A slow fall

Chapter 3 - Caleb

  There was only one Church in Murrayfield. It resided in the town centre, a large square often bustling with busy bodies fluttering about the store lined streets. Sunday morning was maybe the busiest day as the Church service brought the community together.

Our congregation was large and the faces of my neighbours, teachers and classmates filled up the pews beside me. A palpable feeling filled the air, though it was indescribable; a feeling of something. A feeling that differed from person to person, kept private between them and God alone.

Things were different once you stepped inside. The Church was its own world, a special place for God and his followers to come together. Who you were outside didn't—shouldn't—matter. Instead, we were all one, residing in the in-between. The thin veil between our world and His. A comforting presence overshadowed everything we did, every word we said, every prayer and offering we made, and everything else drifted away.

Light filtering in from the stained glass window coloured the pastor in an ethereal glow as he began reading scripture. It made him appear otherworldly, solidifying his place in front of us, as if he was indeed a messenger of God sent to guide us on the right path.

A path I was lost on.

I had been coming to Church weekly since before I was even able to string together coherent thoughts. The words of the Lord had been read to me until they were ingrained into my very being.

Even when my brothers began attending Church services less, their busy school schedules—and now lack of presence in town—prevented them from devoting as much time as our parents, I was still present. I still sat beside my mother and father in our regular seats every Sunday.

The pew third from the front on the left.

I didn't have a choice anymore; it was an obligation.

When I was younger I felt close to my religion. I loved what it meant to believe, and I loved who and what I believed in.

I saw how it fostered a sense of community and belonging, provided a crutch to people in their darkest moments, offering a sense of stability and strength, and invoked feelings of joy, peace and hope. It was a place of love.

Maybe that's how it is for some people, maybe that was the truth before the rose coloured glasses I wore were ripped off my face and my reality shattered.

My childhood naïvity soon left me.

I could vaguely hear the pastor's words as he spoke, but, now that my morning hangover was finally rearing its head, my bed was beginning to sound more appealing and I struggled to make sense of them.

Or maybe I just didn't want to.

He introduced Romans 12:1-2, the answer to the question, ''How should we respond to God's great mercy to us? By becoming living, breathing sacrifices, living our lives in service to God as an ongoing act of worship."

How, after the sacrifices God made for humankind, we need to understand how to live as He wants. How "we must refuse to sink to evil's level and instead reform our minds. We need to break free from the me-first pattern of the world, and, as Christians, we must love and lift each other up. This is our true and proper worship."

I mulled that over. Once. Twice. Still, it didn't sit right.

What if I have nothing left to offer? I'd been assured that if I repented for my sins I could still be saved; The gates of heaven were still accessible if I willingly accepted reform.

But I was reformed.

Things were different now, I was—am trying to make things different.