Pet-peeve-ish-ness

Okay... I am aware that my posts are leaning a bit toward the religion/non-religion strain of thinking. It could be because I have been perusing blogs of once-Mormons, some of which are on a strong rampage. I feel afraid that their tirades are, perhaps, shattering my calm-collected-cool-I'm-not-up-in-arms-against-The-Church way of thinking. Perhaps, what I really fear is that my way of thinking on this subject isn't as solid as I thought it was.

The stereo in the living room is playing "Soft Sunday Sounds" or "Sounds of the Sabbath"... not sure which station they've got it on. At any rate, the station is playing Mormon Christmas music. All the songs sound strangely similar.

I wonder... why do people remake songs only to slaughter them?
I wonder... why do seemingly all of the Mormon female singers have the exact same voice?
I wonder... why is it okay for them to change the words of old, traditional Christmas carols to make them fit into the religion?
I wonder... why am I bothered about all this today?

Yes, why am I?

It is nipping at my heals, this unsatisfied feeling, this confused and choppy experience of dissatisfaction in relation to religion. Why?

Is it because I am reading through the words of other blog-authors who are writing their hearts out for the world to see and what I am seeing is what is unknowingly lodged in my own heart?

Is it because I am fooling myself into believing that I am not grieving the loss of what could ultimately be a third of my life and the beliefs therein?

Is it because I not only left a religion, but a society and a community as well, to walk alone in the desert with no one beside me? Ever?

Is it because I am giving into those voices that haunted me in the beginning? The voices who told me I had lost my Soul and was no longer worthy to sit at the feet of God?

Could it be that I am doing the same thing I have always done when a relationship has terminated in my life? Am I only remembering the good parts? Am I forgetting all the unanswerable questions, the confusion, the never-ending striving for perfection?

Ummmm... my mother just called while I was in the middle of this post. I was going somewhere with the title... more about pet peeves, but I got detoured along the way and now the rest of the post has left me. All that is left is my muddled mind and I am going to segue here into a totally different stream of consciousness. Here, here's a paddle. Yes, that's it... I'm over

here

now

About nine hours ago, I posted a post A Life Without Fear? and, if you have read it, then you know the impending apprehension when I say, "I read it to my mom just now." It is a post about living life without fears, and yet reading it to her caused fear to rise in me so deep and infinite that I am covered in a sheen of toxic, stinking perspiration. I feared that me doing so would invoke her wrath because I betrayed her by writing so publicly about her.

See, she is okay if I write about you or me or dad or Joe Schmoe. What she isn't okay with, is if I write about her in anything but a perfect, glowing light. And, were she to read this now - thank God she doesn't have access to a computer - I would be treated to a month of deathly still silence and she would stew and broil and come out on the other side strangely quiet and frightening.

I prepped her before I read the part about her. For a moment I paused and contemplated not reading it at all. But then, that would be the chicken shit way of doing things and this was about being not fearful, right? So, I prepped her. Because, if you have read it then you know that is about me, not her, although she would take it as being about her.

"Now, on this next one, Mom, just listen to it all before you jump."

There was a charged silence after reading the two lines. I waited for something, anything. Nothing.

"You still there, Mom?"

"Yes." That was it.

But I could feel her bubbling with anger from the 1/2-hour drive away. I closed my eyes and pressed on. I'm pretty sure she only partially heard everything from that point on.

In the end, she said, "Now, I must interject. If your MOM. WANTED. to do something about her love and knew what that was, she would have done it by now."

I wanted to debate. I wanted to clear it up. I wanted her to hear me. All the while knowing she would not. Because what she heard was, "You idiot! Get on with your life already."