Dear Jesus: It's nothing personal.

I made a crack about Easter recently. It wasn't meant to be mean spirited. It wasn't meant to offend. When I said it, I honestly thought it was funny (albeit in a lame sort of way). My wife didn't think so.

It was the evening of Easter Sunday and I had noticed, upon walking outside, that no one besides me had rolled out their garbage cans. In my neighborhood, everyone usually has their cans out by nightfall on Sunday night--everyone, that is, except me. The one who is running down the street in her pajamas at eight o'clock on a Monday morning, wheeling a garbage can behind her and frantically trying to flag down the garbage truck? That'd be me.

In any case, I stopped in the driveway, trying to remember if the Monday after Easter is some sort of holiday, as well. There was Good Friday, Holy Saturday (I had just learned that there was a such thing as Holy Thursday...does this apply to all of the days of the week leading up to Easter?), thenEaster...and then...? Do the festivities and repenting continue?

I wandered into the kitchen. "Hey, hon?" I asked. "Is tomorrow some sort of holiday?"

"I don't think so," the Wife said.

"Because no one has their garbage out," I continued. "I wasn't sure if tomorrow was 'And Yea He Has Risen Monday' or something like that."

***Crickets chirping.***

Although I wasn't trying to disrespect Easter or the many Holy Days that surround it, I apparently had.

Now, my wife is not overly religious. But she does consider herself a Christian and the major Christian holidays are very special to her. Meanwhile, I simply believe in a higher, intelligent power (who may or may not go by one or many names) and regard most organized religion with a mix of disbelief and amusement.

In apologizing to my wife for my comment, I thought about what inclined me to say it (or think it) in the first place. If it was a weeklong Buddhist celebration of holy days or a Wiccan celebration of the Spring Equinox, it wouldn't have been a target of my humor. (While writing about the Pagan ritual, the voice in my head protests: But wasn't Easter originally a...with the big bunny...and the eggs for fertility...oh, never mind.) I'm not anti-Christian. But why am I so quick to go there with all things Christianity? (Ok--Kabbalah and Scientology also raise my ire, but that's a different blog posting...)

The only conclusion I could arrive at is the religion in which I was raised. I wasn't just raised as a Christian, I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. An uber-Christian. Christianity on steroids. Christians that are too good even for OTHER Christians.

For a JW child, religion is not a warm, fuzzy world full of Sunday school, Christmas presents and chocolate brought by the Easter bunny. It's a place where something as fun and innocent as a kid opening up presents on Christmas morning is considered sinful. It's a place where the bloody, plague-ridden, terror-filled Apocalypse is just around the corner (and all of your little friends who aren't JWs? They're toast.). It's a place where you never quite feel like you're good enough because you could always spend more time studying the Bible, memorizing hymns or walking door to door handing out leaflets to save more people. (Because tomorrow morning could be that Apocalypse. You never know!) I associate my religious upbringing with the looming threat of the end of the world. (Google "Jehovah's Witnesses," "Armageddon" and "1975" to see the sort of thing I dealt with on a daily basis. There's a wonderful account of that whole debacle here:

http://www.exmormon.org/exjw3.htm)

Your friends at school? You shouldn't really be hanging out with them because they're "worldly" (the JW word used to describe, well...everyone else. Gays are a special brand of "worldly," as they are also "abominations."). Activities at school? Cheerleading? It shows too much skin. Band? Evil, because you'll have to play all those holiday songs at special school assemblies. Sports? It takes too much time away from "Spreading the Good News of the Kingdom," and besides, you'll get so much more exposure to all of those "worldly" kids.

I'll never forget my holier-than-thou grandfather (who had a less-than-holy past) and how he used to talk about me hanging out with all them "werrly little kids." (Now that I think of it, it almost sounded as though they were dizzy kids.) He criticized me for knowing the words to all of the oldies songs I loved but not having all of the Kingdom Hall hymns memorized. He also said that if Armageddon came and my entire family was wiped out, it would be my fault for not encouraging my parents to take us to the Kingdom Hall more often.

I was fourteen. Ah, fond memories! *Sniff!* Good times!

In my parents' defense, they were only doing what they thought was best; raising us in the religion that they had been taught was the road to salvation. I couldn't help but see huge parallels when, as an adult, I watched news specials about the Mormon sects up in north Texas. Their beliefs are also passed down from one generation to the next, so you end up with a long line of family that doesn't know it's possible to have different beliefs. There were so many things I saw in the FLDS coverage that screamed "cult!"--and it all echoed the same sorts of things I was taught as a Jehovah's Witness. Limiting one's social circle/relationships to within the congregation, for instance. Both groups have a deep suspicion of all outsiders--especially the government, and a commonly held belief that all governmental powers are the work of the devil. Both drill it into their follower's heads that to question any of the congregation's beliefs or seek alternative sources of information is the devil working through you. In hindsight, it makes my skin crawl.

So yes, I emerged from that bit of religious upbringing with a huge knee jerk. I guess I feel like I've earned the right to be critical. Maybe for me, humor and sarcasm are a way to break free of that old brainwashing.

I feel that I have earned the right to be wary. I tend to be suspicious of any belief system that creates an "us" against "them" mentality. I grow frustrated with people who will willingly follow a religious leader without asking questions or understanding the reasons and the history behind what they're doing. And I detest any teachings that are based on either fear or the hope of some future existence that is somehow better than the present moment and the beautiful world that we've been given (and are destroying, by the way). Hope that things would be better in the next life is what people believed in during the Dark Ages. I learned that in my college literature courses. (Had I remained a JW, I wouldn't have gone to college for an education, because they frown on that sort of thing.)

I guess all I'm saying is, my reactions may be strong (and inappropriate) sometimes. If there is a "And Yea He Has Risen Monday," I'll bet you it's a really beautiful holiday. But whatever religion you are--Buddhist, Catholic, Jewish, Baptist, Muslim, whatever--I just wish people would think for themselves. Otherwise, people become "sheeple," mindlessly bleating along behind the herd with no real desire to know why. I know first hand that this can be damaging. Our brains are a God-given gift. I'm sure He intended that we use them.