trade you my empire for ashes

listening to: "middle cyclone" - neko case

Got good and churched this morning. I always go to church when my brother and sister come home. That's pretty much the only time. Other Sundays I'm more or less allowed to sleep. Usually the pastor of my parents' church is loud, quick-talking, and abrasive. He would be at home in a used car lot, I think. I generally find his sermons offensive and condescending. Today we had a substitute pastor who lacked the oomph of the original but was just as condescending. The sermon was on the woman caught in adultery from John 8-- She is caught in adultery by several high-ranking religious men who ask Jesus if they can stone her to death, as the law demands, and he basically says whichever one of you has never sinned, he can throw the first stone. After I'd caught on that this was going to be just another sermon about Jesus forgiving the whore (that's the usual gist of these things) with no mention of the asshole who'd gotten her into the situation in the first place or the fact that women are still stoned in several countries for lesser transgressions, after I'd caught on to this, I basically zoned out. I noticed that there was a bird stuck in the sanctuary of the church-- the enormous auditorium, the Jesus emporium-- and was swooping to and fro, trying to find an out. He flew down one of the organ pipes, and landed briefly on many of the hanging lights. I followed the flight of that poor bird for probably ten minutes until the final address of the pastor caught my attention. The exact phrase that drew me back in was, "how many of you have ever been tied up?" Wow, I thought, never heard a sermon like that before... Unfortunately it was just an illustration of forgiveness, instead of a foray into more engaging conversation, but Emily and I exchanged a glance all the same. Altogether it was a pretty boring church adventure-- usually I leave that place burning with some kind of heathen irritation or anger, but today I just felt slightly dull. It has been that kind of a week. And that kind of blog entry, looks like.


shalomshalom.