Intruder (more lovesick poetry)

Intruder

 

Real-world interrupted.
Every waking moment stolen.
Last night you invaded my dreams.
You’re an intruder in my life –
my distracted brain a hostage.
Is my restless mind a curse
or a guilty pleasure?
You’re unbearable
and intoxicating.
Everything else can wait
because I love every minute of it.
I don’t want to let you go
but I never really had you in the first place.

A Secular Childhood: Letters to My Daughter — No. 30 “Spring Program”

Dear daughter,

Tonight is your spring program at school and I know you’re nervous as hell. You’ve been saying so for weeks.

My best advice for tonight – just get it over with. No matter what happens tonight, your family is so proud of you.

Kindergarten is almost over. Soon you’ll be a first grader! Here are some things I’ve learned about you this year:

  1. You hate homework.
  2. You have a lot of people young and old who adore you.
  3. You love animals and want to be a zookeeper. 
  4. You can eat your weight in applesauce.

I hope you enjoyed your first year at school, but buckle up because there’s still so much more to come. 

Learning doesn’t just take place in the classroom – it happens everywhere! Learn as much as you can about the world around you. Pop Pop got us memberships to the zoo and science museum so we will be spending lots of time there this summer as well.

Congratulations on making it through kindergarten!

Love,
Mom

Are there any aspects of your faith that you miss?

For those of you that were once religious, is there any aspect of your faith that you miss?

The Outsider

Growing up, most of my friends went to church. Some of my friends were even the children of pastors. We lived in a pretty conservative area. While my parents considered themselves Christian, we did not go to church (except for an occasional wedding or funeral) and it was not forced upon me.

I was always an outsider. My friends had confirmation and vacation bible camp – things I knew nothing about. All of my friends were people I went to school with but they had a whole nother community in their church.

I have to admit, I may have been a little jealous.

I sometimes went to church services with my friends and I never got it. I didn’t enjoy it and I definitely didn’t understand it. However, I tagged along to a couple of youth group activities and they were actually kind of fun. 

I knew I would never fit in and unfortunately, I felt like I was missing out.

A Question for the Formerly Faithful

Obviously today I want nothing to do with religion. I don’t fit in and I don’t care. For once, I like being an outsider.

For those things I thought I was missing out on – do you miss any aspects of your religion? The community? Some comfort?

It’s kind of funny to me now because I’m still friends on Facebook with many of the people I grew up with and most of them are still religious. I just thought they would all grow out of it.

One of my friends goes to a church with cardio drumming. Now I know I’m definitely missing out!