What's Found in Sunday Mornings

I had never been very religious. I'd clap my hands along with those beside me in the pew, but the movement lacked the fervor everyone else had. The sound never traveled as far.

I spent my Saturday nights at parties where the lights flashed on the faces of the careless. I rebelled against what I'd been raised to believe was right, cheering along with my fellow goons to music that made my soul blaze.

When I drank, the sting was sweet. When I smoked, my lungs heaved with exhilaration and I exhaled spite created by a temporary freedom.
I was a stoned, drunken, pill-popping teenager; wearing the night on my skin.
And when I clapped, when I sang - the sound damn well went far. It went very far, carrying my passion with it into the endless twilight.

Yet when the morning came, and sunlight glittered on my skin, everything felt wrong. All that I had done the night before was laid bare before my eyes in the calm of Sunday morning, ringing in the quiet of my bedroom. It lay beside me, tangled in my white sheets, breathing in my ear, reflected in my mother's eyes when she came to check if I were ready for church. Though, it was there where it really ate at me and the feelings coursing through my veins had a name.

I chanted empty verses and bowed my head to prayers that faltered on my lips.
I hated this place. I hated everything it stood for....but at the same time, I wished I could be worthy enough to ever step foot in it. I wished that I could sit amoung the worshipping masses and not feel so unclean. As if my skin were marked in black ink with the sins I'd committed, the whole world able to see my guilt unhidden.

But there was a thin line between wanting to be devout and just wanting not to feel so guilty for being unreligious. I was far from crossing it. The pastor could preach a million of the Lord's words, only to let me sink deeper into my shame. His Light didn't reach for me, golden hands illuminating my darkness; it pushed me further into it.

"Amen," They all say.

It's now that they finally open their eyes, though my own were open the whole time. I know that they lift their heads, while I leave mine bowed, and they look at the pastor who's closing his bible and stepping away from the pulpit. It's over, for this Sunday.

"Amen," I whisper.

I know that they're all smiling now, turning to one another and conversing in that customarily cheery manner everyone has in church, before they prepare to leave. They're basking in the glory of another three hours spent righteously. I lift my head to take it all in.

Sometimes, as I stand amoung these people, I wonder if there isn't a little of me in them. A little of the discomfort at the weight of a bible in their palms.

I feel a warm hand place itself lightly on my shoulder.

"Come on, Mary," My mother says to me. "Let's go home."

So we can start the week over again...and end up right back here.

I turn to her and smile, like the rest of the congregation has, and I take a step forward to follow her out of the pew.