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4-16-2006

Chicken-fried Jesus

Oh it's Easter. This is a very big holiday for my people. The atheists, that is. "Seriously, he did what? You believe that shit?" I think I was 7 or 8 the first time I had that conversation with someone.
It was my best friend, Joseph Stargel. He's a pretty strict Southern Baptist. I'm really surprised that more people weren't forbidden from associating with me when I was younger.

The first time it was decided that maybe I shouldn't play with someone was, Krista Kettering. Her family was Baptist too. I think I was 6? Maybe a bit younger. She and her brother were explaining to me how Mary was Jesus' mom. I said, so Mary was married to God? They were appalled. They told their mom. It was decided maybe we should all take a break from each other. Now there were two types of logic happening there. On some level I understood that God and Mary must have gotten it on in order to make Jesus, and I guess I thought that only married folk got it on. Imagine that. And I'm the one with questionable morals. Looking back on it, I'm not sure how much stock I put in the Ketterings. I also remember Kyle, the oldest boy telling me that babies came out of their mothers' butts. Then there was the summer that, after a pig roast, they put the head of the pig way up in a tree. It didn't look good, and it stunk to high heaven by the end of the summer.

I really don't want to come off as an ignorant heathen. I've read lots of the Bible. Leviticus 20:13 is my favorite bit (obviously). I went to church every Easter until I was 10ish. I took my mom to mass a few times after she had surgery and couldn't drive herself. I actually enjoy a good Catholic mass. They're much more aesthetically pleasing than the long, boring Protestant services my father used to drag me to.

In lighter news. One night a few years ago, I was sitting with a friend. We started talking about the whole Body of Christ thing. The ol' Holy Communion. We started a list of other ways you could eat Jesus. You know, besides the gross cracker. Here are just a few: Jesus Kabobs, Jesus au gratin, lemon pepper Jesus, Jesus marsala . . . The list goes on and on really. Basically, any way that you could prepare a meat, potato, or pasta, throw our Savior in the mix, and there you go.

Well, that's enough blasphemy for one day. Everyone have a happy Easter, and keep your eyes on the sky for the next few days. Does Christ rise in the east and set in the west, or is it the other way around?