Jesus Lives in Virginia

I'm feeling better, finally, and I didn't have to visit any wacky doctors.

Valentine's Day was a bust because of my illness, though. I love Valentine's Day. I was telling that to my mom the other day and she said, "Why do you like it so much? It seems kind of silly to me."

I like it because it's about love. Most of the other holidays have a heavy focus on religion, obligation, and family get-togethers. I like the other holidays just fine and I know that Valentine's Day comes from St. Valentine, but our modern-day celebration of it is pretty basic. You spend time with the one you love.

So leave it to someone in my life to complicate the whole thing and make it about religion. I retrieved the mail on Valentine's Day and my immediate reaction was to be relieved not to get anything from my husband's family. There was a yellow envelope and I could tell from the outline of an ill-fitting heart shape inside that a Valentine was enclosed. A homemade Valentine from my nephew! I thought as I carried it inside. It was addressed to "Mr. & Mrs. Daniel ------ and family," which seemed odd and always pisses my feminist self off because I'm not technically Mrs. Daniel and, well, I digress.

There was no return address and it was postmarked from Virginia, so I figured my friend who has two small children must have made me a Valentine. How sweet! I thought as I opened it. There was a homemade heart inside, but it had a typed religious message (John 3:16, Google informs me), that when typed a certain way, makes the letters within it spell out the word VALENTINE. It was the crappiest thing I have ever seen and I immediately knew my artistic friend could not be responsible. No one signed it, though. It was just put inside a Hallmark envelope (the real card must have been thrown away, unless they stole the envelope in which case they shouldn't be quoting the bible).

Now it's probably pretty evident that I am not a religious person. I consider myself Agnostic, although I lean towards Atheism more than anything. I don't care to speak with authority on the matter, so Agnostism fits well. Above all, I think religion should be personal and we shouldn't judge others on their choices to be or not be religious.

Now to certain people I have known in my life (my in-laws, for example), my not being Catholic is horrendous. It's odd then that I have probably lived my life with more scruples than a lot of Christains I know. To some, I am a terrible person and I am doomed. I have corrupted my husband, who used to be a practicing Catholic when he was a child, and my daughter, who we chose not to baptise.

I'm not sure who would go through all the trouble of sending us such an anonymous piece of mail, but I'm assuming my in-laws are responsible. And why not? Just because we don't speak to them and they have no idea how to reconnect with their son doesn't mean that we won't be tricked into thinking Jesus lives in Virginia and that we'll be going to hell unless we find Catholism. Why would I do that when all my friends and family will be hamming it up in hell?

I joke, of course. I don't believe in hell. (Therein lies the problem, some would argue.) I have my own beliefs, just like everyone else. And my husband, surprisingly enough, thinks for himself. I just don't see how such a strange, psycho piece of mail would change a mind.

If I'm wrong about the whole thing, well, I'll blog from my fiery damnation.