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I Threw Up The Body Of Christ At Church

I Puked Up The Body Of Christ In Church

I grew up in a nondenominational family. My parents grew up Catholic, my pop-pop was their CCD teacher, and they hated it so much that they swore that they would never make their children suffer the same fate. I celebrate Christian holidays though, but more at the Santa-Claus-Easter-Bunny angle. We got presents, we left out milk and cookies and reindeer food and all that, but I didn’t step foot in a church for a service until I was in high school.

My freshman year, my best friend invited me to a youth group lock-in. I’m not sure if this is a normal thing, but it’s like an intensive boot camp for Christianity. I don’t really remember what possessed me to go, but here I am, 15 years old, with no religious experience, stuck with the most religious kids in my town. The pastor walked in and immediately noticed that I didn’t belong. After addressing my pagan vibes, we started with the first activity: making a Christmas list. I have large handwriting, so I was running out of room, so I asked if I could shorten it to X-mas. Mistake numero uno. His head spun around like an owl and with the fear of God said, “You can’t take Christ out of Christmas!” and I slunk down into my seat.

We wrote our cheesy lists about how I wanted to give my mom the gift of a good child, and I wanted world peace, and definitely not a new scooter. Then I went to church for the first time ever. As soon as we got there, we went to confession. Obviously, I had never done it before, so I just went along with it:

“Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been 15 years since my last confession.” (I don’t know how I knew to say that, I think I saw it on SVU or something.) “Every time I fart at my locker and it smells bad, I blame it on the fat kid whose locker is next to mine.”

After we told an old man our dirty secrets, we went to mass. I sat in the world’s most uncomfortable seating and looked up at the bloody Jesus. He was looking ripped, as usual, but this was the closest I had been to an actual statue of him. As I was studying him, I started to feel a blinding, paralyzing pain behind my eyes. It was unparalleled. I wanted to get up, but I didn’t know where to go. I just kept my head down and eyes closed like I was praying and waited until the preacher starts handing out the crackers. I walked up with my most pitiful look, and my clear and desperate cry for help is met with a “Let Christ heal you.” I ate the cracker, and as soon as I swallowed Jesus, he wanted to get the hell out of there. I turned and immediately projectile vomited all over the (luckily) vacant front pew. My headache went away, though. Thank God, right?

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Ali Hin

A born and raised Jersey girl, she can always be found covered in sand and pizza sauce. Her personal brand is "that girl." She prefers wine in bottles because she thinks outside of the box. Send fan mail to [email protected] or by smoke signal.

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