Miss Kesha

3/15/19

Per. 5

Word Count: 629

A Secret Faith

My family frequently attends church including, of course, the Christmas masses, Ash
Wednesdays, and Easter Sundays. But, these holidays meant nothing to me compare to my
family. These meant nothing to me because I’m an Atheist, and if my parents knew, only God
knows what would happen. So, I’m an atheist hiding in the closet. One recent Sunday
morning, like all Sunday mornings, I woke, dressed and joined my mother, father, and sister
on our pilgrimage to St. Therese. We shuffled our feet into church and sat in one of the front
pews.
God, I hate this. If only I stand from my seat and leave. Leave and never come back. I
thought.
I heard the bell in the tower ring, signaling the congregation to rise and wait for the
priest. We sang a song. After the song ends, we sat down and one of the church members
stood behind a pedestal to recite the first reading.
She read, “Moses spoke to the people, saying: "The priest shall receive the basket
from you and shall set it in front of the altar of the LORD, your God … And having set them
before the Lord, your God, you shall bow down in his presence.”
The speaker finished the reading. We stood and sang another song. We sat down. A
man stood behind the same pedestal and sang the psalm. When he finished, another lady
stepped up and read part of the Scripture. The Scripture read, “For there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, enriching all who call upon him. For
"everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Every time the priest and
speakers mentioned something about God or how he will rise again to judge us or we will
enter his beloved kingdom, I wordlessly retort,
As if or what gave him the right to judge us or sure, I’ll be up there right next to
Gandhi and Dr. King.
 After they finish the reading, we sat down and the priest reads his sermon. “Filled
with the Holy Spirit”, he quotes, “Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit
into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil..... “
While I listen to his sermon, I thought, the more I prayed and learned about God and
church stuff, the more of a nuisance it becomes and as I grew older, I believe in science rather
than miracles.”
After the sermon, the choir sang another song on page 666.
Huh, ironic. I thought.
While the choir sang, I could hear most of the church sing along with them. Then
there’s me. Standing in the pew, not singing along, mouth shut, in a trance of daydreaming.
After the song ended, the choir played a tune, signaling the church to pull out the bench,
kneel and pray. I kneel down on my knees, put my hands together, close my eyes and pretend
to pray, when I’m really counting down until the end of church.

Faith. It’s a fickle thing. Well, for me, anyhow. In some cases, we can’t let our parents
know the secret of our Atheism because they’re devout about religion like mine. We’re
scared to inform them because they might look at us differently. If we out ourselves as
Atheists, would our parents accept us? Treat us differently? Love us the same? But they’re
our parents and shouldn’t they love us unconditionally? Does losing faith in God mean we
lose faith in our parents?

After all the singing and sermoning and praying and kneeling, the priest finally ended
mass.
“God is with you,” he said.
If only. I thought.