FALLEN CATHOLIC:

MY SEARCH FOR THE REAL JESUS

(continued)

Chapter 13: Regrets

From my earliest days, I was at the top of my class. I was one of the older kids in my grade and that gave me a jump start on the rest. I believe it determined what kind of person I would be. I was called on to be the leader in those early days. I was president of the class in the second grade. It all went to my head. I started to believe I was smarter than anybody else. Needless to say, it was a trait I would soon have to shed if I was going to succeed in life. I have never understood why smart people are not smart enough to see how obnoxious they are.

Those early days at my home in Louisville exposed me to some of the best people I ever met. All of my boyhood friends went on to great success. I still envy them their nice big homes and beautiful lives...in a benevolent way. I admire them more than I envy them. They were able to succeed far beyond my own accomplishments. I often think I reached too far, saw myself as something too special. And as a result, the simple middle class prosperity enjoyed by all my friends and family has eluded me. I don't blame Catholicism any more than I blame myself for believing the hype. But I often wish I had forgotten the dreams and kept a steady job.

I sometimes wish I had been born with a less active mind. I wish I could just blindly follow the rules and forget about questioning them and God and religion. The happiest people I know are of an average intelligence. They don't worry about the stupid stuff I constantly probe. They don't watch PBS or read the newspaper editorials or google the half life of plutonium. They just don't worry about all the shit that bothers me constantly. It is a curse. It makes me crazy. But I just simply cannot turn it off. And of all the things that bug me, God bugs me the most. I should probably put it more succinctly. The notions most people here in the south carry around with them about God bug the shit out of me. I really don't hate God at all. I hate the stupid shit Catholics say about God. Not all Catholics draw my ire. The conservative ones who are also stupid don't bother me either. It's the smart conservatives like my brother who drive me nuts. They use logic in every facet of their lives except when it comes to God and the environment. And on those two subjects, they get their information from idiotic zealots. And of all the stupid things they do, the number one most stupid is calling the body of knowledge known as settled science as “junk science.” They render that term useless by throwing it at anything they don't want to admit as science.

Now you see what I did right there. I just finished lamenting my lot in life as a worrier and then proceeded to launch into a diatribe about the people who worry me. Do you see the burden I carry! Why oh why can't I let this shit go?