Explain this for me, please.

It is no secret to those who know me that I have not been of the church-going mindset for quite some time now. This place marketed as a center of hope, peace, reconciliation and family seems to contain a few sincere people who are sincerely fooled and a few false people who are falsely sincere. It's just too much because you never know which one with whom you are dealing. If you get the sincere ones, the conversation will lack substance. If you get the false ones, you won't know if you've gotten substance or not.

Confusing?

Exactly my point. A place of enlightenment for the down-trodden and weary forfeits its purpose if no one can figure it out. It's okay if the purpose is lost, however, because the place can always become, as most churches have, a social club. Holiday parties, gospel meetings, concerts, benevolence by proxy and so many other things have clouded the ability to see the void.

As depressing as all this sounds, I do have a point.

I don't know whether we are genetically built to go to church or we just get so used to it that we long to return to what was a mainstay for so long, but I am beginning to miss it.

"Just go then," you say, but it's not so easy.

My absence has not been the result of laziness or worldliness (as some of the self-righteous may say) because I have been in a constant search. I believe I have found a purer truth having not been there than I did in all the years I was there. But, I still find myself missing it all.

So, at the beginning of this week, I called God out. Karen went to the church this past Sunday (I was at work) and told me that she had put $30.00 in the collection plate. Cynically, I looked at the sky and said, "God, I want to see a $60.00 check this week!" I was thinking that if it happened, I would go back, but I knew this wasn't going to happen and thought it to be a safe way to get out of the supernatural pull this realist has been feeling.

Now, I don't believe in what I call the "kookiness" of this religion stuff. I don't want to hear about the miraculous disappearance of cancer overnight; angels visiting and saving from certain death; resurrections; feelings during prayers; and everything else that makes no sense in the real world. It lacks intelligence on the part of what God designed. You can try to convince me with all the times it has happened to you and tell me the story you think to be immutable, but it doesn't work with me. It isn't logical.

Still, I can't explain the $125.00 check which came unexpectedly yesterday. My apprehensions are great, but I cannot dismiss that peice of paper which now resides in the bedroom and that we had no idea was coming. Part of me would like to brush it off because it wasn't the $60.00 to which I challenged Him. Another part would like to forget about it because I was thinking it would come in the mail (if it were even to come) - this check was handed to us.

But, I do know this: in spite of all my attempts to forget about it, or attribute it to chance, I still know in the back of my mind that it would be absurd to give it no attention.

I guess I'll be pondering this all week.