Not a whole lot since then, to be honest. I tried to read the book your boyfriend at the time insisted I read, and it angered me so much that I couldn't finish it. Also, Susan briefly went on a religious kick, and she had me go with her to her church; the experience of which truly angered me when I heard the crazy diatribes of the charlatans running the place...and the ridiculous, perfunctory reactions of the sheep in the audience.ppanther wrote:I'm just curious, Van. What have you done in the past decade that would count as an honest attempt at finding faith? You told me nearly 10 years ago that you wished you were able to have it, and you're saying the same thing now. Have you actually sought faith since then? If so, how?Van wrote:I am, and I can also guarantee you that I am hardly alone.
Preaching to the choir, a thousand fold. Those people could've been singing that Michael Vick was All Powerful, and they would've been singing it and falling to the floor in spastic convulsions with every bit as much self-serving conviction.
I've also read some of Susan's Bible, along with some of the copious notes she was taking as she attended class and broke down her studies.
The bottom line is that no matter what I see, it turns me off even more to the whole notion.
When I went to the Vatican, I was hoping that maybe I'd feel some sort of epiphany. Being surrounded by believers while standing at the fifty yard line of Lambeau, as it were, I was hoping that maybe I would feel something. As I walked through the magnificent building, I saw old ladies quietly praying; I saw a young man kneeling and crying at an alter; I saw couples standing and paying homage, with wonder in their shining faces; I saw solemn packs of pilgrims paying their respects to the entombed men in the sacred basement....
I read the inscriptions, and I climbed that narrow, winding walkway to the top of the cupola.
My overriding thoughts?
'This is insane. All this granduer, all this money spent...for what? This was money spent that should've gone instead to feeding the poor. It should've gone to building schools and hospitals.
Damn, I wanna get back to that one restaurant by the Spanish Steps. That pizza was good!'
I was blown away by the architecture, and I felt proud of the West for those amazing things they had accomplished, but I mainly felt similar to how I felt when I walked through Versailles. The thought of what was required to envision and actually go through with the building of such a monument to enormous vanity was appalling to me.
On the flip side, I still envied all those believers I saw. As always, my feeling was that it didn't matter whether they were right or wrong in their beliefs; just the fact that they seemed to find so much comfort in their beliefs...such serenity...that was the main thing.
I wasn't angered by what I saw there, the way I was angered by Iaa's book or Susan's church. I was left more with a feeling of melancholy over how fucked up we are as a people, even as I was also impressed by our capacity for overwhelming beauty.