So…
Okay, I’m not a christian, right? I don’t believe in God (upper or lowercase G); indeed I firmly believe there is no god of any sort.
Xnas for me is just a time to get together and celebrate friends and family – and pretty much since my childhood it’s been that way. My secondary school was extremely secular – and I didn’t do RE (it was taught by a born again Christian and me and my mum didn’t feel they were giving an adequate balance). I didn’t do RE at primary school for the same reason, and really was so young that hanging around while they sang the odd carol was not too much torment, I was never asked to sing hymns or carols…
But what I did get was the stories of decimation of my mum’s family by ‘Christian Pilgrims’; it’s why I have such utter distaste for any religous sponsored aid effort. If you can’t do it because it’s a good and worthwhile thing to do, then don’t. And if you’re going to dress up your aid with requirements in belief then you can stick that aid somewhere else.
Anyway, so we were looking round the Colony Christmas stuff, and Kara’s Grandmother happened to spot us and suggest we should look round the restored colony house and come and sing some carols… So we looked round the house, entertained by her Grandmother’s descriptions of what her childhood was like there, in a house almost exactly the same.
Reminiscing about the furniture and products…
And then they started to sing Carols… now, I quietly wandered off back to look round the rest of the house. I’m, as I’ve said, not a Christian. If people want to praise god, that’s up to them, they have every right to believe in what they believe, but perhaps because of the stories of what organised religion does? I couldn’t really deal with being there. But looking around was fine… Only it wasn’t.
I felt increasingly uncomfortable. I’ve always noticed that about overt displays of religiousity outside of churches, I just find them uncomfortable.
But after a few carols it went beyond uncomfortable. It went into down right feeling like I needed to get the hell out of there. As it started heading towards what felt like my first panic attack (a new tomy product, I’m sure); I decided I needed to get out of there. Having wandered around aimlessly for a bit I gave up and headed back to the house. I had no idea it (religion) could make me so uncomfortable. I’m still shocked at my reaction. I guess the stories my mum told had stuck in my head rather more than maybe I’d realised.
