Lightly Populated

When I was a boy I got the idea that only Catholic girls were going to heaven, and they had to be good ones at that.  Catholic boys had no chance.  We were full of lust and mischief.  Protestants had no chance.  They were heretics.  As for all the unbaptized, they were automatically out too.  In time I realized that there are guy saints, but they pretty much had to be virgins.  Marriage would doom you.  Pretty grim.  I don't know why I kept being a Catholic since I had no chance.  Frequent confession gave m the illusion that I would be the exception.  Then lust and mischief would come along and I was again on the outs.  For a while I just gave up.  If I was going to burn anyway, sin boldly and often.  It was actually an unfulling life that brought me to the Truth.  God loves me and wants not to judge or condemn me.  God wants me to be all God made me to be, with my imperfections.  In transformation I still have faults.  They keep me humble, but are way less messy in practice than they once were.  And I met some really nice Protestants, Jews, and peoples of other paths or no belief in my God.  I guess heaven is a lot bigger than I thought when I was young.  I will get to see Helen there in heaven.  She was a good Catholic girl who lived across the courtyard from me in the Bronx apartments.  She was Irish with red hair.  We were young, before lust.