Hyper-Religiousity

Preamble

If you ever decide to come down with a mental illness, a momentary degradation nearly akin to catching a cold, a brief spell wherein one experiences symptoms that are out of the norm, I would highly suggest first giving up all spiritual convictions, practices, rituals, supernatural belief and hope.
In a mental ward, these things will only damn you.
My callous nature, those nihilistic tendencies switch into autopilot as I near the moment of the past and consider the cost of seeking to uphold my belief system.
I remember the moments when it shatters. They say I'd lost logic, my ability to rationalize, so what was it to let go of my connection to unseen? A mere loosening of the grasp of hands clasped in prayer? Abandoning, after all, my parents' religion, their denomination and all that went with it, wasn't much to lose, was it?
Fucking rhetoric, daggers and a little spiritual warfare. Maybe some undigested meat bits sipping into dreams.
These cold words come from a dark dark place.
This entry's first ramblings are really just a preamble.

Flash back to church camp in 2000. St. Paul's Presbyterian Church's Midwinter Retreat

On Stage you will see a youth pastor stirring up the young folk. He gives them hope. He speaks with persuasion, passion, conviction and boldness. He tells us a story about how God (the Judeo Christian God of the Bible whose only son is Jesus Christ)- he tells us the story about how God works in our life.
He uses a visual device to reach the high school juniors. He takes a clear plastic cup that holds rocks and pours water into it. It's a cup of rocks. He tells us, this is your life, the cup is a vessel, just as you are. The rocks are sins, distractions, things that take your focus away from Christ. A rock could be your talent, abilities, a relationship - something neutral that may become an idol in your life. Then he tells us some rocks are sins, addictions, struggles that dominate our focus and threaten to drown us with their temptations and destruction. Then, he tells us the water is the Holy Spirit coming into our life, when we ask God into our hearts. He says the water fills up the empty spaces within us, gives us joy, security, a foothold, truth. Then, the analogy becomes more visual.
He takes rocks out of the cup. The water level goes down. He tells us that God takes things away - things we love - good things, sins. He says God removes these -or allows these things to be removed - (there is a little semantics and confusion with first mover, predestination, God not causing harm), anyway, he says God takes away rocks. And it can hurt to lose the rocks, our prized idols. But in their place, there is more room for water. So, the guy had a pitcher and he poured more water into the cup - filled in to the top. Then it got weird.
He was taking the analogy home. He had our attention and this lesson would really demonstrate what he was getting at.
He poured, water over the top. He told us how our cup would overflow. It would over flow with blessings, with the presence of the Holy Spirit. Then, the guy poured the water over his head. It was a bit like a baptism, reveling in blessings, God's goodness covering you entirely kind of thing. And then he prayed.
This demonstration hit home with me. I remembered it in the hospital.

Lunch time baptism, communion, water demonstration at the hospital

Lost me, was stuck in the hospital for a number of days. Feeling stuck. Debating what trappedness or homelessness might me. Praying and crying and to God silently. I had come from working at a summer camp. Just like that one I attended all those years ago. I thought maybe I was on fire. My convictions had cut me to the core and I felt that I should share that with a patient I was talking to.
So I told some woman about God, about Jesus. I talked to her about how we could have communion with water and crackers because we weren't at church and we needed it and God would understand. I told her about the story in the rocks at summer camp. I think I even poured water over my head.
One of the symptoms that one might encounter in a hypomanic state is hyper-religiousity. These acts were a bipolar II side effect of a broken brain.
Or so they told me.
They upped the anti-psychotic and tranquilizer medication. They decided to keep me under watch another day.