The Rapture

I attended catholic school. One thing catholic "leaders" love to do is scare the bejesus out of you in an attempt to get you to blindly follow their teachings.

One torture practice they used was a film all about the rapture. The rapture is supposedly a day that god [he is the kingdom, the power and the glory] will raise all good christians to heaven, body and soul. Only evil people and non-christians will be left on earth. The film also said that you had to ask the lord [praise be his name] specifically to come into your heart, or he'd leave you behind. Needless to say, the film depicted an earth full of fire, violence, and general mayhem that would have scared any naive ten year old, and I was certainly no exception. I must admit, I spent a few sleepless nights over that one. I must have asked the lord [may he always be with you] into my heart every night and morning for a month solid.

I did finally get over the trauma of the film. I thought maybe I did deserve to go to heaven and of course I wouldn't be left behind. That is until one day I came home from school and no one was home.

No one was home! No one. Not mom. Not dad. N-O O-N-E!

That had never, ever happened. My mom was always home. If she wasn't home, there was someone there in her place. The door was unlocked. Mom had her knitting stuff sitting by the chair where she usually sat. Dinner preparations had been started.....

HOLY FUCK! THE RAPTURE!

Yup. That miserable, selfish, all-hateful creator had come to my very own home and had taken my family to heaven, body and soul, and had left me behind to fend for myself with all the nasty non-christians. I was devastated. Too devastated to cry even. I just stood in the middle of the living room, probably with my mouth gaping open.

Then I heard a car outside the window. I ran and I cautiously lifted the bottom corner of the curtain and peeked out in case it was a heathen coming to do terrible, unspeakable things to me.

Oh glory be. It was our car and my mother was driving it. I ran to the door and greet her. She apologized over and over again. She had run to the store to get something she needed to finish dinner and thought she would beat me home. I didn't care. I was just so relieved that the rapture hadn't happened.

Two interesting things about that incident:

1. I was so brain-washed at that time that I actually went to bed that night and said a prayer of thanks that the rapture hadn't happened without me and then I asked the lord [he is my saviour] into my heart.
2. It never even crossed my mind that the rapture may have still happened but my mom had been left behind too.