PUSH but don't hold your breath

I'm a catholic turn atheist if you haven't quite figure that one out yet. I was unfortunately born a catholic and family tradition dictated that I would be christened as a catholic. No input from me on the matter whatsoever. No, you don't ask a newborn if it wants to be in a particular religion. Extremely inconsiderate of my parents of course. Why couldn't they just wait a few years and ask me if I want to be a catholic or not. I mean, if only you can test drive a religion before you decide to be a part of it.

I was still a Catholic, albeit a little skeptical, two years ago when I met this guy. He's a Buddhist-turn-Christian and he was fanatical about spreading the word of the lord to all his classmates. That's a bit scary for anyone in highschool. Just think what people might think gives me shudders. Anyway. He was way beyond enthusiastic and he had these wristbands with abbreviations on them stuff like WWJD or PUSH. The guy gave me a wristband, you know fellow Christians and all. Now that's what I call enthusiastic. Not like those Jehovah's Witnesses ladies who came to our house a few years ago and had an argument with my mother that Jesus died on a pole and not a cross. And I mean actually arguing. Their faces were red when they finished and I'm not even sure it was from exertion or humiliation or some kind of medical conditions. The whole thing was so wrong in so many ways:

• First, you don't go barging in other people houses and announce that they've been worshiping a wrong representation of your god.
• Second, you don't go starting arguments about anything that you have absolutely nothing back your claims up except some artist impressions of your vision. Even though the picture of Jesus dying on a pole can be artistic and pretty, it doesn't mean that it is true. Having said that I'm gonna say this too: Catholics don't have any proof that Jesus did die on a cross and not a pole. So it goes both way but those Jehovah's Witnesses ladies started it and that's what is wrong with this picture.
• Third, what kind of impression would you leave behind? Crazy fanatics trying to impose your religion on other people's religion? Way to recruit new members ladies.

Ok, back to the friendly Christian guy. I got a wristband with WWJD on it. It was cool. Not because I really believe in the message behind those abbreviation. By the way, WWJD stands for "what would Jesus do". The message was kinda good I suppose. It reminds you what you should do in sticky situation like:

• You see a bag containing 5 million bucks and don't know what to do. (grab it and make a run for the hills or the casino s or an electrical store or wherever people like to spend their money these days. Or grab the bag and walk into a police station)
• You got slapped in the face and not sure how to react. (run away, turn the other cheek to get slapped at or go on the slap the other person back and while you're at it, punch him in the jaw too?)
• You really want to bash that annoying guy on the train. (do you have enough muscle to go on such a campaign?). Or
• You really want to have unprotected sex with a stranger on the street.

Yes, Jesus can guide you in such situations even though common sense is way faster and a lot less complicated.

So I got the WWJD wristband and most of the time when I wore it, I pretended that WWJD stood for "we want jelly doughnuts". That message is cool too, isn't it? There are other messages and PUSH was one of those. The enthusiastic Christian couldn't remember what PUSH stood for so I didn't get that one and hence PUSH remains a mystery to me until yesterday.

Discovering what PUSH stands for is really a mind blowing experience for me. Previously I thought it meant one of these things:

• Push if you want to get ahead in life [which is quite true on some levels]
• If you push people the right way you'll get what you want.
• Push if you want that baby to get out of your uterus [this is induced by watching too many policemen having to play midwives on those cop shows]

No, PUSH doesn't have anything to do with the verb "push". PUSH stands for "pray until something happen". Oh, god. What that is one hell of an abbreviation. Pray until something happen? I reckon pray until anything happen is easier. What if nothing happens? What if you pray and pray and pray and pray and nothing happen? This is kinda like waiting for an answer for a rhetorical question. A scenario springs to my mind:

You keep praying and praying and praying and a hundred years later you're all but a skeleton in some corner of a church somewhere new generations walk pass your remains and wondering what happen to that guy. And there, in the corner, a message is carved in a stone. "Here kneels the remains of [insert a name] who had enough courage to PUSH. Too bad nothing happened"

I reckon they should sell those PUSH wristband with a big red warning: don't hold your breath while you PUSH.