I've had 2 religious experiences in as many days. Don't worry, I haven't lost my mind and become a Christian or anything. Although these experiences were Christianity-related, they weren't anything to prompt an epiphany.
The one from today was just sort of cute. I was driving home from a couple errands and to car in front of me had a Jesus bumper sticker. I've been seeing a lot of those lately- usually the generic WWJD?- but this one was cute. "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" It's the first anti-war religious bumper sticker I've seen, especially around here where it seems like most people are pro-war/God/Bush, as though they're all one and the same. How sad is it that I got warm fuzzies from a religious bumper sticker? Needless to say, I had to lay down for a while when I got home. ;-)
The experience from yesterday was more of a mixed-feelings bag. The ever annoying mother-in-law brought over a bunch of books from the condo, mostly for Will. I was going through sorting out the reading books from the coloring books, and I came across "A Woman's Journey Toward Holiness"- a Christian (the ultra-strict, Old Testament, Southern Baptist leaning variety) self-help book. At first I thought the m-i-l had put it in there for me- she's been sending me more of those stupid religious chain letters lately, and doesn't seem to understand that I don't want any emails from her, much less crap like that. I'm thinking of just blocking her emails into the spam folder, but I digress.
I opened up the book, since whatever else, it is a book and I was curious about it (and about exactly how mad I should be), and now I'm not so sure she even meant to put the book in with the ones for us. She's had the thing for years, according to the dates she filled in on the exercises, and has even made it through the first 2 weeks of "lessons". Along the way, she'd been using the exercises as a diary/ confessional, and I learned 3 things.
1- She cannot spell above a first grade level and has no concept of the written word.
2- She is/ was a very angry and bitter person who is jealous of everyone who does better than her at anything. Needless to say, this doesn't leave very many people for her to like. She's even got some pretty vicious things to say about her "best friends". Good thing being two-faced is a virtue, right?
3- She's been cheating on Bob since a little after they got married, and not just with the guy she left him for. Or the other guys at work that she's cheating on him with now.
So now I'm left with an interesting dilema. On the one hand, I can keep this to myself. I doubt that Tom or Tim really want proof that their mom's a whore (and yes, I mean that literally considering she's always borrowing large sums of money from her various men and never has to pay it back), and Bob already knows. Realistically, it would only hurt them to find out, and wouldn't do any good.
On the other hand, there's the guys she's living with. Theoretically, he should expect her sleeping around- after all, she cheated with him. He's had proof for a while that she's not a faithful partner, and the book doesn't cover their official relationship. It's not like I could just drop it off with him sometime and tell him I think she gave it to us on accident. Besides, that would cause issues for everybody.
I guess I'll just keep quiet about this for now. And keep the book in a safe place until she pisses me off badly enough.