Okay…..How is it that Christianity evolved to be this fluffy, feel good, love your neighbor, religion while their mascot, Jesus, always looks like he could use a drink and a hug??

Honestly….it’s just depressing.

A friend of mine just got back from spending 3 weeks in Italy and while the country is beautiful, the locals there have it bad for the Son of God. Almost every picture she showed me had some depiction of Jesus and Mary in the background. A painting, a sculpture, a stained glass window, a lamp for crying out loud! Picture after picture it was seemingly endless. ”and here’s Jesus and Mary on a donkey, Jesus and Mary in the manger, Jesus and Mary sitting on a rock. It was like looking through some weird celestial photo line up…..”Yes, I think that one on the right, laying in the stable…he’s the one who saved me.” where’s Jesus and Mary at the zoo? Eating a snow cone or on a play date with Moses?? Maybe THEN he would have something to smile about. I’m merely pointing out that it just doesn’t seem to be effective marketing for Christians to have their CEO looking so forlorn all the time.

Of course I do realize that Jesus was treated poorly and life was less than ideal, but all in all, the story did end on a happy note…right? Perhaps maybe despite all of Jesus’ hard work He left a little suspicious of how things might go. For all the rhetoric on forgiveness and loving the sinner, not the sin, there has still been an awful lot of hate mongering out there – and I would suspect that Jesus is shaking a disapproving finger at us.

There are so many things about being a Christian that Jesus apparently failed to mention. What about family values? because I am STILL confused about what Christians are trying to promote there. I think I’m pretty right on when I say that they get the heebie jeebie’s talkin’ about gay folks. and the possibility of gays stealing the word “marriage” just sends them up a wall because everyone knows that they came up with it first. But really…. beyond that I’m not sure what prerequisites are required before you earn the right to have the stick figure version of mom, dad & junior, printed on a bumper sticker and adhered to the back of your mini-van.

While I recognize that the very idea of gay people out in the world and roaming dangerously close to our squeaky clean brethren is unsettling, I still have to wonder….”how’s it lookin’ in their backyard?” With pedophilia and domestic violence having quite the stronghold in the heterosexual community, one might ask….and I’m askin’…..unless these issues fall under the “family values umbrella” then it might be time for a little, “lets dig that plank out of your eye, shall we?”

Yeah, I’m pretty sure if Jesus were here now, he would be more than just a little forlorn; he would be downright pissy. I would be too if I spent every day out in the hot sun walking from town to town with sand in my shoes trying to drill in to people’s heads that all we have to do to be happy is shut up and mind our own business more; quit worrying about what’s going on with the neighbors and just be neighborly. It’s all just way too convoluted now, what with fundamentalist Christians, regular Christians, Christian light, where does it end and who’s right?

Frankly, I just hope Jesus isn’t sad anymore and is instead living an unassuming life with Buddha in a lovely little Tudor home that they remodeled…. together.