DumbFunnery

God’s Watching You, and It’s Weird

When I was very young I had a conversation with my grandma that really impacted my outlook on religion. She was convinced that I had gone to the bathroom and had not washed my hands. This was annoying to me because I HAD washed my hands (duh grandma, I’m not gross). But she didn’t believe me. In her eyes I was a 3rd/4th grader, and therefore a slimy, dirty little kid (I think she found boys to be naturally more gross than girls – which may be accurate – but I wash my hands thank you).

I’m clearly still upset about the hand washing. (But don’t worry I have a solution for when people DON’T wash their hands!)

Anywho.

I went back and washed my hands. Again. When I left my grandma was waiting to give me a little speech. I have no idea what exactly she said to me, but I know in the speech she involved God and how He was always watching. He would know if I washed my hands or not. Of course the intention here was to permanently put the fear of God in me in the form of hand washing (one of God’s pet peeves perhaps?).

Except it didn’t work quite like that. One, because I had already washed my hands. Two, because it made me think God was watching me use the bathroom. This was a very unsettling thought.

From there the idea changed in shape some. The idea of someone seeing everything was too much for me to comprehend. (Yes, God is incomprehensible and all that, that’s cool, but … my mind won’t allow that, it’s too engineering-y) The way it worked in my head was that everyone had, in Heaven, a room full of VCRs (God worked with the latest technology of 1993/1994). The VCRs had recordings of your WHOLE life! Every single beautiful, sad, wonderful, and mundane moment.

And … the time you spent in the bathroom.

It was a neat little crisis of faith as a fourth grader to question if God was a perv. Ahh childhood, so innocent … and derailed into a wilderness of weird, from which I have never left.