the last time i went to church

...was two days ago. before that, it was too long ago to remember. circa late high school probably was the last time i went to church regularly. and since then, it's been the occasional wedding or funeral that has driven me into such hallowed sometimes-quiet spaces.

funnily enough, it was a disastrous fling with a liar that once again got me into a church. i had tried almost everything to get over this hairy chunky balding pretty-boy-gone-to-seed and his 80,000 kilowatt smile -- hours-long talks with a whole battalion of extremely patient friends, a sleepless night spent putting together a mix CD of happy songs, some misguided and very inaccurate tarot readings (both professional and self-inflicted), bottles and bottles of light beer (all i can afford lately), chainsmoking packets and packets of marlboro lights, a visit to the spa, several facials, long walks in the moor (metaphor!), weeks of wallowing, the baking of random muffins, cakes, puddings and cookies, etc.

i've even tried demonizing the guy in my head! you know how that works: calling him names, recalling him at his weakest and ugliest moments, etc. but i just couldn't. because no matter his three weeks of witholding that crucial bit of information (i.e., he has a girlfriend), the whole time we were...ahem, seeing each other (and said period being characterized by so giddy and obvious a transformation that colleagues stopped me in the corridors and asked whence such glow came from), i knew in my occasional moments of 97.8% lucid honesty that happy as i was being with him (e.g., boozing, hanging out, talking, etc.) , i could never let myself be with him on a permanent basis. as in no commitments, cannot be anything more than a very enthusiastic (haha) playmate. (i won't go into details, just that it involves diametrically opposed value systems, among other things.)

and so although it was great and it seemed like we were good together and wanted the same things, there was that gigantic BUT involved. so if i were a better person, this was when i should have stopped the fling. because if i must be perfectly honest, i was kinda playing him. the good person in me didn't want to hurt him or anyone (least of all myself) but i was enjoying said self and his company too much to actually stop. i didn't want to be accused of leading him on, etc. etc. that vamp-demon-in-a-skirt-other-woman role got old a long time ago. i wanted to come clean and i tried to (cf. that talk in that coffee shop).

BUT. despite all my reservations w/r/t playing him, i went on. (i can imagine my friends giving me a bitch slap at this point and hearing them say that i have nothing at all to be guilty about because he lied to me when i was being totally honest.) and that's the crux: i wasn't being totally honest. and so you can just imagine my annoyance (even anger?) when i found out that this guy that i was sorta playing had been lying through his beautiful teeth all along! haha. ha. my first semi-conscious, half-guilty attempt at playing the let's-just-have-fun-without-commitments game and i got effing played.

and so even if the fling lasted only three weeks and that i took the high moral ground and actually walked away (that is one noir-ish scene i will never forget: very filmic, with rain and the occasional yelling, and walking away in high heels and a tight skirt) from something i still wanted but was clearly wrong for me -- i still felt awful. i'm of course a little better now but i still have occasional flashes of what christians like to call backsliding. you know what that's like: those unexpected moments when your arms feel curiously empty, when you can actually feel the absence of the other.

so i tried doing all those things that i would do post-breakup. but. nothing. worked. so i started reading these two apologetics books by c.s. lewis because with them, you have to have almost superhuman abilities of concentration. it's not just a matter of understanding or comprehending in a rational or intellectual way the basic concepts of morality, religion, belief in a higher being, and what the heck all that means to someone going through real everyday problems like me. no, it also involves pausing every couple of sentences and, with at least 97.8% honesty, see how this or that idea/action/truth/etc. really truly applies to the way i choose to live my life, the small nitty gritty details and decisions that somehow add up to what we like to label with impressive tags: "Life" (note the capital L), "worldview", "lifestyle", "philosophy" or whatever.

and so that's how i got back to church. of course, my cousin A had a hand in it also, as she was the one who suggested which particular church we could attend last sunday. and i must admit here, since i am aiming for honesty, that it felt extremely uncomfortable attending worship service. i felt like a faker. i couldn't bring myself to sing along to their songs, mainly because i don't like that kind of worship music (watered down synth pop; i grew up singing along to 19th century church classics found in old hymnals). and after reading screwtape, i felt like the world's biggest sinner, a certifiable diabolical feast that would keep old slubgob belly up and belching for a while. but it got better after a while because the sermon (more like a scholarly lecture, which pleased me much) was very good.

i'm hoping i can get over my church-related quibbles and pretensions enough to actually go to church on a regular basis. but the whole communal worship thing is going to be really difficult for me. it's nasty but the word "pharisee" keeps popping into my head whenever i see eyes closed in prayerly delirium and hands waving in the air. i don't mean to be judgmental but i don't want church or worship to be a spectacular spectacular (cf. moulin rouge) but that's how most churches do things these days (haha, fallacy of the golden past!). so there. my snootiness and my "tastes" are what basically keep me from being the good christian that i want to be. awful awful awful.

and so i hope (and yes, pray) that i have it in me to do the right thing.

and that i can figure out whatever that is.

here and now.