More Than I Can Bear

(Apologies For the Uncommonly Serious Column)

Usually, when I get home from work, it's a race to get into some comfortable clothes. I don't want to be professional. I don't want to be a normal working-class stiff. I want to be an immature kid without a care.

Today is a little different. It's around 9 p.m., and I'm still wearing my dress clothes. You know, I had a great column all written up - about how my toilet was clogged for a day and a half because I couldn't afford a plunger - but that will have to wait. Something a little more important has come up, and I need to get it off my chest.

I was at work tonight, meaning that I was doing a photo shoot for the newspaper. The job was to take some photos of cute kids singing at a church youth group. They were doing their Spring Program. I knew it was a religious school, so I wasn't thrilled, but hey, it's my job. A journalist has to be unbiased, so I was. For a while.

There was an opening prayer, and the kids started singing religious songs. No problem. But then, about 15 minutes into it, the seventh and eighth-graders started doing a play called "The True Story of Heaven and Hell". In this play, a guy who just died is talking to a saint, and is trying to get into heaven.

I'll recite the exact dialogue, so you can understand my anger a little better.

Guy: "But those professors at my college told me this (heaven) was all bull."

Saint: "Well, they were wrong."

Guy: "But what about all those other religions out there?"

Saint: "All those other religions are wrong. Their followers are sinners and are going to hell."

I realize that this might not surprise most of you. Some of you, it probably won't even offend in the least. I never would have paid much attention myself if I were just reading the quotes, like you are in this column. I've read quotes like those many times over without much reaction. But something was different when I heard it in person. Something was different when I heard it come from a little girl who was reading it off a script. And that her teacher wrote it for her.

"All those other religions are wrong. Their followers are sinners and are going to hell."

Repeat that to yourself a few times a day for eight years. Afterward, let's see how tolerant you are towards people of other cultures, backgrounds and religions. Now stop and think about what's happening, not to people your age, but to those 12 year-olds up there. Then stop and think about what's happening to the three year-olds.

They were all smiling and nodding, clapping and cheering.

"They're just preaching Christianity, Paul. That's how they do it. What's the big deal?" I don't know. Maybe it wasn't that bad after all.

But then again, maybe it was. I don't know. You tell me. But don't you dare give me an answer until you've heard "Their followers are sinners and are going to hell" come from the mouth of a 12 year-old who doesn't know any better.

This column isn't perfect. I wish it were. I'm left feeling as though I haven't explained things well at all. Even if I had a videotape of the event, I'm still not sure if you'd understand my anger unless you were right there, in person, looking those little kids in the eyes. Kids. Kids whose parents smile as others teach their children hatred, and giving a standing ovation for it afterward.

I wish I could just get angry, scream into a device attached to my computer and have it all come out plain as day on the page. But unfortunately, that's not an option, so this is the best I can give you.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I still have my dress clothes on. Normally, they make me feel like one of those "suits" out in the business world, one of those stereotypical soul-deprived businessmen. But right now, it makes me feel a little bit classy, more so than a normal person. And that's what I need.

To hell with the stereotypical businessman. I have a soul; at least more of one than those applauding the play.