Regaining My Religion

It is important to stress that this is not a blog about religion, per se; to cover such a topic would take more time than frankly I’m willing to spend, and even if I devoted weeks to non-stop typing, I’d merely touch the tip of the blogberg.

Instead, this is a blog about those everyday miracles that make us question our faith. My own relationship with faith has historically been patchy: from birth to the age of about fourteen, I was an unquestioning Catholic; from about fifteen to twenty, I was an atheist (I used to do daft things like wear black at Christmas); and from the age of twenty-one until the present day, I have been agnostic. Cue me wearing a T-Shirt, emblazoned with the slogan, I used to be agnostic... but now I’m not so sure. Boom boom.

My rationale behind taking the path of agnosticism is somewhat dubious: ultimately I just don’t want to be caught on Judgement Day with my spiritual pants down. So until then, I’ll just sit on the spiritual fence, and get spiritual splinters in my spiritual arse.

So, the story- a tale which I have only recently remembered, and dates back to when I had just turned fifteen and began flirting with atheism. The following story did happen exactly as told, and certainly delayed my departure on the Atheist Express, if only for a while. But it certainly means I won't be ruling out the chance of regaining my religion at some point in the future.

When I was fifteen, I had a maths teacher called Big Murph. We called him Big Murph, because his name was Murphy, and because he was stockier than most bears and taller than most giraffes.

Big Murph was infamous in our school for the creative punishments he would dole out to unruly pupils. One story maintains that he once made a pupil stand up on a desk, jump off and land on his knees; this I find hard to believe. Another story tells of him catching a pupil eating a Drumstick (a chewy, sickly-sweet, fruit-flavoured lollipop- not a fried chicken leg) in class, and making that pupil stand in the corner for thirty minutes with the drumstick on his head; this I find easy to believe. And if you’ve ever tried to extricate a sticky lollipop from your hair after thirty minutes, you’ll realise the sadism inherent in such a punishment.

Big Murph’s primary, and altogether more mainstream, punitive measure was the dreaded ten-to-twenty-page essay. What made this punishment particularly savage was the topic choice: Big Murph invariably only assigned topics that were either frustratingly broad (e.g. An Essay on the History of the Universe) or frustratingly narrow (e.g. An Essay on the Inside of a Golf Ball).

There were many tricks to successfully completing the ten-page essay. Obviously, you could write in unfeasibly large handwriting (this was however a bit of a tightrope, as too large meant that the teacher would know you were taking the piss, and too small meant there was little to be gained). Alternatively you could somehow introduce a cast of dozens of character into your essay, give each character a quadruple-barrelled name, and refer to each character by their full name every time.

Tricks aside however, the ten-page essay was no easy chore. I myself was the recipient of one once upon a time. I believe the main catalyst for my essay was a classmate called Greg, who spat on Big Murph’s jacket while it was hanging on the back of a chair during lunchtime. Big Murph found out, and the following happened: Greg was suspended indefinitely from school; all friends of Greg were given detention as punishment for not dobbing him in earlier; all pupils present in the classroom at the time of the spitting were given one strike (three strikes equalled detention), extra homework and a ten-page essay; and all pupils who shared the majority of classes with Greg were all given ten-page essays. So there you have it: punishment by association. All sentences were handed down on a Friday, given all involved two days to produce a ten-page essay on The Manufacture of Table-Tennis Bats.

However, the weekend came and went, as weekends usually do, and I found myself on Monday morning without a ten-page essay to my name. Shite. The wrath of Big Murph was inadvisable to toy with, so let’s just say I was more worried than a turkey at Yuletide. And so, I found myself doing something I didn’t do much in those days. I prayed. It was one of those grovelly, sorry-I’ve-been-lax-on-my-churchgoing-lately, kind of prayers. The message however, was clear: please save me from Big Murph.

And so, the clock struck ten forty-five and it was time for maths class. Big Murph was later than usual, and I could feel the tingle of spiritual fulfilment. Eventually, the vice principal appeared and said that ‘Mr Murphy was off sick, and would most likely be out for the rest of the week.’

Suddenly, my head was filled with legions of choirs, belting out Ha-llelujah, Ha-llelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hall-e-lujah. And the reason Big Murph was off sick? The vice principal explained all.

‘Mr Murphy is suffering a slight concussion after being hit in the head by a canoe over the weekend.’

Not a word of a lie.

Okay, some facts I omitted: in his spare time, Big Murph was a volunteer leader for a local sea-scout troop who, that preceding weekend, had been moving their canoes into storage for the Winter months; a cable then snapped, allowing a canoe to slide off the top of their trailer and strike Big Murph on the side of the head.

Still though, it makes you think.

Dear Lord, you truly do work in mysterious ways.

Amen.