On Keeping Christ, Losing Christianity

The summer after I graduated high school and before I begat my stint in Community college, I worked as a "courtesy associate," for Wal-Mart, which is basically a fancy euphemism for a cart pusher who occasionally is asked to help geriatric customers load groceries into their car or give a hand to some sorority girls in stuffing oversized furniture into their Jettas. Anyways, one day, while roping (literally) a large row of carts into the store, I noticed a bumper sticker plastered on the back of someone's Toyota that caught my attention.

"I like Jesus; It's his fan club I'm not too fond of," it read, presented in the contrasting colors of black and white. But nowadays, or at least tonight as I down my nightly two cups of extra bold Starbucks with a hint of Irish crème creamer, I keep coming back to a major realization; despite all of my "phases," that bumper sticker, in a nutshell, defines a major portion of my personal mantra and something that drives the way I lead my life. Allow me to explain.

As I said, I've been through a lot of phases in my life; some more mental, while others were more visible to the naked eye. Now, in an article, I don't like to tell my entire life story, so I will omit most of those details. Anyways, I was raised Catholic by my mother (my dad was raised Southern Baptist, but I will spare a great story that goes along with that part, as to not be so long-winded) and took my first communion when I was nine. I took religious education classes until I was thirteen and was a member of a Boy Scout Troop based out of my church for a couple of years as well.

By the time I hit the age of fourteen, my folks, who have never been fans of shoving things down my sister and my throats, mentioned that they were going to cut the two of us loose and set us out to find our own paths in life and establish our own faith. This was all under one condition; that we always keep the Lord sacred and retain our belief that there is only one God.