After the bike shopping on Saturday morning Bert and I took a dander up the street. Could we get moving through that town? For we were everywhere impeded and besieged by mobs of green-shirted God-botherers from a local cult church. They were on every street but the bulk of them were congregated around a group of musicians and singers at the bandstand, roaring, singing, lepping up and down like buck eedjits and grinning like loons. I think beaming and grinning must be compulsory in their church. Or maybe they were just really happy because they had found the Lord and he was not a stuffy old Lord like the Presbyterians and the Methodists and the other churches have. Their Lord must be a zany, fun-loving, tone-deaf Lord for, to be honest, the band was pure shite and no amount of maniacal pogo-ing Christians will make me believe otherwise. I was surly when I refused their literature. Bert didn’t see the point of that for, as he pointed out, if you’re clutching one of their handouts they’ll not try to give you another.
I’m considering putting a complaint in to the Council about the hideous din of it. It certainly did not make me want to hang around town and spend money. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who felt alienated by the spectacle. Of course there were people who seemed to think it was all very jolly but if we must have Christians monopolizing the bandstand every Saturday morning I’d prefer the dour gang preaching hellfire and damnation. And I’d definitely rather receive tracts from downcast, humble souls who, even if they might think I’m a sinner bound for hell, at least will have the decency not to gloat!
Labels: Ballymena, God-botherers, rant, shopping
