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Subject: What I learned in Church

Author:
S

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Date Posted: 20:21:37 12/29/01 Sat

Was to despise all manner of hypocrisy.

I could tell you stories of things I witnessed as a child that would literally make your skin crawl. All in the name of God. I saw a man beat his twelve year old daughter with a belt in the church yard once. He was yelling whore at her the whole time. Her crime was to hold hands with a boy during the morning service.

That's one of the lesser ones. I don't want to make anyone upchuck here.

Despite all these things, though, I'm very close to my family. I don't resent my parents for the way I grew up. They did the best they knew how. And they believed in the way they lived deep down in the bottom of their hearts. It would break their hearts to know how much all of their children have tried to protect them from our pain.

But outside of my parents, I don't give a chicken turd for the rest of that church.

My parents were oblivious to the world around them. I was literally raised by a bunch of teenagers. They were wild, rebellious, fowl mouthed, but they taught me well. They taught me to respect my parents. They taught me to be polite to old people and children. They taught me to do my chores without arguing. They taught me to look for the best in others, to live by my heart. They taught me to sing Janis Joplin. And they taught me to recognize bullshit when I saw it.

My brothers told me to never trust a man who doesn't talk about sex. They said that's what men are thinking about. If he doesn't admit it openly and doesn't want you to admit you know that's what he's thinking about, he'll lie through his teeth about anything. So far that rule has never let me down.

I don't trust people who don't talk about all aspects of being human, and I especially don't trust men who don't want women to talk about the same things they talk about.

My brothers also taught me how to shoot spit balls, but that's another story entirely.

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[> Subject: Re: What I learned in Church

Author:
WN
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Date Posted: 08:01:35 12/30/01 Sun

I quickly came to the conclusion, truthfully or not, that the reason people believe in god is that they are afraid to die. They go to church once a week and all the while praying for the priest's final "amen" so they can begin their weekly recapture of additional sins for which they were forgiven the sermon before.
I consider "Faith" a weakness...in the light of Her sister, "Hope".
If anyone has any concept whatsoever to the vastness of our universe, how can one really believe that we are the "chosen" ones in all this space? This is sheer arrogance on our part, but we must have the answer to "Why are we here?" Once we discover we aren't alone out there, the priests will be killed.
We have this ingrained sense of self-importance to the universe, baseless as such. We are only here for each other. The sooner that is realized and the hope and faith that we have in someone swooping down to save our sorry asses, the better off we will be.
But, if you find comfort in hope and faith, who am I to argue? I don't need it.
Just love as many people as you can....or who are willing to "allow" you to. That is why we are here.

p.s. "Allow" them to love you back would be nice, too :)

[> Subject: Re: What I learned in Church

Author:
S
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Date Posted: 08:23:01 12/30/01 Sun

"Faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love."

One of the few Bible verses I quote without sarcasm.

I personally don't need to believe in a god who looks like an old white man and lords over a kingdom in the sky in order to feel secure. I think that works for a lot of people, though.

I prefer to believe that we get our strength from the earth itself, from the people we love, from the great outdoors that sustains us, from the poor dumb kitty cats who trust us and so on.

If I'm really in need of spiritual rejuvenation, I go sit on the banks of Black Creek and soak in the sound of the water and the smell of the pine trees. If I'm lucky, none of my cousins shoot at me or show up half neked with a 12 pack of Coors.

[> [> Subject: Re: What I learned in Church

Author:
S
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Date Posted: 08:40:47 12/30/01 Sun

My favorite place to go to feel "spiritual" is Spider Rock. Have you ever been there? It is in Canyon de Chelly in Arizona.

It's odd for someone who grew up in the piney woods, but I feel really connected to life and earth and all that mooshy stuff in that desert.

I've gone out there on school business a few times. I stayed in a dorm room at Dine College. One night I was sitting in the lobby of the dorm when this drunk man wandered in. He had apparently come to the wrong hogan by mishstake. Didn't bother him, though. He just kicked back and started talking to me.

When he started telling stories that began "when I was in Nam," I refilled my coffee and took my shoes off. We were gonna be there for a while.

The funniest part, though, to me was that he thought I was a student there in this all Navajo school. I don't particularly look like my Choctaw and Cherokee great-grands except for dark hair and eyes, but this kind of thing has happened to me on numerous occasions.

This man kept saying he was proud of me for getting an education and learning something about life off the rez. In Oklahoma, I'd have people stop and ask me which way to the pow wow as if they thought I'd just come from there.

One of my friends said that I had a freakish spiritual connection to Native Americans, and they could feel the indian in me even when it wasn't visible.

I don't know about that, but I do have a freakish spiritual connection to places that mean something to Native Americans, and my favorite to date is Spider Rock.

[> [> [> Subject: Spider Rock
Author: S [ Edit \| View ]	Date Posted: 13:43:00 12/30/01 Sun http://www.navajoland.com/cdc/7.shtml Just a hunk of rock, but I like it. Hey, Aileen, how do you set links on here?