To Whom It May Concern

JESUS JESUS JESUS!!!

I have to wonder, does everyone have a goofy relative, who is ridiculously religious and judgemental, between the ages of 50 and 80? A few days ago I picked up the phone at my parents house, something I rarely do now because my friends all call my cell phone, and I guess I haven't learned my lesson that answering my parents phone just ends up getting me into conversations with people I really would rather not be talking to.

"HI THERE" came the voice that made me cringe... my great aunt, my grandfather's sister. Aunt Bernice calling to talk to my mom about something that I'm sure even my mother would rather not talk about based on the stern condemning look she gives me when I tell Bernie that 'yes, mom is home'. But of course, it's never quite that simple for me to just hand the phone off to my mother, I have to put up with the third degree and the intrusive questions designed to pick apart my life in such a way to make me realize the 'error of my ways' and how I should be 'doing more good deeds in the eyes of God' or some such useless crap.

Oh, sure, it starts out nicely enough. "So, have you been helping out at the farm?" and of course I say yes, even though I do mostly my own thing there with my cars I work on, her reply, almost always, nearly verbatim, goes like this: "that's so wonderful, you know God loves hard work and when you help your family at the farm bla bla bla". Everything revolves around religion with her, absolutely everything. Notice carefully, that I said "RELIGION" and not spirituality, and if you do not follow what I mean when I say that, refer to my 1/23/03 Post "Spirituality v.s. Religious.

She claims christianity, but continually falls into her Catholic upbringing, like some sort of hellish trap that drags her down every time. Christianity believes in accepting Jesus into your heart, and that is the way into heaven according to them. Good deeds and all of that is just Roman Catholic rhetorich, is it a bad thing? Not usually, except when someone uses said language to condemn other persons.

Inevitably, if she is telling a story, it HAS to have some reference to how Jesus pointed her in the right direction, or how in the most ridiculous instances, He saved her life. One day she was going on and on about how she was driving down the icy road and suddenly she lost control, and she yelled out "JESUS JESUS JESUS" and her car magically started going straight, as though the 'hand of God' saved her life. I really had to bite my tongue to keep from going off on her about this statement. First off, she never drives more than about 30 miles an hour anyway, so even if she spun into the ditch, she would have had no chance of dying anyway, or even getting hurt. Secondly, by her reasoning, I suppose if I was driving down the road and I announced, "SATAN SATAN SATAN" my car would spin out of control while exploding into a massive fireball and off a cliff.

Her 'goodbye' on the phone is always "Jesus loves you and I love you." Someday perhaps I will beat her to the punch with a really deep voice "SATAN IS WATCHING YOU" and laugh hysterically before hanging up. I'm certain this will bring about 500 hail marys and who knows how much time in church praying for my soul.

I am a christian, in case any of you don't know me well. But condescending conversations such as those I have with my great aunt always bring out the worst thoughts in me, is it because the devil has control of my soul? Nah, it just means that I have very little room for people who are judgemental using religion as a basis for thier scales of right and wrong.