Good morning brothers and sisters. *taps mic. I'd like to take this opportunity to first wish brother Joseph a happy birthday. He turned sixteen yesterday and he's also one year into joining our congregation as a brother in Chr-r-r-r-r. Ahem. In Chr-r-r-r... I can't say it.
Let me move on and say that, yesterday I was asked by his mother to give him my one year bible as a gift since I no longer read it. Well. It's assumed that I no longer read it, because quite honestly I'm seen as the unbeliever in the family and being that as it may, I have no need for such things as a one-year bible.
Let me also... well, never mind the let me. I'll just come out and say that I was offended by this assumption. In a sense, I'm being left behind because I do not believe as they do. I am passively outcast from the rest of the lot. It would have been better had they left it at that but to ask me to give up this bible is an outrage.
If they new anything about me they would know that books console me; books are what I go to for my sanity and to ask me to give up this book, is an attempt to disarm me of these stories that we go to time and time again. Stories which civilizations have relied on for everything including the slaughter of others. If it's good enough to kill over than it's worth having in my collection. Besides, what better companion to my multiple copies of the catcher in the rye huh?
While I might not believe that I should soft-shoe my way through life for a bearded fellow in the sky, I do consent to the ancient wisdom in its pages. I see it like any other book, in that its history is rich and written to describe imaginations and events long ago. Were my passion over my books hot enough to ignite a fire, I would hope that it would not only consume me with passion but consume that mentioned work and all works written, in my collection, forthwith!
*drops the mic
This was transcribed from a live recording from the synaptic center for irrationale-rationale