Holy Cow

Continuing the shoving-my-beliefs-down-your-throat theme today, I received an email from a prospective client whose username is catholicmomtobe. Turns out, catholicmomtobe is an acquaintance who rushed my sorority back in the day. I was a bit surprised at the username because, well, she was not what you might call discriminating back then. (I won't tell you what we did call her, but it rhymed with cranky doe. Yeah, we weren't nice. Thank goodness I'm not like that now.) Anyway, she recognized my name when I contacted her & we exchanged small talk. Literally five minutes into the conversation, she asked me if I attended the Catholic church near my home. I told her that I am no longer a practicing Catholic & occasionally attend the Unity Church where Chris & I got married. That began an irascible, five minute long diatribe about how we weren't truly married in the eyes of the Lord, our children will never be able to be baptized within the Church, I was going to go to Hell for turning my back on the Church . . . there was more, but my brain stopped listening after about 30 seconds. After that, I heard Andrea Bocelli singing Ave Maria. Appropriate, no?

Remember that this is a girl that I barely knew over ten years ago, yet she feels completely justified in judging my personal choices & blithely condemning me to eternal damnation. I'm going to Hell for not attending mass, but this girl, who honestly drank, smoked & slept with everything she could get her hands on in college, & apparently has some anger management issues these days, is completely assured of her place in Heaven. The worst part isn't what she said, it's that I couldn't really respond that way I would have liked to because she's a prospective client. I think I said something along the lines of "Well, at least I'll be with people I know" & got off the phone.

Now, I think it's great if you have a strong faith in a higher power, whether that be God, Buddha, Allah, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, whatever. And while I have strong opinions on God, same sex marriage, the right to choose & many, many other issues, I can recognize that other people may have differing opinions, & that's okay. I guess I am just from the "religion is a private thing" school of thought and would no sooner ask someone about their religious preferences than I would ask them about their finances or their sex life. It is a personal choice and certainly none of my business. And I cannot imagine demanding that everyone believe what I believe or face everlasting anguish if they have the audacity to believe something that differs in even the slightest way. To me, that's not much different than feeling justified in killing thousands of people in the name of Allah. But maybe that's because I'm a heathen.