I found myself back at church yesterday. This is the kind of thing that happens when you procrastinate making a decision. In this case, what to do when you're invited to a relative's baby's baptism.
So as I raced to the Catholic church that I used to visit in my childhood, back in the day when I thought participating in mindless rituals and being bored to death for an hour was somehow virtuous, it occurred to me that the baptism would take place during mass. Implicitly, I was expecting just to catch a glimpse of the baby while some priest got her head wet. But now I realized that I would be sitting through an entire Catholic mass.
Even the presence of three newborn babies (they churn out a few baptisms in one day) didn't lighten up the atmosphere. It was the same stale, half-hearted atmosphere of duty and obligation, complete with a dozen or two crying babies and little kids staring backwards at you over the pews and picking their noses.
As I stood there, while everyone belted out a lifeless hymn, I thought to myself:
What the fuck am I doing here? I'm standing here like Pavlov's dog trying not to drool whenever the goddamn bell is rung. Our Father, who art in Heaven... No! Don't think that! Don't repeat it just because it was burned into your brain. Think about what it actually means. Think about how individuals are the only ones who can "deliver us from evil". This is bullshit!
Then I started thinking about whether it really mattered if this baptism was going to take place during a mass or not. The real question was: should I be in a church at all, under any circumstances? I mean, there are other places I can go to see the baby. I don't need to do it in a church. The problem is that for many people, the baptism is the primary event to celebrate the birth of the baby. Unfortunately, there is no birthday party until a year later. But does that mean that I should participate in primitive, ritualistic mumbo jumbo?
The conclusion I came to, while standing there in church, was: no. There's usually some type of celebration afterwards, a party with junk food and beer, rather than statues of half-naked, crucified men and chalices of wine filled with backwash. (Communion is the Catholic sacrament in which people eat a piece of stale bread and drink a sip of wine meant to symbolize Christ's body and blood. I couldn't help but think about what disgusting shit must be in that cup by the time the last person takes a sip out of it. The last time I drank alcohol that skanky I was at a college frat party. Hey, when the keg runs dry, you gotta look out for number one.)
But back to the baptism. There was only one actual satisfying moment during the baptismal mass. It came when the godparents were doing their duty of affirming the "baptismal vows" for their respective babies. During this time, the priest also asks the congregation to "reaffirm" their vows. (Since when you're a baby, it's obviously a fucking joke for somebody to be making vows for you.)
For the first time in my life, I got to deny my baptismal vows.
The priest asked: Do you promise to follow and obey Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior? And, speaking aloud, while everyone else was mouthing the words "I do", I calmly, respectfully, said "no".
I have a feeling that people were numb, partly due to their brains being automatically shut off for the mass, and partly due to not having their coffee yet, but whatever the reason, the people next to me were too numb to actually believe what they were hearing. No one said anything to me.
The priest asked: Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
No.
Do you believe in one God, the Father the almighty, creator of heaven and earth?
No.
And perhaps the single most rewarding moment of the entire mass:
Do you reject Satan and all his works?
No.
I don't reject Satan any more than I reject Stripe from the movie Gremlins. Stripe was one hell of a bad ass, but I still don't "reject" him, for Christ's sake.
And for the remainder of the mass, I utilized my time to decide that I will not appear in a church ever again for a baptism. Now I just have that wedding and funeral thing to work out. For now, I'm going to reluctantly agree to go to churches in those circumstances. But you better fucking believe that I won't be in one during my own wedding or funeral. That's for god-damn sure.
