Latest post of the previous page:
I live at a war veterans retirement home and each month in the on-grounds chapel there's a memorial service for resident who died the previous month. I last went to a memorial service about three years ago and heard a militarized chaplain say the deceased were going to a new commander.Hearing those words all but sickened me because in the Catholic schools my dad had put his kids into, I had been told to live a similarly submissive life. I quit religion while in college. A few days after that service I happened to meet the Home's assistant administrator and asked him if there's a service for non-believers. He very properly replied "If you want one, make the arrangements."
I briefly thought about organizing the few out-of-the-closet non-believers and the many who don't attend chapel services. Knowing that doing so would require effort and few if any would respond, I decided there are more fun-filled ways to meet non-believers here. Also, because I won't care what happens after I die, I decided "Fuck it! Let some pandering or deluded chaplain say what he will."
Because in about a week, five guys I knew will be memorialized, I might attend a second memorial during my 18 years here.
About ten years ago for a few weeks, I was one of a small writers group who set up a few chairs in the rear of the chapel. We read and critiqued what we had written since we had last met, put the chairs away and left. Yeah, some of us used "colorful" language in what we wrote and in what we said while there.
BTFW, no taxpayer money has been spent on the chapel. Volunteers do most of the work, and because many residents have no heirs their estates have paid all costs.