NEAR-EMPTY CONVENTIONAL CHRISTIAN CHURCHES YET OVERFLOWING JAILS, COURTS, ADDICTION TREATMENT CENTRES, AND BATTERED WOMEN’S SHELTERS: A SIGN OF THE TIMES
I was just lying on the couch alone at home contemplating divine mysteries on a bright Saturday evening. I could not help but think how much my life has changed for the better since I recovered from my addictions and Mental Health problem. About a quarter of a century ago, in my mid-twenties, at this time of the evening on a weekend, I would have already imbibed at least four bottles of ale and probably had my first hit of what would likely be three joints of hashish during the next several hours, stretching until at least 3:00 a.m., whereupon I might even venture into the bowels of an afterhours bar and continue my riotous behaviour until 4:30 a.m., then drive my car to the all night fast food diner several miles away, inhale a greasy poutine and a large soda, then drive home on a Saturday morning at about 5:00 a.m., with the birds chirping both outdoors as well as inside my head, with the windows of the car rolled down sniffin’ the breeze on a beautiful clear and cool sunny July morning in Quebec City, with not a soul to be seen on the suburban streets of my part of town and me feeling like I was the King of the world and that the whole darn city belonged to me.
Well fancy that. Back then it took me twelve beers, two shots of rotgut Mexican Tequila, a whole gram of hash and maybe even the occasional whole gram of magic mushrooms to expunge my feelings of wanderlust and the generalized feelings of psycho-sexual anxiety and tension that was built up inside of me. I just had to ‘blow it all off’ so to speak, as if I were in need of having a gigantic spiritual orgasmatronic catharsis upon the collective soul of Quebec City and all its inhabitants. I just had to ‘get my yay yas out’, as the Rolling Stones put it, and to spiritually ejaculate all that I felt within the marrow of my being onto the soul of the City where I had lived for most of my life.
But that was then, this is now. I realize now just how much spirit sickness there is in this world, just from observing the amount of obese people there are in North America. Not to mention the overflowing addictions treatment centres for everything from alcohol, drugs, sex, porn, gambling, compulsive eating, shopping, emotions, cigarettes, you name it. Then there are the overflowing jails and court systems as well as battered women’s shelters. Just crazy.
But it’s funny, you know, the more these places get filled up to overflowing, the more our conventional Christian Churches such as the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and United Church empty out. Like, what’s with that? Oh, yeah, that’s right, it’s only narrow-minded, old, grouchy, prejudiced, mean-spirited, gossipy Church ladies and geezers who are against abortion, women’s rights and same sex marriage who go there. Well, there you go! I guess that explains it, right? Well, I guess in that case, I’d better get with the program and get married, beat my wife, send her to a women’s shelter, get divorced, go to court, go to jail, then rehab, then get out and marry my best buddy Dave! Man, why didn’t I figure this out before! When I end up explaining it to myself, it’s like, so SIMPLE, it almost makes no sense!!!
OK, take a deep breath folks and calm down. Actually, I think I’m one of the few sane people left on this planet because tomorrow, I will go to Church and be part of the elect who have accepted Jesus Christ as their own personal Lord and Saviour. If the pews are mostly empty, then maybe I know something all those people in jail, rehab and the shelters don’t. That Jesus Christ is LORD!!! That Dawkins dude the Atheist says that people like us are mentally ill because we believe in God. Well mister, I’ve never felt more of sound mind than now and I’m not in Kingston Pen or Millhaven or Donnacona. Or worse yet, I’m not languishing within the prison of my own anti-theistic ideology.
I think I’ll go to bed tonight still of sound mind, and my spirit will dwell easy because it dwells in Christ, not within the orgasmatronic and psycho-sexual depths of a bottle of psychotropic stimulation, or illicit Lebanese legerdemain from the Bekka Valley. Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite, as Mom always said.
P E T E R S T U A R T . CA 
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