This should have been yesterday...

I should have posted this yesterday, but late is better than never. Little background for y'all... I go to a Catholic school, and am an Atheist. Normally they're cool with it, and although I go to their liturgies, they don't make me take communion or pray or whatnot. As long as I stand while they pray, it's fine.However... yesterday, we had this thing called a reconciliation ceremony in which we were supposed to be forgiven for our sins. Personally, I don't feel evil and worthless whenever I'm attracted to a girl or hope someone will die, but if that's what these people believe, then whatever. We got to miss 3rd period for it, so it was cool by me.Okay, so we were praying and whatnot and reading this pamphlet they hand out with "Things to Reflect Upon." A few of the things said something to the effect of "Do I honor my sexuality by dressing modestly?" and "Do I avoid sexually arousing situations?" Those gave me a chuckle, but I wasn't bothered. So we were going through these things of praying and thinking and suddenly the priest says (in his droney cult-voice) "Now... let us all kneel."Kneel? KNEEL!? What the hell? I've never had to kneel before at this school? Should I kneel? My brain was whizzing around as all these people beside and in front of me dropped down to their knees like dominos. Ooooh, boy. So... I'm thinking that 1. I just drop down and *pretend* to honor their invisible sky-fairy, 2. Drop down and just sit there, Indian-style while I avoid detection, or 3. Sit there with my ass on the chair whilst everyone prays. I opted out of option #1 because it violates my principles to humble myself before a figment of someone's imagination and because it would be disrespectful if I were to just patronize their faith by pretending to "go through the motions" like that. Now... there were about 3 seconds for me to choose between 2 and 3. Everyone else was already down and the priest was waiting patiently to begin his prayer....I gulped and chose option number 3. I needed to at least stand up for my beliefs, let people know that not everyone will just bow and pray... maybe get them thinking a bit. I needed to do this without making a huge fuss or being horribly rude. Now that I look back on it, I realize that everybody would just think, "Stupid punk!" nomatter what I did outside of kneeling... but please understand that this thought was crammed in with the others in that short 3 second box. This wasn't something I planned.So anyways, there I was, sitting on my chair while everyone else knelt on the floor. It was far more humiliating that I had thought. There I was, bucking a trend by myself, without any other people to back me up. I'm not entirely certain that I was the only one, but my eyes were forced directly in front of me, pushed their into space by necessity. I wasn't about to go glancing about and risk people thinking things that I didn't need them to think. I didn't want to give the impression that I was a rebellious punk who was looking around to see if anybody noticed and what their reactions were. And what about the priest? They always seem to take it personally when you don't show any sign of belief.Well, fortunately it was over, but the icky feeling stuck until the entire thing was done, and then some. We went up and received the "laying on of hands," something ancient perverted clergy came up with when they wanted to feel people's hair, I guess. Anyways, we bowed our head and the priest touched it. For me, he sort of pressed his hands into my skull and said, "God *loves* you..." in his droney voice, and he held it there for a good 10 seconds! I'm sure he did that for everyone... but jeez!Ach! Well, anyways... this thing came to an end and we waltzed back into our classroom. I'm not certain if there was anybody behind me that refused to kneel, but if there was, I hope that they were comforted just a bit by seeing another like them.