JG Ballard
I want MY cigarettes!!!
I was raised a Catholic. Belonged to a parish, attended the school with the nuns, the whole bit. I was curious about the whole thing and really tried to pay attention and study the teachings. I remember first entering the church and the first thing that I saw was a life-sized figure on the cross front and center. This was accepted by all, but my thought as a six-year old was what did they sign me up for here? I used to read the stories of the saints in the books sold in the gift shop and they were all grisly tales with pictures of mutilation and torture, burned and bleeding bodies, and each saint would be smiling in the picture like he/she was enjoying it (probably why I'm on this site). It all seemed like a competition to see who could suffer in the most horrible way. And then there was this creepy cult atmosphere at the masses with the nuns and priests in strange vestments and wearing giant crucifixes, incense burning, chanting, etc. I had a book about the Virgin of Guadalupe and the three kids who purportedly communicated with her. It was full of condemnations of practically everyone for every conceivable act, with the Virgin promising that they were all going to hell and showing visions of hell to the kids. But despite the first 22 years of my life being partially consumed by this weirdness, I still appreciated the artistic and ritualistic aspects of it all, and I was also instilled with discipline and well-educated by their system. I'm no longer a part of any of it, but I will say this: there was a cohesive community there. People packed that church on Sundays and many attended daily masses too. They had fanatics and devoted ones, but my guess is that most who belonged just went along with it in order to feel connected.
