Catholic girls hotter, but who needs all that guilt

My 92-year-old father attends Swartz Creek Methodist Church on a pretty regular basis. It wasn’t always that way.

Growing up in Flint, I remember hoping against hope that we wouldn’t have to get up and go to church on Sunday. Usually we didn’t.

But when we did, it was just an awful way to end the weekend. Getting dressed up. Being bored silly for a couple hours.

Little boys who want to spend every waking hour playing baseball or football or basketball are not a good mix with church – at least back then we weren’t.

We wanted to not go so bad, we wouldn’t even bring up the subject in hopes they somehow wouldn’t remember that every weekend contained a Sunday. When I say we, I mean my brother Denny and I. Although we have never really discussed the subject, I’m pretty sure he felt the same way I did.

My parents were first Methodists, and then Presbyterians – but never very seriously in those days.

I couldn’t much tell the difference between the two. To this day I can’t. Near as I can figure out, Methodists and Presbyterians are on the “liberal” end of the protestant scale. There are no restrictions on dancing, the little lady doesn’t have to walk respectfully behind the man of the house, and we weren’t literal interpreters of the Bible.

In fact, Methodist and Presbyterian services were pretty bland. We’d sing a few hymns, pass the collection plate, listen to a sermon about walking a mile in your brother’s moccasins or some such, say a couple prayers including the big one, and file out, shaking hands with the minister – and then, in the words of Martin Luther King…

“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

There was none of the fire and brimstone stuff and none of those calls to the congregation to come forward, fall on your knees, and declare Jesus your savior. We were pretty much a white bread religion.

I think I’ve told you about mom’s ability to fall asleep during the service with her head erect and her eyes open. What a gift, but she could only pull it off at a passive, white bread church.

I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood, very close to Holy Redeemer church and school, so a lot of my best friends were Catholics. They got a lot more days off than us public schoolers, but otherwise there wasn’t much difference – as near as I could tell.

I always thought the Catholic girls were hotter, but that was probably a statistically insignificant aberration – or an example of how the grass is always greener.

Speaking of babes, The Consort was a Catholic in her formative years and she talks often about the guilt that went with her religion. She was about to have exploratory surgery for a stomach problem when her father discovered it was caused by the stress of growing up a Catholic.

She says it was really hard as a kid to go to confession and make up something you had done wrong because that was expected of you.

My best friend Jim Cote’s parents were a bit more religious than mine, and when we were 11 or 12 they made him go to classes of some sort so he could officially “join the church.” Rather than miss out on spending time with my buddy, I agreed to go with him.

That was Lincoln Park Methodist Church in our south Flint neighborhood. It’s a beautiful old stone church with a circular stained glass window featuring Jesus praying that is still in use today.

To this day, that’s how Jesus looks in my mind. Complete with his Zebra robe and all.

I took The Consort to see the church and Jesus during our recent trip back to Michigan, and she took these photos. She thought it was pretty funny that the signboard that day read, “LORD PLEASE HEAR MY COMPLAINT.” Something about how I’m always complaining, so that’s exactly how I would put it to the Big Guy. I humored her and posed appropriately.

Anyway, Jim Cote and I joined the church. My parents continued their erratic attendance, although they came the day I joined and then we all went on a picnic and played baseball. I eventually grew up and went my own way.

Dad says his greatest failing as a parent was to not set a better example regarding churchgoing. I disagree. I appreciate the fact that I was never brainwashed in some dogmatic religion like some people I know – never having the chance to make up my own mind.

I don’t go to church much these days. An occasional funeral is about it. The once-Catholic Consort and I got married in a mine instead of a church. Probably closer to the direction we’re headed when it’s all said and done.

But I don’t have a problem with anybody’s religion or religiousness – as long as they don’t try to spread it on me. I do have a real problem with self righteous Christians who claim this is their country and anybody who doesn’t like it can just leave.

How can they forget that our forefathers came here to get away from the very attitude they are now espousing. Do we believe in religious freedom or don’t we?

There is no half way here. Just because the vast majority in this country call themselves Christians (living like Christians is a whole nother matter) doesn’t make it OK to tell other people they have to somehow believe or behave like us.

It just doesn’t compute. Is the Christian god so small that he doesn’t respect the differences in all of us?

I doubt it. I suspect rather that it’s the way people interpret the way He thinks.

Because if we weren’t human and fallible, we wouldn’t need a God in the first place. We just need to realize that we’re stupid, and that we should really follow the 10 Commandments we profess to believe – especially the one about treating others the way you’d like to be treated.

I didn’t grow with up all the guilt The Consort experienced. But if there’s one thing I learned growing up in Flint, Mich., it’s that I’m wrong a lot more often than I’m right.

For me, therefore, to tell others what they should believe is preposterous. It’s all about tolerance and humility.

Last time I checked, those were still supposed to be Christian virtues.