Knowing When To Hold 'Em In The House Of God

The church in which my husband and I got married is holding its annual Autumn Fest this weekend, and last night, we stopped by.

It's the typical church fest thing -- food, drinks, entertainment...roulette. Yes, the church festival included a casino. To make it worse, unlike the food and entertainment, which was in a tent outside, the casino portion of the fest was held inside the church. It's not like the priest was dispensing chips from the altar, but even in the catechism classrooms and the hallways, there hung casino-related decorations directly on top of Jesus posters and crucifixes right next to games. I had to wonder if they'd done that on purpose so that people didn't try to win too big. The volunteers manning the casino made it a point to tell the unlucky that the church appreciated their donation.

We both felt a little weird about participating in the gambling, but we had some time to kill, and it was either gamble or watch a bunch of little kids do Irish step dancing, so we bought $20 in chips and headed off to the Blackjack room. I like Blackjack -- there isn't much skill involved. I mean, I suppose if you go to Vegas, you can count cards if you don't mind getting your kneecaps busted later, but generally speaking, the game is simple math, and, in this case, successfully ignoring the poster of the Ten Commandments staring down at you from behind the dealer's seat. And I did OK, coming out slightly ahead.

My husband, however, took the big prize in a game of Texas Hold 'Em. I had to get home to do an interview for a freelance story I'm writing, so he had time for only a few hands, and of those hands he folded all but one. He won that hand, giving us a total of $65 in chips to cash out, meaning a net gain of $45.

We left happy, albeit still feeling a little strange. Gambling in church was weird enough, but winning money felt like stealing from God. Nothing like a little Catholic guilt to liven up casino night.

When we got home, the person I was to interview called to postpone a few hours, so I filled the time by watching Dirty Sexy Money. Somehow, it seemed appropriate.