Today is Ash Wednesday. Know how I know? Because there's a priest in the hallway outside my office drawing on people's faces. Know how else I know? Because all day today, I've been looking at people who evidently didn't think ahead and got their faces drawn on early this morning, only to find that ashes pretty much liquify and run down your face after you've been sweating all day. What can I say? I know some pretty sweaty people.
So here's what happened.
I was getting that oh-so-familiar hunger for chocolate delighfulness around 3:30, so I felt up my pockets to see if I could dig up change for some peanutty M&Ms. Lucky for me, I had a couple of bucks so I ambled on out into the hallway to haunt the vending machine (which happens to haunt me just about eight hours a day). I saw the priest talking to some sorority girls and commending them for organizing some religious hullabaloo in honor of Ash Wednesday (my guess is they were repenting mightily for whatever they did on Fat Tuesday). I didn't think much of it...until my second trip out to the vending machine for another bag of M&Ms (it's been a rough day). As I was trying to slip by the priest unnoticed, I suddenly felt his eyes on me - you might say it felt as though the very eyes of God were drilling into my ravenous, chocolate-hungry soul. For a moment, I wondered if he had noticed my first trip to the machine and if so, was he judging me for what was obviously a bad case of gluttony? I mean, gluttony is a sin, right? I think those big stone blocks had something to say about it.
Now listen, I'm not a religious person. I believe in God, though, so when I pass a nun or a priest, you better believe I put on my "I'm behaving" look and walk on by just as sweetly as I can. But I will tell you that priests (more so than nuns) make me feel a little slimy - I don't know if it's all the scandal that surrounds them or if it's all the scandal that surrounds my aberrant chocolate-eating behaviors, but whenever I pass a priest, I feel like I should go take a shower. I feel like I'm being JUDGED.
So it got me thinking, this whole middle-of-the-hallway judgment thing that was happening to me - why is it that the priest is staring ME down as I walk innocently by, as if to ask me why I haven't been saved from my hedonistic ways? Why is it that when an Orthodox Jew or Muslim walks by, he just politely smiles and nods at them? I've got a theory...
There is a certain degree of political correctness in a priest acting respectfully towards someone who is CLEARLY of a religion that is diametrically opposed to Catholicism. I'm one of those people who thinks the basic tenets of all religions are essentially the same - there is certainly something beautifully fascinating in the details of each, but altogether, everyone just wants the world to be a shiny, happy place, right? (Except for the nutjobs, of course.) But there is absolutely NO political correctness in letting someone who is clearly a heathen pass un-accosted by the Catholic church's holy recruiters. I think there are two things at work here:
1. The priest basically has no hope of saving the Orthodox Jew or Muslim and he knows it. They're going to hell and he knows that, too. Still, he can be nice in his pity for their damned souls because he knows his chance of recruiting them is slim to none. And why would he want to anyway? The Jews killed Jesus (and apparently ate babies) and the Muslims are all violent, American-hating freaks.
2. The priest does know, however, when he's looking at a potentially Christian sinner. I'm conspicuous in my lack of religious attire. In fact, I might as well be a hooker as far as he's concerned. "Look at that skirt, so far above her calves!" he's thinking, all the while calculating his approach and how he can successfully use the least amount of energy in making me feel the greatest amount of guilt. Well, this is what I imagine is happening anyway.
So basically, because I choose not to wear my deity on my sleeve (which is an interesting analogy, given my sudden interest in getting the great, fat Buddha tattooed down my entire arm), I am fair game. And all of a sudden, I am drowning in the judgment of the Catholic Campus Ministry priest's stare. I can feel it on my back, and if I'm not mistaken, he was checking out my ass, too.
Does God hate me because I'm speaking so disrespectfully of a priest? Nah, probably not. I'm pretty sure he doesn't like most of them, either.
t.
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