (Oh, I was also terrified of sticks that were partially buried. I thought they were the Devil's horns and refused to approach them.)

I used to believe…

My daughter went to sunday school fpor the first time when she was about 3. She came home with a picture with some odder than usual looking shapes on it. When I asked her what they were she told me they were 'cheeses'. I thought this was a strange thing to draw a sunday school but further questioning revealed she was supposed to draw 'Jesus' but had misunderstood.

I used to believe…

My parents were of different religions, so neither one prayed out loud. When I went to catholic shool, I was inundated with all these prayers. The nuns always led the prayers very rapidly so I mis-heard some of the words. There was a line in particular which startled me. Instead of hearing "fruit of thy womb, Jesus" in the Hail Mary prayer I kept hearing "Fruit of the Loom Jesus". That really boggled my imagination. I could not imagine how the Fruit of the Loom company got an ad for underwear inserted into a prayer. I used to wonder how much that cost and who they paid it to.

I was never religious, but I had a very Christian friend in first or second grade. We were sitting on the floor one day, watching a class video, and she was telling me how she was very upset because she'd been to church on Sunday and found out during the sermon that baby Jesus had gotten a splinter in his foot. So, for a long time, I pictured Heaven as having hardwood floors...

I used to believe…

When I was little, me and my cousins used to stay over at my great aunt's house for sleepovers, and we used to misbehave all the time and one day she told us: "ssshhhh kids can you hear the dogs barking? well that means that the devil is near...so I suggest you all go to bed right now". To this day when I hear a lot of dogs barking at the same time I think the devil is near.....and I'm 28!!!!!

I used to believe…

When I was about five or six, I saw an episode of 'Unsolved mysteries' (Don't ask me why a six-year-old would watch something like that.) In it, was an episode about this church in Pennsylvania that had a statue of the Crucifix that would drip random tears of blood. After watching that, for the next few months, I thought that a naked, crying statue of Jesus was running around my bedroom window at night and stalking me. I was absolutely terrified .