Easter Guilt

It's Easter Sunday and once again the guilt is being piled on by my mother. "Not going to Church?? Oh, ok...." But it's the look that says it all. She is disappointed. She is angry. She is sad. She is unhappy....

It was better when my father was still alive. She didn't rely on me so much, but she also didn's make me feel as guilty about not going to church. Back then it was just my lack of religious conviction that upset her. Now she's disappointed because she wants someone to go with her to church and that someone is ME.

I don't like church. I think it comes from being forced to go to church as a child whether I wanted to or not. My parents were very strict about this. I hated it. First off, I didn't like to be still for that long. I found it too restraining. Second, I didn't understand a thing they were saying. And third and most important, I was missing the Sunday morning cartoons which were different than the Saturday morning cartoons and, because I rarely, if ever, got to see them, were somehow more entertaining and exotic.

Am I now rebeling from church because I spent my entire childhood missing the Sunday morning cartoons? I don't think so. I think it is that I am not able to sit still and pay attention to what's going on. I don't find it entertaining in the least, I don't get anything out of it and I think I realized that if it's not "meaningful" you shouldn't be taking up pew space.