Choices

There was a time that I was very much involved with church and its many activities. Some of these churches literally take up every single day of the week with meetings, prayer sessions and so on. One of the churches I was attending at the time (I would often go to two churches at the same period and actively participate in both) had a very charismatic pastor who had just started a week-long series on sin and temptation. A major talking point in his message(s) was that to be holy and keep ourselves that way, we should cut out/off anything that may predispose us to sin and an important “doorway to sin” was music. I have always believed that music is powerful and being brought up by two music-lovers (whose voices are still classified as weapons of mass destruction unfortunately) helped me develop broad tastes. After this moving sermon, I came home and decided that I would have to delete my collection and listen to Christian music only (this resolution lasted for two months). Some of these songs I had acquired through very testing means and I delayed carrying this out for a while. I eventually deleted everything but one group – The Cranberries. I had become a huge fan on discovering them and I especially loved this song since listening to it made me feel like I could really do anything I wanted. It talks about “not being so suicidal after all”  which is ironic since at the time, I thought of suicide the way most guys think about sex. 

Today in particular, I miss going to church and though I would like to go, I feel like I shouldn’t be going or that I’m not “allowed” to go. I honestly don’t know why.