13. As long as the light bulb turns on

I’ve been a Unitarian Universalist* my whole life, and didn’t know it until a little over a year ago. I’ve touched on my religious beliefs to some degree in an earlier blog, but since today is Sunday I feel it necessary to delve a little deeper.

My mom went to Catholic school most of her youth. By the time she had me, I personally believe that she was still looking for her lightbulb to go off. I was raised believing in God, and praying every night,  but we definately didn’t attend church on a regular basis. We attended church here and there, some baptist, some catholic and some non-denominational.
I was a child, and it was all very rote to me; I put on my special Sunday dress and my mom labors over my long hair for about an hour. We drive to church and listen to gospel music on the way. They have beautiful voices. At church, I stand when they tell me to. I sing when they tell me to. I walk up to the front and eat a cracker and then take a sip of grape juice. People look very solemn and that makes me feel like what I’m doing is very very important. A grown up stands behind a podium and talks very loudly about God. He says things that I don’t understand, and sometimes he says things that scare me. He tells me about a place called Heaven. It sounds beautiful, and I want to do everything I can to make sure I go there after I die. He says that the only way to get there is through Jesus Christ, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.

I get scared.

Sometimes he says things that make people cry, but not sad tears. Sometimes they mumble ‘amen’ or ‘hallelujah’ and I don’t understand why. Sometimes he talks about grown up things and I get bored and fall asleep. Afterward, my mother leads my little brother and I outside where people in bright Sunday suits and dresses with matching hats tell me how cute i look with my bright white Mary Jane shoes and flower dress. They tell me that Jesus loves me, and that makes me happy because I miss my dad.
They tell me that if I lie, I will go to hell because lying is a sin. They tell me that God does not like sinners. That terrifies me because I lied to my mom about finishing all of my homework. That scares me because I lied to my friend at school about how fast I can run. I’m terrified because i just know that now I’m going to Hell now.
But then they tell me that God is in everyone, and that He loves me.
I wonder why He’s a boy and not a girl, like my mommy.
I’m so confused now.
Then I get older, and I don’t feel like getting dressed up anymore. I don’t feel like kneeling when they tell me to kneel. I don’t think the hymns sound as beautiful to me as it does to everyone else. I start to think that there is something wrong with me. I want to know why they want me to get dressed up. I want to know why I have to kneel. I want God to love me. I know that my mother loves me more than anyone in the world loves me, but I don’t need to kneel for her. She brought me into this world. She bore me. A mother, in the eyes of a child, is God. I would not make a statue for my mother and pray to her. I would just go to her and tell her that I love her. Why can’t I just do that with God?

Why am I thinking these things?
Does this mean that I’m bad, and that I’ll go to Hell?
I’m confused and scared.

Then I get even older, and I realize that there are other people who believe different things than my family. I wonder about their beliefs, but I assume that everyone is supposed to believe what their family believes. ‘He’s white, so he’s catholic. She’s black, so she’s baptist. He’s asian, so he’s buddhist. She’s from the middle east, so she’s muslim,” etc. Although I never questioned why they believed what they did, I always wondered what they believed.
We barely went to church anymore. After a while, age started showing me signs. On the Sundays when my mom chose to go to church, I felt ostracized.
“Believe, or else.” They said.
“Bad people go to Hell. Good people go to Heaven.” They said. I knew that I was good. I knew that, because I always made it a point to be friends with the kids in school who people made fun of. I liked making people smile because I knew that I was, for that brief moment, making them happy. Laughing was the best part of my day. I wanted to help people because I didn’t like it when people were sad. Helping them made me happy. I always wanted so badly to show mean people how to be nice, but I didn’t know how. It made me so frustrated…why couldn’t they just be nice? When I saw sad things on the News it would make me cry.
When I was home with my mom and brother, we would spend hours in the living room with blank pieces of white paper, pencils, markers, and ink. We would make art together for hours without saying a single word. Sometimes there would be cardboard, other times fabric. Sometimes both. We would paint. We would go outside. Sometimes we would stay inside and just tell stories to each other and swim in our own imaginations. Every time we were together, it was just the three of us. They were the people I loved the most, and we explored a different and more beautiful part of ourselves; the part that didn’t have skin or hair or fingers or toes. The part that was more than just our bodies.

That time spent with my family is the closest I’ve ever felt with God.

Age taught me that that is my religion. Age taught me that that is what I believe in. Art doesn’t discriminate. Art is how the three of us got in touch with our souls. My art was people; how they look when they’re sad, frustrated, happy, concerned, melancholy, lonely…My brothers art was other worldly; things that were different and exciting. Things you’ve never seen with your eyes, only your imagination. My mothers art was different than ours. It was fabric and color. It was African, and always made me feel like she was telling a story with so much meaning…it just felt a specific way. Our art was different, but we all went to the same loving place and felt the same kind of love when we made our art together.

That’s what I wanted to believe in; the kind of love that has no restrictions.

I realized that you can believe whatever you choose to believe.  I realized that it was merely people who set those religious restrictions that I saw growing up. God didn’t create those restrictions.  I opened my eyes wider…I looked a little deeper…
I became okay with not believing…at least not in what they told me to believe at Church. I couldn’t bring myself to believe in a God who was vengeful and angry. Not in a God that cared how you got there…just THAT you got there. I believe in God because I believe in coming to my own conclusions based on my own experiences. I’ve been hours away from eviction, and God has pulled it together for me. When my mother was in the hospital, I turned to God and asked Her to give me strength to get through everything. She did. I laid in bed after one of the worst binging and purging sessions I’d ever had in my life, and I asked God to help me. She sent me to Georgia and now I have a stomach full of food and I feel healthy. I believe in the God that I hold to be true to me. I do not believe in a vengeful angry wrathful God. I believe in the Mother Earth God. I believe in a Woman very much like my mother. She lets me touch the stove once, so I know not to touch it again. She allows me to play in the backyard and get scratched up and bruised. She allows me to bleed while I’m experiencing everything she provided for me; the sun, the earth, trees, flowers, water, grass. She shows me that although I just got a giant bloody cut on my elbow, I will have a pretty cool scar to show my friends later on. And at the end of the day, She will cradle me in her arms and remind me that no matter what happened that day or the next, Her love for me will never falter. With this knowledge, I feel safe. I feel loved. Most of all, I feel empowered. That’s the God I believe in. She’s every mother and grandmother that ever lived and will live.
I also believe that there is so much left to know. I know that every single person has a different path, and it does not have to be anywhere near the one I’ve chosen. What is true, is what’s true for me. What is true, is what’s true for you. Some people had a light bulb turn on when they found Christ. That is their journey. They learned how to love. Others had a light bulb turn on when they discovered Buddhism. That is their journey. They learned how to love. My mother had her own journey, and found Christ. She’s the strongest woman I know, yet her journey is very different than mine. That’s okay. That’s GOOD.

The above is my journey. My light bulb turned on. I learned how to love.
I don’t care how you get there, as long as the light bulb turns on.

*Unitarian Universalism promotes love and allows you to pursue your own journey. Read more about it here.

5. So what happens next?

I had a random thought today, as I sat at my favourite spot at the Starbucks downtown. My seat is at a bar in front of the window that faces the street, allowing me to observe those strolling by, and them me. I’m sure that to those who don’t know me very well (or at all) would think me a hipster of sorts; one of those pseudo bohemian starbucks book-readers who wear thick framed glasses and talk about Albert Camus. I suppose I fit that description in a sense, but sometimes I feel like that just because a young person likes reading at a coffee shop, they’re immediately a ‘pseudo bohemian intellectual poser’. It’s the ‘cool’ and ‘hip’(ster) thing to do.

However, that’s not really the gripe I’m looking to address.

I’ll start by mentioning how much I love Savannah. It’s significantly more diverse than Orange County (duh). You can go downtown and walk through the squares and Foresyth park and see just as many blacks as you do whites, Hispanics, etc.  The one thing that is the same is the type of black people you find in LA as well as Savannah. Popular Hip Hop culture, like influenza or any other disgusting traveling disease, is so deeply imbued in African American culture that not only is it generally the same all over the country but if you’re black and you don’t follow hip hop culture then there’s ‘something wrong with you’.

All of this I thought about while sitting at Starbucks listening to Spoon on my iPod and watching all of these different colors, sizes, genders, and sexualities walk by.

What I wanted to explore is where I fall in the mix of everything. I’m so comfortably opinionated and somewhat outspoken about the things that I believe in: womens rights, animal rights, environmentalism…why am I not a progressive african american activist? Why do I not belong to a black organization? Why am I a Peta member, and not an NAACP member? Is it because I went to a prodominantly white school? Well…no, because I love my heritage and I’m proud to be african. It’s why I refuse to straighten my hair, among other things.

And, for the sake of playing devils advocate with myself, why should I be expected to be a black activist, just because I’m black? Part of me feels like true progression in the black community begins with shredding the ‘i’m just a black person’ mentality, and becoming active in OTHER things. Active black people inspire me, but you rarely see black people taking truly liberal stands toward major issues that don’t immediately relate to the inner city. Womens rights in the workplace and having the ERA finally passed…actually pursuading the government to pass legislation to cut our carbon footprint and incoorporate more reusable energy…instituting more humane farming practices for the chicken and beef that we all consume thousands of pounds worth per year… children in non-african countries dying of starvation and AIDS. Black activists spend their time focused on the progression of black people and positive portrayal of us in the media…wouldn’t it be a remarkable portrayal of blacks in the media if there were more black people actively working toward solving global warming, even if that means forming non-profits? Wouldn’t it be a remarkable portrayal of blacks in the media if there were a black organization whose sole purpose it was to supply children in Indonesia with food and water?  Why is it that white people are the ones who are typically more involved in these issues?

And the first thing I think of when I ask myself that question, is this answer: White people typically do not have the same sorts of hardships that the general population of blacks do, and blacks do not have time to stress over global warming when they have no way to pay their rent next month. Of course that is a stark generalization, but I absolutely understand that. To me, however it is not an excuse. I’ve lived with immobilizing financial fear for much longer than I would like to admit, and yet I’m absolutely concerned with animal cruelty issues. I worry about global warming flushing the west coast down the toilet. How could you not worry about those things? I care about all of it, as well as where my family will get their next meal.

I was approached at the bus stop today by a woman (without introducing herself to me or even attempting to build rapport) who wanted to know if I’ve thought about being ‘saved’.

I honestly have not. I do not believe that Jesus Christ is the savior. If you are black, and you have a picture of a blonde haired blue eyed Jesus Christ, then to me you are simply a mindless sheep and you’re wasting the oxygen and space that other free-thinkers could be utilizing more efficiently. That sounds so rough, but my mother taught me to think and ask questions. I read the bible, and there is not one reference of Dinosaurs, yet we all know they existed. How does your creationism-endorsing pastor explain dinosaurs?? I read about Charles Darwin, and he tells me about organisms that have evolved from the ocean. I read the bible, and it tells me that if two boys fall in love with eachother, then they are both going to hell because it is a sin. The bible tells me that the love that two boys share is not equal to the love between a man and a woman. The bible tells me this. However, I witness with my own two eyes a love that is so profound that it absolutely has no gender. I prayed that I would find love like that. I also witness the divorce rate of heterosexual marriages and wonder why christian hetero’s consider themselves so damned high and mighty that they can defile this ‘sacred’ union by getting themselves wrapped up in a marriage/divorce rollercoaster. I study history and patriarcal power and see that the Bible has been so tampered with over thousands of years that everything read in it has to be accepted with ‘faith’. I look at how time progresses, and I realize that the way humans function now is absolutely different from the way humans functioned during the time of Christ, therefore a lot of the teachings in the Bible should be rendered obscolete.  I ask questions and combine my personal resolutions together to come up with my own personal theory that Jesus Christ is not our ‘savior’, but instead a wise and brilliant man who like Buddha should be honored and respected. And because I choose to not attend ‘Christian’ churches, then there’s ‘something wrong with me’.

And when I tell the name-less woman at the bus stop “No”, she proceeds to spout off a memorized monologue about how Jesus loves me, and the only way to heaven is through him.

I believe in God because I believe in coming to my own conclusions based on my own experiences. I’ve been hours away from eviction, and God has pulled it together for me. When my mother was in the hospital, I turned to God and asked Her to give me strength to get through everything. She did. I laid in bed after one of the worst binging and purging sessions I’d ever had in my life, and I asked God to help me. She sent me to Georgia and now I have a stomache full of food and I feel healthy. I believe in the God that I hold to be true to me. I do not believe in a vengeful angry wrathful God. I believe in the Mother Earth God. I believe in a Woman very much like my mother. She lets me touch the stove once, so I know not to touch it again. She allows me to play in the backyard and get scratched up and bruised. She allows me to bleed while I’m experiencing everything she provided for me; the sun, the earth, trees, flowers, water, grass. She shows me that although I just got a giant bloody cut on my elbow, I will have a pretty cool scar to show my friends later on. And at the end of the day, She will cradle me in her arms and remind me that no matter what happened that day or the next, Her love for me will never falter. With this knowledge, I feel safe. I feel loved. Most of all, I feel empowered. That’s the God I believe in (no matter how many times i watch Dogma, I still can’t accept Alanis Morrisette as God lol. I think she’s more like Maya Angelou. Or maybe she doesnt have a specific face. She’s every mother and grandmother that ever lived and will live).

It feels like everything about the African American culture is about only listening to Hip Hop or R&B oldies, eating a lot of meat, spending money beyond your means, and not really caring about much else besides going to church every single sunday and making money during the week.

And now I feel like I’m giving off the vibe that I think I’m better than other black people. I promise I don’t. I feel like I’m just on another page. I don’t think I’m on this page alone, either. There are so many truly progressive black people like myself…but there aren’t enough.

This is me simply recognizing, observing, and questioning my own opinions and ideas. I don’t actually have a conclusion for any of these thoughts. Hopefully I’ll figure it all out someday.