Fleetmack.com - Bryan Discovers Religion Again!

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"DROP TABLE quotes;" --Matthew Renze

My Summarized Religious Life
-by Bryan Mack

For those of you who read the About Me page, you will see that I went to Catholic school from first grade until I graduated High School. Do you realize this did more harm than good for me? Well I truly believe it did. I felt my whole life like I was forced into everything. I went to church 3 times a week (twice for school and once on Sundays with my family) just to space off and count down the minutes until I could leave, numerous times I left immediately after Communion. I took a religion course every semester of my life until college, even in college I took a religion class. Do you know how much of this information I retained? About 4% of it, tops. Do you know why? Because I wasn't interested in it - I felt forced into it. I was confirmed into the Catholic faith when I was 17. Why did I do this? I did this because that's just what you do when you're a junior in high school. I didn't know what it meant. Do I now? Slightly. And I'm not blaming this on anybody but myself. Kuemper High School did a wonderful job of educating everybody and preparing them for their Catholic lives, however I must have been too damn stubborn to really listen to what they were saying.

So about 3 or 4 years ago, when I was about 20 years old, I felt betrayed. I honestly did feel betrayed as I felt like people had molded my mind to be a Catholic person, and although I have straightened out my thoughts quite a bit recently, I am still a bit confused about a lot of things. Let me tell it to you this way, and before you read this let me point out to you that WHILE I told these stories and comparisons, I DID still believe in Jesus and God, but I was just trying to make a point across to people of why I felt betrayed.

A few years back, I told it like this. In the Catholic faith, you are given your First Communion, one of the Holy Sacraments, when you are about 7 years old, in second grade. I believed (and still kind of do on this matter) that this is entirely too young for people to receive Christ in such an important way. By receiving Communion, you recognize that you understand and believe that Jesus is your savior and you are welcoming him into your life. Now don't get me wrong, when I was 7 I totally believed in Jesus just as strongly as I do today - but let me tell you what else I believed in when I was 7 (and no, I'm NOT trying to be funny). Santa Clause. Yes, when I was 7 I believed a fat man dressed in all red slid down my chimney after arriving on my roof from flying reindeer and left me gifts. Ridiculous. For all I know, when I was 7 somebody could have convinced me that Santa Clause was my savior and died for my sins and I could be receiving Holy Communion in the name of Santa Clause. Now I'm not saying little kids have no faith, becuase they have stronger faith than most anybody alive, I'm just saying they need to be able to distinguish between reality and fantasy before they can make such a decision. Also - I don't believe that in Second Grade you are given a choice, the choice is made for you as you aren't rationally capable of making this decision for yourself.

So yes, that may sound stupid, but that is why I felt betrayed. I felt forced and that I really didn't know I had other choices. I'm still not 100% positive that being Catholic is the right choice for me, but I KNOW that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit must be made the centrifical focus of my life. I don't believe, at this point in time, that it matters what branch of Christianity you belong to, just so you live your heart in the words of the Bible and the Scriptures. But you must believe what you are doing and you must do it for the right reasons.

Those of you who know me may ask "Where is this coming from?" Well, since I moved to Colorado, I met the most special person I've ever met. When we first met, I was as far away from Jesus as I could be, and I had no urge to go back. I am a very self-sufficient person and just knew I could do everything on my own. I always meet my goals and I never sell myself short. I finished college in 4 years, moved away from home, got a great job, got my own place, had a ton of friends, and had the best girlfriend imaginable. I had it all. I really did have it all and didn't think things could get much better. Well, I was right. Things didn't get better - they got worse. My special someone left my life and I was on bottom of the world. Nothing seemed to matter to me anymore and I felt like my life was going downhill with NO signs of ever turning back up. Mind you - this has all happened within the past month [I wrote this in October of 2002]. I was talking with this person, and she informed me that I needed to turn to God, that is why I was unhappy. I thought "What a crock. The reason I am not happy is becuase you left me. It has nothing to do with God. In fact, why should I turn to God? He took you from me, if anything I should be mad at God." There I sat for 2 weeks, flat out miserable. I didn't do anything but work, watch TV, go running, and sleep. That was it. Then I decided something....perhaps it was for the wrong reason, but I made a choice. Not so much a choice, but I was honest with myself and made a decision. My decision was that she was right, I needed to let Jesus back in my life.

I decided to start praying. I was sick of laying around miserable and wanted to get rid of the hurt. I started to try to pray for the hurt to go away and to make me a happy person, but realized I did not know how. How stupid does that sound? After 12 years of Catholic school I don't know how to pray?! There I sat, on my knees with my hands clasped, and had no idea what to do or say. I consulted a friend or 3 and tried to figure out what to do. I started to seek advice whereever I could, bought a few books, and bought a Bible. I tell you - I have trouble reading, it'll take me 6 months to read a 300 page novel, but dammit if I didn't read over 300 pages of the Bible in the first week, and it flew by. And that's not reading the Bible - that's READING the Bible! It's the most uplifting experience in the world, reading the Bible. It has made me realize things which my classmates realized years and years ago, but I was too stubborn to learn or listen to becuase I was being "forced" (so I thought) to do so.

Do you know some of the things I learned? Well, my whole life I've always thought, "I'm not a murderer, I've gone to Church, I love Jesus, and I am very respectful of others. I'll go to Heaven". WRONG! I have to do way more than that, and it's not something I can do alone. I have to love Jesus, tell other people to love Jesus - but not just tell them - make them realize why! My mission in life has always been (and always will be) to make other people happy. Wether it be from laughter from reading my website, buying drinks at a bar, or whatever - I tend to make people laugh and (not to sound high on myself) very few people don't like me. This won't change, I will still be the same Bryan Mack I've always been, but I am going to start finding my other side - my spiritual side. And along with my random writings you'll find on my website (which WILL continue since I have such a large following and fanbase now!) many more positive things. I'm trying to change my attitude in a positive way. Am I a happy person? Far from it. Am I happier since I started reading the Bible and since I realized I need to let Jesus in my life? EASILY!!!!!! There are things in life I wish for myself and others that I will never understand - but if there's one thing i'm learning - it's that my faith needs to increase. If you truely believe in anything in life, it WILL happen. It WILL!!!

The point of me writing this page, I suppose, is that I want to inform all of you that I am going to try to help all of you from now on. And don't get me wrong - I probably need more help than any of you - but as I said - it's NOT easy to get into Heaven and I want you all to be there with me, so dammit if I'm going to stand around anymore and watch you all mess up your futures. As I said, I'm far from where I want to be, but now I have somebody to lead me to where I want to be. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this yet - but fleetmack.com will have it's own religious page shortly, which will be updated much more frequently than my "humorous" and picture-archive page. I know Wilson'll be happy about this :o) Anyways, thanks to all of you recently who I have spoken with who have helped me take the 1st step in turning my life into a positive one. Yes, I'm always happy on the outside and so are most of you - but be honest with yourselves - are you a happy person? If your answer is no - I know who is missing from your life. Take the first step with me.

Will I harrass you? No. Will I talk about this all the time? No. I'll probably bring it up to all of you once or twice, if you shy away - that's your choice. But if you want to talk - let's do it.