An English Muffin Christian

[Mandy Muffin]

There was a day back in the late 1950s, when as a teenager I had use of the family car and discontinued going to the Sunday 8:00 AM Catholic Mass with my parents.  I was a college kid home for the summer and was given a bit of latitude to engage is some of those bad habits I had picked up at college.  My parents were both non-smokers but accepted me puffing on a Marlboro or some other brand as I was now an "adult."  I also drank a occasional beer, and my goodness, I sometimes took a drink with some of the hard stuff in it.  And, of course, I let the f-bomb slip from time to time to which my father gave me a bit of chuckle.

Accordingly, my younger brother and I were given permission to go the 10:30 AM mass on own.  But we made a secret pact.  We skipped the mass and spent about an hour at the local Friendly's Restaurant, where we each ordered an English Muffin and a cup of coffee.  We came home about the right time and were given the approval of parents who had raised their kids to be good Christians.  

My brother and I are both old now and our parents have passed years ago.  We no longer have to fool anyone but ourselves as to the way we worship God.  My brother went on to a time when he was a fallen Catholic then became a fervent Episcopalian after his second marriage.  I have remained a member of the Catholic Church all my life but must admit I take advantage of the more lenient rules for the handicap and shut-ins mow that my official state sticker for the car that allows me handicap privileges.   I did raise all three of my children as Catholics and put them through elementary school in the Catholic parochial schools system.

This year I watched the midnight mass from Rome on TV,  as it was snowing out.  I also have severe sciatica that makes it difficult to bear through a religious service.  This year I am reading a daily passage from the Bible and doing a meditation over the reading.  Today, I read of the trials of Job and the testing of his faith.  

But I remember the day that I was an English muffin Christian.  Perhaps even the most fervent among us remember such days.  I think there will be a place in heaven for us.  Maybe there will be Friendly's Restaurant there that serves English muffins, even on religious occasions. 

[Mandy Muffin]

My reading from the Bible, Book of Job, this morning had this quote, "Yea, if man give up the ghost, where is he?"  This very question that has plagued mankind for all their days on earth. 

If you believe there is no afterlife, then you can be content that whatever you do with your life is it.  There is no paradigm that should govern your spiritual behavior.  

If you believe there is an afterlife, or that it is possible, then you must also feel an obligation to work to achieve it.  How you do this is clearly explained by organized religions.  But the thinking man may choose to question that path to heaven and chose his own.  i have no problems with this decision.  But unfortunately I am not God. 

[MGDJ]

Religion is about belief and not an obligation to paractice.  As I grew up in the Catholic school system, my one big realization was that most of the practices were very contrived and seemed to discourage individualistic expression.  Uniformity of thought is what drives most religions and that is what ultimately drives self-expressive types away from it.  Certain practices as tithing in the Baptist religion and to some extent, excluding women from the priesthood in the Catholic religion tend to drive me away from the ritulistic aspects of the church.  I believe in God and am thankful for all that I have been given in life, but to go to mass and participate in something that is so single-minded kind of puts me off.