|
|
|
|
|
|
| reléd. part II. | 02.26.2004 | |
|||
|
|||||
 [the following is a continution of xander's previous post about the intrusion of religious education on his physical education class back in the fourth grade.] “aaaaare yoooou reeeeady.... for reléd? let’s all give a waaaaarm arena-welcome to mzzzz booooris!” we would all have to clap and yell as she ambled her way down up to the front of the dark room, while avoiding trampling on the weak ones—or at least ‘hemo’ hans, this norwegian easy-bleeder we always had to be careful around. the thing that angered us the most about this whole charade was: since it was still dark, ms. boris would be waving around a bunch of glo-sticks like they have at fireworks shows... but, she’d never let us play with them, insisting “they were the encapsulated last- light of fallen angels.” man, how i was itching to hold one of those glo-sticks or angel life-forces or whatever. although, i was itching regardless because of that poison ivy. after a lot of carrot-teasing us with the glo-sticks, aimless dancing around, and several foot-stomping queen songs... the music would finally fade away, and ms. boris would bring up the house lights. at that point, it was time to learn about religion. i guess we kind of learned a lot. we learned about the testaments. how there was a new one and an old one. and how ms. boris thought that the new testament would the best for us to read out of because... there was more way cool stories in that one, the people’s names were slightly easier to pronounce, and since “none of [us] mennos [were] jewish... it’s the logical place to start. ms. boris’s favorite quote in the bible was the obscure: “the lord is my shepherd, i shall not want.” when my friend shroeder asked her what that really meant. she got all riled up and said, “kid, the bible’s not up for interpretation.” she then explained that the obviously literal quote was in reference to the people back then not being allowed to want... any shepherds... other than god, of course. she went on to blab about how lots of sinful people wanted shepherds back then, because they had more sheep than you could count on a night even after three cups of coffee. which, is a lot of sheep. only skilled shepherds, or “metaphysical rulers of the universe,” could tend to those sheep... not just your average joe medicine man, average joe general store owner, or average jonah c.p.a. (by abacus). during christmas, we had a special reléd. we were learning about the nativity (or naivety as some of us accidentally called it in our nine-year old naivety). one of the boys was joseph, this one girl was mary, and—so he wouldn’t get hurt in the dramatization—hans was the baby jesus... wrapped in the swaddling cloth of a pac-man sleeping bag. everyone else, including me, was a sheep. cause there were tons of them in biblical times. and, since the future shepherd, the lord jesus, was just in the process of being born... we were all supposed to be real unruly sheep. unkempt, running around, jumping off of things, upstaging the virgin mary, bahh-ing at everything, and overall just not “honoring thy neighbor” sheep. in church, we learned that there were other people to witness the virgin mary’s messy at-home birthing... but ms. boris said that the bible was a little ambitious and came up with more characters than it could adequately develop... so we’d have to be wait for a more intermediate-level religious education class to portray one of them. then, she’d nervously wipe her brow with her steelers jersey and say, “onward.” i don’t know what was with the pittsburgh jersey. other than being a diehard fan, ms. boris had always promised to bring former steelers’ wide receiver yancey thigpen to come to speak to our reléd. apparently, he was going to discuss how god helped him make a critical catch in the second quarter of a preseason game in 1995. the same season that they went to the super bowl and lost. but, he never came. either he and god had a falling out, or it was another of ms. boris’s empty promises. although it probably wasn’t the case... i kind of always liked thinking about what would happen if yancey thigpen did have a falling out with jesus. man, would that divide religious football fans across the world. on one hand, there’s jesus. our lord and savior. and on the other is a pretty decent professional wide receiver. there would be those fans that’d stick by yancey. bros before hos. and those that’d stand behind the messiah. gods before frauds. what a mess. everytime yancey would catch a touchdown, he’d consider pointing up to god (out of habit), and then stop himself... only to turn and point in the general direction of north carolina. as a substitute. i gotta stop talking about sports. god, i miss gym. |
|||||
|
|||||
| 2:15 am | xander said this. | |
|||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||