Lovely people! How long I have neglected you! Well I have actually been quite busy, I do have a few excuses, but not really enough. Several of them involve Christianity, surprisingly. In brief, there were two nights in a tent involving lots of tea and some Christian rock, 50 odd kilometres on foot with two more nights in a tent and a massive rucksack, a sleepover at the youth club preceded by a session of being Bible-bashed (I shall apparently burn in Hell) and then a whole day in a park in Chalkwell with even more Chistian rock!
Godly.
But enough of that, I'll probably write something on Thing about it, if I ever write anything on that page. I went shopping with Helen today, and thought of a few things, so maybe today can be like a super entry. It probably won't, actually, but we'll see how it pans out.
The Problem With Wagon Wheels
We all know that as we grow up and get bigger, some things seem to get smaller. Rooms in other people's houses shrink, stairs become easier to climb, and food becomes less filling. The most pronounced example of this that I and several other people have found, is with Wagon Wheels.
Now I have always had a big mouth. There's a picture from a few years ago with my entire fist in there. I hold a record among my friends for most chip shop chips, most Hula Hoop crisps and most marshmallows stuffed in my mouth... not all at the same time, mind. But when I was about 8, even I could not fit an entire Wagon Wheel into my mouth. Not even I, with my personal black hole could fit a whole Wagon Wheel in my gob, I had to break it first. I still had this problem two years later at the tender age of 10. Then I didn't, for some reason, have Wagon Wheels for absolute yonks.
So there I am, sitting on my mate Cheryl's sofa, when she walks in with a tray full of Wagon Wheels. After squealing girlishly in delight (something only chocolate and a few select other things can make me do), I grabbed two. I peeled back the plastic in anticipation, opened as wide as I could, and pushed the Wagon Wheel into my mouth.
And promptly almost choked.
It fitted! With room to spare! What was going on? That never happened before! I didn't understand. Munching thoughtfully, I considered why this might be.
1. My mouth had grown a lot since I was 10. I'm only a little person (standing at a proud 5'5"), and though that Wagon Wheel-less period covers my growth spurt, it is conceivable but unlikely that my mouth would have grown that much. I mean, that much room to spare? I'm talking about two more Wagon Wheels plus three Gold bars. I think not, which drew me to my second, highly predictable conclusion...
2. Wagon Wheels have shrunk. Not having had the forethought to measure the diameter when I was 10, I cannot prove this, but I am not alone. My own father has declared that they aren't as big as they used to be, and his 'used to be' predates mine by about 35 years. Ponderous. But is there a third explanation?
3. I'm tempted to say something involving space-time phenomena, parallel universes, alien abduction and a vortex for good measure, but that too is unlikely, or at least no one noticed when it happened. Could it be that we have just grown up and Wagon Wheels have stayed the same? I'm leaning towards saying yes, but that would just be boring. Where's the fun in normality? In desperation, I have come up with this third meaning:
Because this is Britain, loads of things were done differently about 50 years ago, which they've only recently bothered to go back and correct, or at least change so it isn't so good for us. Example 1: changing Jif to Cif to be in line with the rest of Europe. Example 2: the EuroMix dance mats only having half as many songs as a load of other coutries. One person in particular was not inpressed when he found out, were you Mr Curry? Never mind. But working on this principle, I reckon, and we're getting into conspiracy theory territory here, that once upon a time we had the same sized Wagon Wheels as the rest of the world, ie America. Then one day, when someone was feeling extra nasty, they decided that we British weren't up to that enormous Wagon Wheel experience, and they made them smaller. Perhaps out of lack of money, lack of biscuit or lack of compassion, I don't know. But this they did to us, hoping no one would notice.
Or maybe bollocks.
Now for the second part of my post. I think all this recent Bible-beating I've been getting has made me realise just how scary and controlling organised religion can be. Not that I have anything against anyone's faiths, except perhaps when those beliefs involve burning black people or beating up women, you get my point. But there is a difference between preaching and crusading, and this has become most noticable in the few weeks a new guy has been running our youth club. It all started to go wrong a few Fridays ago...
Youth club only has about 15 people in it, and half of us sit about sleeping, bitching and not believing in God. It was always Jesus-orientated, but if we didn't believe, it wasn't pushed. It was a kind of "we know you don't care, but on the offchance that you ever do, we're here for you". But when one of the leaders left and we met his replacement, our days of open-minded slouching came to a theologian-shocking end.
We had to talk about our first experiences of God. Sunday school for most of us. Right. There followed a sermon on the wonderfulness of God, which I only listened to half-heartedly. It got worse, though. At the sleepover last Friday, we had to talk about some statements, and one of them was about the existance of and belief in God. Now, as a non-believer, I stood up for myself against the new guy, because the way he put it made it sound as though not believing in Christ automatically made you an ignorant and stupid pleb. So nerr to him I says, telling him that yes I do have beliefs, they just aren't the same as his. Slightly more than 5 minutes of arguing followed as me and Karl, fellow non-believer (he spent 5 years in a church school, who can blame him?) argued our case against his views. Personally, I think we won, as we got the last word.
Maybe he just doesn't know how to talk to young people. Ben, who had been running it before, hadn't pushed the issue. He's a dude and religious, which is a difficult balance to achieve, but he manages with style and a Swedish fiance. But new guy does not! His beliefs seems to involve no personal interpretation of the Bible, only meanings he's been told, and in saving his own soul, he seems soulless. Has his own religion destroyed him in the name of salvation? Or is he just a sheep in the non God/shepherd way?
Please don't send me hatemail accusing me of being a Christian-hating close-minded arsehole, I was brought up a methodist. These are opinions, not insults.
Love you all!
