A priest came to our house not long after my Dad left. He was tall, thin and wreaked of birds. He told us that Dad was gone because that's how God wanted it. My face turned hot; as it does now when ever I see stained glass, The Sound of Music or a Salsa band. I didn't take it very well. He never came back. Shortly after that Nettie began telling people she' d been excommunicated from the Catholic Church for getting a divorce. I should have known then that the Catholic Church was full of smoke and mirrors; a religion based on lies and misinterpretations of the Hebrew bible but many times over the years, I gave it a second chance.
I am what many would call, often as an accusation, a non-believer. It's a charge I consider unfair because all of us, no matter the connection we feel or don't, when sitting under the stars, or feeling the world closing in, doing what comes naturally, or rearranging the furniture, all of us believe in something. I believe in many things. I believe in first impressions and second chances; for forgotten people of our society, for holy men of all faiths, and for helpless, hapless family members. I believe in telling the truth to people you love at every possible turn and lying, just a little, at what seems the appropriate time. I believe in finding people you'd run through a brick wall for and making sure they know it, if in not so many words. But mostly, I believe in love; at first site, at second or third site, or thirty-two years later site. Sweet or bittersweet, that's my church.
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