Church

 

Every single Sunday these last few weeks, there is an anger that comes up.  It comes so fierce and then the rage sets in.  You turn the TV on and there are all these pastors and preachers each one telling their own version of things that they want you to believe.  Each one voice louder than the next and I struggle to understand, why would these people be yelling at us about how great the things that they are saying are.  

Religion and church have hurt me more in my lifetime than I even want to acknowledge.  I think that when you pray to die at 5, it really changes a person.  It is something that stays with you forever.  Some of the people that have hurt me the most in my lifetime were people that claimed to love god and built their life around the church.  Those were people that I knew I never wanted to be like. 

The people that have meant the most are the people that have been really genuine and true because of who they are as people not because of a god that they believe in. To me that speaks volumes.  The people that can accept my questions, that still love me even when our views are so very different those are the people that I want to be around. 

For me growing up I was always questioning and wondering.  I was never one to just believe because a person told me too.  I wanted to know more and believe in something with my whole heart, if I couldn't do that then it was not something that I wanted or to be a part of who I am. I am sure that growing up with people who so severely hurt me then went to church the next day talking about how wonderful they were had really affected me.  As a little girl I was surrounded by people in the church, who said one thing then did another. I never found caring and comfort. All I found was violence and disbelief.  There was never an understanding or a sense of family.  I was always the outsider, because as long as I can remember I would question the things they wanted me to believe; and that didn't work in the catholic church.  You don't question you just comply.  I saw evil all around me, that was so inconsistent with all that they were talking about. 

I saw the man who violently rape me, then proceed to kill my tadpoles and tell me that next time I wouldn't fight receive communion the next day staring me down like I had done something terrible. 

As a family we had to carry the communion and wine to the alter then on the way home get screamed at and called horrid names and receive the silent treatment for as long as he thought necessary. 

I was gang raped by men that carried the cross during Sunday's mass. 

I was told that the only way that I was going to heal was through God and the church.  

I was not believed or helped when I was made to tell what happened to me. Instead, I was made the black sheep, called a liar and ignored. 

There was the Christian counseling center who told me I made my bed and had to lie in it. 

Church, Religion and God are not things that hold my heart and make me feel at home.  Those things have hurt me beyond repair.  I do not believe in a god that lets a little girl of 5 pray to die because her father comes in her room every night. I will not believe in something, that tells me all about going to heaven and in the same breath says my father will be there. 

I do not want to believe in something that has damaged my life in ways that I can't fully comprehend. 

I will not believe in something that is more about being the popular person than about who you are in your heart.  I just won't do it. 

There was a woman who was married to a woman and wanted a church family.  I asked the pastor, and he said Well she can come but we don't believe in her life. I was more than shocked.  The judgement. 

There was the pastor when my mother worked at the bank who told her I should have kept my legs closed, which she then told me. 

It was a woman in the church that said to me Well you can't be everyone's friend and that has stuck with me, no.  You are absolutely correct. 

So, no I don't believe in God, or Church or anything that resembles it.  

I have lived this life on my own.  Relying on the things around me, on the birds and the trees and the animals, those are the things that have kept me going and have given me hope. 

I am fine with believers.  If that is you, and it works, wonderful.  But it does not work for me.  I am not less than because I don't believe in the god that you do.  I am not less than because I am a kind human because that is just who I am.  

I remember asking about the Dali Llama once.  I said so, you're telling me that he won't go to heaven because he doesn't believe in god?  The short answer was Yes.  So, if someone that gentle and kind is thought to go to hell, that is not something that I want to subscribe to. So many rules and unkindness's that don't feel right for the person that I am. 

I do not believe in some kind of God that lets children be brutally raped throughout their life.  

A man once said that he thanked God that a light turned green or that there was an upfront parking place.  Wow that seems trivial compared to the rape of a five-year-olds body.  Can you explain that?  He will let a violent attack occur and yet change a light or give you a parking space? I know it isn't that simple but there are things I just don't understand.  I understand choice and free will.  For me there is suffering that destroys and there is no way around that. 

I believe in the goodness of kind good people because that is who they are in their heart, and not for any other reason. 

So yea, Sundays and church and all that includes sometimes makes me sad.  It just isn't all it's said to be. 

I heart your heart.