Where Are the Nice Christians?

I had a crappy childhood. When I was a kid I experienced things that wounded me in ways I have never overcome. Also, there's something wrong with my brain, so I'm depressed a lot of the time. Four years ago my wife got tired of this depression and left me. I don't blame her. Sometimes I'd like to leave me, too.

Since she left, I feel like I've been slowly drifting away. Away from my career, away from my friends, away from my boys, away from me. I'm tired of dyin', and scared of livin'. If anybody ever needed God, it's me.

I am desperately lonely, but not ready to be in another relationship.

Romantic movies make me cry, not just when I watch them, but days afterwards. It turns out that the problem with being an incurable romantic is that there's no cure for it. I'm dying of love. It lifts me up and carries me away. So I close my eyes, and drift.

And sometimes think of God.

When I was a kid I went to church. The people in my church seemed nice.

There was no anger there. And certainly no hatred. I'm sure there are Christians like that today, but I never see them. I only see the far-right fringe. Accusing, damning, threatening.

So I ask myself, where are the nice Christians? The kind of Christians that I knew when I was a kid? Why have they let the boldest and meanest among them speak for all of them? Can't they see that the Bible is being tarnished in the same way the Koran has been tarnished -- by the fanatics who brandish it for their own agendas?

Maybe it's time for the meek to stand up and be heard.

Maybe then people like me might actually listen to what you have to say.