Is it a sin, is it a crime,
Loving you, dear, like I do?
If it's a sin then I'm guilty
Guilty of loving you

I think I've isolated the thing that's holding me back from religion. Sure, there are all the theoretical and philosophical objections; in those cases the clash is fundamental and unresolvable. But the more emotive issue here, the one that makes me think myself damned, is this: I feel too much guilt. So much guilt that my more irreverent Catholic friends say that I could convert without any adult catechism. I do a roaring business in guilt and it's so lucrative that the coin from my trade can be spent in any realm and in any quantity. Having a shower? Why, it's time to look back at my life, dig up all those unpleasant episodes that blossomed from my own stupidity and bad judgement and proceed to feel ashamed and unhappy. Eating? No better occasion to beat myself over the head with the number of calories I'm consuming and thoughts of how I shall be not only unattractive but also fat. Having sex? Well, then it's just the perfect place to reflect on how the very act of lust is a gob in the eye of the God I am trying to placate and how being choked by my lover - something I enjoy rather much - directly contravenes my liberal and quasi-feminist leanings.

I realised this the other day, when talking to a Catholic acquaintance of mine in the office. She's been trying to help me out by bringing me to mass and talking about religion; I'm very thankful for her help and her concern for my spiritual life. We spoke of several things before I launched into my belief in my own damnation and my unerring ability to be neurotic about my life. "I feel like I have to check myself at every moment," I told her. "I have to catch myself out in things to make sure that I'm not letting any instance of ungodliness slip by. Is this a moment of intellectual pride? Am I behaving like a bigot and giving other people insufficient credit? Why are my ideals so divorced from those prescribed by Christianity?" She seemed rather shocked at this and said it sounded bloody tough, like some kind of continual interrogation. "It's not supposed to be like that," she said. "It's supposed to be a relationship."

Yes, I know I've heard the "it's a relationship" thing ten million times. But being the bred-in-Singapore sod that I am, I kind of picture it as a relationship with my parents: being in a position of socialised inferiority to a set of elders who have bark puzzling and often contradictory orders which spring from wells of traditional and incomprehensible "values" (read: biases) and an unswerving belief in their own wisdom (read: I know what's best for you). The parallels are unnerving. God knows what's best, His ideas of justice and goodness are of unclear provenance and beyond human understanding. His edicts are as many as they are nebulous and interpreting their words has led to much blood shed and much heresy proclaimed. All around me there are people who have no qualms about yoking themselves to the religious cause, just as there are those who have a habit of obedience to their parents.

Hence you can see my reluctance to subscribe to the "relationship" model of religious relations - but unfortunately, I can see no other way. If this is the sort of relationship I have, then the sort of behaviour I adopt naturally follows parental parameters. No wonder, then, that I'm on neurotic tenterhooks all the time. Can either parent find fault with this? Have I accidentally spilled water somewhere, enough to earn me a caning? How can I believe all these protestations of love and affection if I could get myself shouted at and hit if I cross the line? Why can't I be a better child, why can't I stop questioning things and just do it because they say so? Is there something wrong with me? Why won't they stop saying that they know what's best and let me have a bit of fallible happiness? All this leads to a rather damaging internal monologue that gave me no end of mental turmoil in my home life and continues to plague me in my spiritual one.

And really, it all boils down to guilt. I feel guilty for letting my parents down and being a difficult child. I feel guilty to myself for subordinating my happiness to that of my parents. Translate this onto the heavenly plane and it sounds pretty much the same: I'm sorry, God. I just can't live up to what you expect of me. Sometimes I try, but I'm too lazy and sinful and stupid. And to be honest, sometimes I wish you weren't there so I could be happy. Everybody says that You forgive and rejoice when a lost lamb comes home; but I'm not repentent and I've never come home. I still can't reconcile my happiness with Your plan and I keep going back to my old ways because they're the ones that make me happy. I know that You're still angry with me and You can look inside my heart and see how black and deceitful it is. I'm a terrible human being and I've failed so many times. It would be just of You to damn me, because that's what I deserve.

So that's it. I'm too guilty to be saved. I'm too much of a spiritual failure for His forgiveness and I know I'm pretty much fucked from the get-go. Yet I'm too guilt-ridden to say "Oh, what the heck" and abandon God altogether. Just like with my parents, really. All this fills me with such hopelessness that my search for God isn't as heartfelt or as enthusiastic as it should be - another cause for guilt, to be sure. I can't chase something if I know I won't reach it, or worse: if I know I'm hamstrung by the very things that make life mean something to me.

I know that the way out of this is to stop feeling guilty and realise that there is refreshment and succour in religion, that God really does want me back and I'm not damned. But I can't ever stop sinning - and willfully so - because those things labelled "sin" give me joy and make my life bearable. I'll never be a good Christian and learn to condemn the things I love. I'll never be able to lead as good a life as I could, because that would mean casting my right hand from me, and I really need my right hand to function. So how can I ever wring the stains of guilt out of my skin? How can I stagger out of the labyrinth of guilt that my own cursed humanity has built for me?

Greene, in The Heart of the Matter spoke endlessly about despair, the greatest sin of all; it seems as if that particular failing comes easily to me. I don't quite know how to shake it off, but it's a burden I have to bear: the weight of my hypocrisy, my stupidity and my worldliness. A human being could perhaps forgive me, but a God? Or, what's worse, a just God? Even if I went to church or attended some theology class or took His body and His blood in my mouth, I'm still utter shite. I can't change.

They say God never gives you more than you can bear. In this case, the guilt accumulated from the mere fact of being me is probably just about skirting it.