It's been a while since I last posted a blog. I've been pretty busy with getting back to school in the states, adjusting to the apartment, moving two of the cats here, dealing with a whole bunch of shenanigans which I will get to in a minute, and just living my life, basically. I mean to come back to blogging, but it's hard when you feel like you don't really have anything constructive to say. It's been an incredibly rough 2010, and I put on a brave face but mostly I am becoming increasingly aware that everything is not okay, and for all I know right now things may never be okay again. But I'm hanging on to the hope that things will get better soon.
So as anyone who has read this knows, my rabbit Buns died at the beginning of January. He was the best rabbit ever, but not only that he was a good friend too. I relate better to animals than to people, because animals just listen. They don't give you their advice or choose sides. Buns was like that in many ways, I could just talk to him and stroke his long golden-red ears and he would just sit quietly twitching his nose and staring up at me. The thing I miss the most about him, I think, is that whenever my mom and I would argue and raise our voices Buns would stamp his feet as if to say "enough!" I realize that he was probably very sensitive to loud noises and shouting, but I like to think that he was the voice of reason in an unreasonable environment. The voice of reason is gone now. In a lot of ways it just feels like everything is falling apart.
We went to Disney World as a family a few days after Buns died. It was my mom, me, my aunt, my other aunt and my uncle, her two daughters, their husbands, their total of five children, and my mom's friend Naveen and his wife. Naveen was the cause of the drama at my birthday (the reason why I wish I could forget that I even have a birthday), and he managed to cause drama at Disney too. There was a huge fight in the Magic Kingdom between my mom and my aunt, causing my other aunt to come outside brandishing her cane at the two of them. It was really very funny, but on a deeper level it was disturbing. My mom is willing to be cruel and violent (she pushed my aunt, her older sister, in the Magic Kingdom of all places) to the people she proportedly loves over this person whom she has known for all of four years. I don't want to spend time with Naveen, and I particularly don't want to spend time with my mother and Naveen because I will always lose when it comes to him.
My Pastor retired on Valentine's Day. It was one of the most pathetically sad days of my life. Pastor could barely get the sermon out without crying, and I was practically sobbing in the back of the church. I got some really good pictures with him but no picture can capture what he truly means to me. As far as I am concerned, Pastor is the person who saved me from myself when I was a lost 15 year old girl, struggling with a whole slew of issues that no person, much less a 15 year old, should have to deal with. He sat and talked with me once a week for a year before I was ready to be Baptised and confirmed, but sitting and talking with me and listening to me and giving me his undivided attention was exactly what I needed then. He never felt sorry for me, and in truth I never told him half of the things that were on my mind, but he gave me a new life, which is something I can never thank him enough for. And now he is out of my religious life and I am so afraid that he is going to be out of my life for good, in that I no longer live in my hometown and I can barely keep in touch with my best friends.
We sold my car, Rhonda, the girl of my dreams on Saturday. She's such a beauty that car, and I love her with every ounce of my being, but I have a new car now that is reliable and won't blow the radiator for no reason. We sold her to a father and son, the father wants to fix her up so that the son can use her to drive to college next year. Nothing would make me happier than to know that someone is driving her and loving her, but I will miss my first car, just like I miss my first rabbit and my first Pastor.
So it's been a pretty rough 2010 so far. I'm hoping things start to look up soon, but I'm not terribly optimistic. Well I take that back, I am optimistic that things will start to improve, I just know that things can always get worse, and knowing that just makes this shitty year that much shittier.
So happy March everyone, I hope your year has been better than mine thus far. May we all see vast improvements in the outlook of our 2010's.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Monday, March 1, 2010
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Truly I Tell You
I wasn't a Christian all my life, in fact today is the four year anniversary of my baptism into the faith.
I'm not a born again, though I suppose you could say that I was born again in Christ. I'm a Lutheran.
I believer wholeheartedly in God (in whatever form you choose God to take), I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, I believe the Bible was written by individuals who heard the Word of God, through whom God spoke to the people and continues to speak today.
I also believe the Bible is the single most misinterpreted piece of literature in the history of the world, or perhaps more accurately the single piece of literature that has caused the most strife and bloodshed in the history of the world.
When I read the Bible, my heart feels full because it's like I am talking to God. God is telling me how much s/he loves me. I have a similar experience when I am hiking or when I am swimming or when I look into the faces of children. The Bible gives me a sense of being overwhelmingly full and at peace, knowing that everything is going to be okay because God, the most powerful being ever, loves me personally. You may disagree and say that God does not exist, and that is your prerogative to believe or not believe or to believe something different, it is a wonderful free country we have here. But every time a rain drop falls on my cheek or I look into my niece's bright blue eyes I know for a fact that God exists, and s/he is good.
But some people don't feel full when they read the Bible. Some people feel so empty that they feel the need to make other people empty, and so they tear others down, they tell others they are going to hell, they fight and they kill and they do it all in God's name. They read the Word, and they see that they have sinned, but they forget that God loves them and they will be forgiven, so they take all of their regret and all of their anger toward themselves and they turn it out into the world. These people are in our churches, our schools, our offices, our neighbourhoods. They are our uncles, our sisters, our mothers, our best friends. They are the ones who feel a deep shame within themselves when they read the Word, and take that shame and do harm to others with it.
Well I won't be shamed by you anymore, nor will I let my friends and loved ones be shamed by you either. From this day forward I pledge that I will love and be loved by God and I will believe in Jesus just as He believes in me because it's my right as an American to believe what I want and it's my responsibility as a Christian to spread the Good News, take it or leave it. I will go about my life, freely and honestly, and I won't make anyone feel bad about themselves just because I am insecure and I won't use the Bible to sway the opinions of others or as a code of law for my country, "free of the bias of religion."
It's been four years, and it took me four years to learn that I'm not doing anything wrong by living my life. So long as I mind my business, give back when and where I can, love everyone I possibly can and always believe, I'll be saved.
I hope those people who would damn me or say that I am a sinner will see the light of reason before it is too late for them. I have faith.
John 3:17 "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him"
I'm not a born again, though I suppose you could say that I was born again in Christ. I'm a Lutheran.
I believer wholeheartedly in God (in whatever form you choose God to take), I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, I believe the Bible was written by individuals who heard the Word of God, through whom God spoke to the people and continues to speak today.
I also believe the Bible is the single most misinterpreted piece of literature in the history of the world, or perhaps more accurately the single piece of literature that has caused the most strife and bloodshed in the history of the world.
When I read the Bible, my heart feels full because it's like I am talking to God. God is telling me how much s/he loves me. I have a similar experience when I am hiking or when I am swimming or when I look into the faces of children. The Bible gives me a sense of being overwhelmingly full and at peace, knowing that everything is going to be okay because God, the most powerful being ever, loves me personally. You may disagree and say that God does not exist, and that is your prerogative to believe or not believe or to believe something different, it is a wonderful free country we have here. But every time a rain drop falls on my cheek or I look into my niece's bright blue eyes I know for a fact that God exists, and s/he is good.
But some people don't feel full when they read the Bible. Some people feel so empty that they feel the need to make other people empty, and so they tear others down, they tell others they are going to hell, they fight and they kill and they do it all in God's name. They read the Word, and they see that they have sinned, but they forget that God loves them and they will be forgiven, so they take all of their regret and all of their anger toward themselves and they turn it out into the world. These people are in our churches, our schools, our offices, our neighbourhoods. They are our uncles, our sisters, our mothers, our best friends. They are the ones who feel a deep shame within themselves when they read the Word, and take that shame and do harm to others with it.
Well I won't be shamed by you anymore, nor will I let my friends and loved ones be shamed by you either. From this day forward I pledge that I will love and be loved by God and I will believe in Jesus just as He believes in me because it's my right as an American to believe what I want and it's my responsibility as a Christian to spread the Good News, take it or leave it. I will go about my life, freely and honestly, and I won't make anyone feel bad about themselves just because I am insecure and I won't use the Bible to sway the opinions of others or as a code of law for my country, "free of the bias of religion."
It's been four years, and it took me four years to learn that I'm not doing anything wrong by living my life. So long as I mind my business, give back when and where I can, love everyone I possibly can and always believe, I'll be saved.
I hope those people who would damn me or say that I am a sinner will see the light of reason before it is too late for them. I have faith.
John 3:17 "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him"
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Maverick
Who's the Maverick now????
Congratulations Barack Obama, make this country proud! Please help set us on the path toward whole-ness.
I wish my daddy was alive to see this day. I wish I was back in the old neighbourhood holding Miss Bubba's hand. Barack, you won this for all the kids who dreamed of being president when they were told they would never make it. You won it for your daughters, who have the potential to some day become world leaders. You won it for my daddy, who worked tirelessly for the rights of all people. You won it for Miss Bubba in the old neighbourhood who could never dream outside of Hartford, outside of the bubble we lived in. You won it for Dr. King and HIS dream that has become OUR collective dream. You won it for me, the kid whose parents grew up on a farm in upstate New York and a little apartment in Bayonne New Jersey, the children of immigrants and dreamers, who thought a little house near the projects in Hartford was like a dream. You won it for me and all the people like me, the dreamers and the thinkers and the doers. You won it for me and all the people who are making their lives better, who are taking what our families had to offer us and shaping that into our own fantastic American Dreams. My daddy was there to hear Dr. King speak. He was there to walk with him, to hold his brother Americans and his sister Americans by the hands and sing and wonder and pray. And now you, Mr. Obama, have been given this wonderful opportunity, this unfathomable challenge, of repairing our nation while maintaining your sense of self.
You won the election for all of us, now the task is to lead ALL of us, not just some, into the future. Take me, and my red white and blue, orange yellow and green, black grey and tan, polkadotted and striped brothers and sisters, and lead ALL of us into a brighter tomorrow.
God bless this wonderful country where anything is possible.
And thank God for not passing Question 1 in CT. Be with all those who are still fighting their own battles. Teach this country how to love ALL and respect ALL individuals.
Congratulations Barack Obama, make this country proud! Please help set us on the path toward whole-ness.
I wish my daddy was alive to see this day. I wish I was back in the old neighbourhood holding Miss Bubba's hand. Barack, you won this for all the kids who dreamed of being president when they were told they would never make it. You won it for your daughters, who have the potential to some day become world leaders. You won it for my daddy, who worked tirelessly for the rights of all people. You won it for Miss Bubba in the old neighbourhood who could never dream outside of Hartford, outside of the bubble we lived in. You won it for Dr. King and HIS dream that has become OUR collective dream. You won it for me, the kid whose parents grew up on a farm in upstate New York and a little apartment in Bayonne New Jersey, the children of immigrants and dreamers, who thought a little house near the projects in Hartford was like a dream. You won it for me and all the people like me, the dreamers and the thinkers and the doers. You won it for me and all the people who are making their lives better, who are taking what our families had to offer us and shaping that into our own fantastic American Dreams. My daddy was there to hear Dr. King speak. He was there to walk with him, to hold his brother Americans and his sister Americans by the hands and sing and wonder and pray. And now you, Mr. Obama, have been given this wonderful opportunity, this unfathomable challenge, of repairing our nation while maintaining your sense of self.
You won the election for all of us, now the task is to lead ALL of us, not just some, into the future. Take me, and my red white and blue, orange yellow and green, black grey and tan, polkadotted and striped brothers and sisters, and lead ALL of us into a brighter tomorrow.
God bless this wonderful country where anything is possible.
And thank God for not passing Question 1 in CT. Be with all those who are still fighting their own battles. Teach this country how to love ALL and respect ALL individuals.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Another Letter I'll Never Send
Another letter I'll never send.
Dear Pastor,
If I had to come up with a list of the most influencial people who have ever come into my life, you would be among the top five. I listen to you preach the Good News every week, and every week I am reminded of how good the news really is, how good it is to know God's love. Now you're retiring, leaving your tiny congregation, many of whom take God's love for granted. I can't beg you to stay, I can't implore them to listen to you when you preach, to act like Christians, to act humanely. It seems I am powerless in this situation, but I am not so powerless that I can't take the things you taught me and use them in my life, to teach others, to attempt to teach a blind and deaf congregation hell bent on remaining stationary in this rapidly moving world.
I came to you when I was fifteen, as lost and confused as any teenager, searching for all the answers to all the questions. I had spent so much time focusing on hating God, believing God was at fault for my father's death, that I began to hate life. One can't live when one hates life, and for the longest time I was dead, almost without hope. I didn't know that my hatred for a God I never knew was eating me alive.
Until the day that I decided I couldn't hate myself anymore, I couldn't hate life anymore, I couldn't hate God anymore. How could I hate something I didn't understand? I began to seek out answers everywhere I could, but truth is elusive.
And then I found you, and your tiny congregation, with a life sized wooden cross as the only decoration into the long white hall. And we sat for hours, once a week, every week, discussing God, faith, religion, death, life, Christianity, Buddhism, men, women, family, service.
Sometimes you listened, sometimes I listened. Always you saw my pain, always I saw your humanity.
You didn't hold my hand and lead me out of the wilderness. No, you didn't even lay a path before my faulty feet.
Rather, you set a beacon on a hill, far off in the distance, something I could see but never touch. You gave me something to aspire to: love. You showed me that even two complete strangers, a devoted life-long Christian and a sincere but confused agnostic, both from very different generations and very different life experiences, can meet, can agree that love is far more productive than hate.
I've never told you my deepest secrets, but you could see the writing on the walls. All that mattered to you was that I was lost and alone, and in the truest Christian spirit, you welcomed me into God's house and showed me how to love again. It didn't matter where I had been, or where I was going, so long as I took love with me.
Everything I do, I do with love and earnestness. I take your words with me everywhere I go, and I reshape them into my own.
I know I believe in God, I believe that Jesus Christ was God's Son, and I know His love in my heart. I know the importance of faith, the importance of ANY belief.
I can't believe the hate that many people, many Christians, preach. I've known so much hate, and I've come to know so so so much love, and I simply can't be swept up in the hate any longer. It doesn't exist for me.
And that's thanks to you, Pastor, that I've forgotten hate. It's so hard when you have to watch the person you love the most in the world be ripped out of your life forever. It was so hard not to hate what happened to him, what happened to my mother, what happened to me, what happened to our lives. I can accept what happened to us, what will happen. I can be mad as hell sometimes, but I can never hate.
Thank you, Pastor, for not taking me by the hand and leading me out of the dark. I needed to find my own way, and I did, and I am forever grateful to you. Happy retirement!
Dear Pastor,
If I had to come up with a list of the most influencial people who have ever come into my life, you would be among the top five. I listen to you preach the Good News every week, and every week I am reminded of how good the news really is, how good it is to know God's love. Now you're retiring, leaving your tiny congregation, many of whom take God's love for granted. I can't beg you to stay, I can't implore them to listen to you when you preach, to act like Christians, to act humanely. It seems I am powerless in this situation, but I am not so powerless that I can't take the things you taught me and use them in my life, to teach others, to attempt to teach a blind and deaf congregation hell bent on remaining stationary in this rapidly moving world.
I came to you when I was fifteen, as lost and confused as any teenager, searching for all the answers to all the questions. I had spent so much time focusing on hating God, believing God was at fault for my father's death, that I began to hate life. One can't live when one hates life, and for the longest time I was dead, almost without hope. I didn't know that my hatred for a God I never knew was eating me alive.
Until the day that I decided I couldn't hate myself anymore, I couldn't hate life anymore, I couldn't hate God anymore. How could I hate something I didn't understand? I began to seek out answers everywhere I could, but truth is elusive.
And then I found you, and your tiny congregation, with a life sized wooden cross as the only decoration into the long white hall. And we sat for hours, once a week, every week, discussing God, faith, religion, death, life, Christianity, Buddhism, men, women, family, service.
Sometimes you listened, sometimes I listened. Always you saw my pain, always I saw your humanity.
You didn't hold my hand and lead me out of the wilderness. No, you didn't even lay a path before my faulty feet.
Rather, you set a beacon on a hill, far off in the distance, something I could see but never touch. You gave me something to aspire to: love. You showed me that even two complete strangers, a devoted life-long Christian and a sincere but confused agnostic, both from very different generations and very different life experiences, can meet, can agree that love is far more productive than hate.
I've never told you my deepest secrets, but you could see the writing on the walls. All that mattered to you was that I was lost and alone, and in the truest Christian spirit, you welcomed me into God's house and showed me how to love again. It didn't matter where I had been, or where I was going, so long as I took love with me.
Everything I do, I do with love and earnestness. I take your words with me everywhere I go, and I reshape them into my own.
I know I believe in God, I believe that Jesus Christ was God's Son, and I know His love in my heart. I know the importance of faith, the importance of ANY belief.
I can't believe the hate that many people, many Christians, preach. I've known so much hate, and I've come to know so so so much love, and I simply can't be swept up in the hate any longer. It doesn't exist for me.
And that's thanks to you, Pastor, that I've forgotten hate. It's so hard when you have to watch the person you love the most in the world be ripped out of your life forever. It was so hard not to hate what happened to him, what happened to my mother, what happened to me, what happened to our lives. I can accept what happened to us, what will happen. I can be mad as hell sometimes, but I can never hate.
Thank you, Pastor, for not taking me by the hand and leading me out of the dark. I needed to find my own way, and I did, and I am forever grateful to you. Happy retirement!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Why?
My mom's boss moved to CT with her family a few days ago, to a house nearby actually, which is nice because she doesn't know anybody around here, her whole family lives out west and so we can be a kind of surrogate family for her, her husband and her two little kids. They came to visit today, it was the first time I was meeting any of them, and it was a very good time.
It was nice being with the kids today, they're 5 and 4 I believe. The little girl, who is five, explained to me that they moved to this country from another country (she meant state, but it was adorable).
We were playing with licoln logs on the patio in the sunlight this afternoon, and there were a bunch of mosquitos. I shooed a mosquito away from her face and she said "Why would God make mosquitos?"
It was probably the most profound thing I've ever heard from a five year old, or from any person for that matter. I don't know why God made mosquitos, all I know is they are annoying and have to be tolerated, because God did make them, just like S/He made everything.
I don't know why God made mosquitos.
It was nice being with the kids today, they're 5 and 4 I believe. The little girl, who is five, explained to me that they moved to this country from another country (she meant state, but it was adorable).
We were playing with licoln logs on the patio in the sunlight this afternoon, and there were a bunch of mosquitos. I shooed a mosquito away from her face and she said "Why would God make mosquitos?"
It was probably the most profound thing I've ever heard from a five year old, or from any person for that matter. I don't know why God made mosquitos, all I know is they are annoying and have to be tolerated, because God did make them, just like S/He made everything.
I don't know why God made mosquitos.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The Lovers, the Dreamers and Me
Why are people so angry? Maybe the better question is why are people so angry in God's name?
I'm not perfect and I never professed to being perfect. God made me the way I am, just like He made you the way you are. We are made in the image of Love, and therefore we should LOVE each other.
The Bible says a lot of shit, and I will be the first to say a lot of it upsets me. I think maybe the best way to describe the Bible is to compare it to a modern day individual who goes around trying to please everyone. You simply cannot please everyone, and that is the Bible's major flaw.
I don't really feel like getting into the Bible's shortcomings. We all have shortcomings.
That is organized religion's major flaw (and I'm not just talking about Christianity here, I'm talking about all of it). Islam SAYS it wants everyone, just like Christianity and Judaism and all of the other major world religions. You don't START a religion for one group of people, just like you don't FOUND a country for one group of people. You don't see people walking around with pointy hats and funny looking pants talking about the winter and the Indians anymore.
Religions and nations aren't founded for the present time. People are mortal, fallible, ignorant, and only here for the present. We have no concept of time outside of ourselves. God is the ultimate embodiment of time, God has no time constraints and no restrictions.
God wasn't made for black people, or white people, of straight people, or Gay people. God wasn't made for men, and God wasn't made for woman. God MADE all of us, we have NO RIGHT, absolutely NO RIGHT to act as though we understand God in any capacity. We can never understand God. We can't even understand ourselves, how could we possibly ever understand God? That's not to say that speculation isn't okay, because it is. We are human, we are thinkers. God gave us brains for a reason, and if we use those brains to will God away from our lives, that is our prerogative. However, if we use those brains to elevate ourselves above others, we are defeating the purpose of faith: all inclusion. I'm not better than an athiest because I'm a Christian. I'm not better than a homeless person because I'm from the middle class. No one is better than anyone else, because everyone came from the same place, and will eventually return to that place. And we all have the right to our own beliefs and opinions, and should share those beliefs and opinions because that is why we have brains, and that is why we have mouths to speak and ears the listen. We should use our ears more often, maybe we would learn something.
It's so hilariously disappointing to me that we as a world still hold ourselves to the same standard as the people who lived in Biblical times. We don't live to be 600 years old, and then we die. Most of us don't tend sheep for our livelihoods, have 15 kids in the hopes that at least 1 will live on and carry on our DNA.
Not many people these days disclose dicussions with God to the public. If you hear God, and you talk about it, it's probably your ticket to the mental hospital.
Why can't people just look outside themselves for ONE MINUTE and see how small their lives are?
Don't quote the Bible at me and tell me I'm a sinner and that I need to repent. Don't spout your hate at me. Hate has no place in the Bible, hate has no place in ANY body of faith. Faith isn't founded on hate, and it isn't built over hate. God is love, whether you believe God is an actual entity, a living person, multiple people, an idea, or NOTHING AT ALL. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU BELIEVE AS LONG AS YOU BELIEVE SOMETHING.
We ARE a great people! Together we are beautiful and our lives are meaningful. I believe that no matter what you believe, we are all a part of the same family, and we are all just trying to live. We live until we die, and we all die. Is it so much to ask to just be allowed to live?
I can't love you because I'm a woman? I can't love you because I'm white? I can't love you because I'm gay?
This is me saying I will love YOU until it hurts. I will love without anger and in God's name.
The Bible is a book, just like any other. God didn't write the Bible, God never wrote anything. God never said that anything in particular was a sin. We know in our hearts and our minds what is right and wrong. Trust yourself and your rationality and you are trusting God.
I'm not perfect and I never professed to being perfect. God made me the way I am, just like He made you the way you are. We are made in the image of Love, and therefore we should LOVE each other.
The Bible says a lot of shit, and I will be the first to say a lot of it upsets me. I think maybe the best way to describe the Bible is to compare it to a modern day individual who goes around trying to please everyone. You simply cannot please everyone, and that is the Bible's major flaw.
I don't really feel like getting into the Bible's shortcomings. We all have shortcomings.
That is organized religion's major flaw (and I'm not just talking about Christianity here, I'm talking about all of it). Islam SAYS it wants everyone, just like Christianity and Judaism and all of the other major world religions. You don't START a religion for one group of people, just like you don't FOUND a country for one group of people. You don't see people walking around with pointy hats and funny looking pants talking about the winter and the Indians anymore.
Religions and nations aren't founded for the present time. People are mortal, fallible, ignorant, and only here for the present. We have no concept of time outside of ourselves. God is the ultimate embodiment of time, God has no time constraints and no restrictions.
God wasn't made for black people, or white people, of straight people, or Gay people. God wasn't made for men, and God wasn't made for woman. God MADE all of us, we have NO RIGHT, absolutely NO RIGHT to act as though we understand God in any capacity. We can never understand God. We can't even understand ourselves, how could we possibly ever understand God? That's not to say that speculation isn't okay, because it is. We are human, we are thinkers. God gave us brains for a reason, and if we use those brains to will God away from our lives, that is our prerogative. However, if we use those brains to elevate ourselves above others, we are defeating the purpose of faith: all inclusion. I'm not better than an athiest because I'm a Christian. I'm not better than a homeless person because I'm from the middle class. No one is better than anyone else, because everyone came from the same place, and will eventually return to that place. And we all have the right to our own beliefs and opinions, and should share those beliefs and opinions because that is why we have brains, and that is why we have mouths to speak and ears the listen. We should use our ears more often, maybe we would learn something.
It's so hilariously disappointing to me that we as a world still hold ourselves to the same standard as the people who lived in Biblical times. We don't live to be 600 years old, and then we die. Most of us don't tend sheep for our livelihoods, have 15 kids in the hopes that at least 1 will live on and carry on our DNA.
Not many people these days disclose dicussions with God to the public. If you hear God, and you talk about it, it's probably your ticket to the mental hospital.
Why can't people just look outside themselves for ONE MINUTE and see how small their lives are?
Don't quote the Bible at me and tell me I'm a sinner and that I need to repent. Don't spout your hate at me. Hate has no place in the Bible, hate has no place in ANY body of faith. Faith isn't founded on hate, and it isn't built over hate. God is love, whether you believe God is an actual entity, a living person, multiple people, an idea, or NOTHING AT ALL. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU BELIEVE AS LONG AS YOU BELIEVE SOMETHING.
We ARE a great people! Together we are beautiful and our lives are meaningful. I believe that no matter what you believe, we are all a part of the same family, and we are all just trying to live. We live until we die, and we all die. Is it so much to ask to just be allowed to live?
I can't love you because I'm a woman? I can't love you because I'm white? I can't love you because I'm gay?
This is me saying I will love YOU until it hurts. I will love without anger and in God's name.
The Bible is a book, just like any other. God didn't write the Bible, God never wrote anything. God never said that anything in particular was a sin. We know in our hearts and our minds what is right and wrong. Trust yourself and your rationality and you are trusting God.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Life in a Northern Town
Mighty Mouse died.
I really don't know what to say, because it's just not fair to the poor little baby mouse.
I picked him up out of the cage and held him close for a while, and told him how sorry I am, and promised God that I really tried. I'm not sure I did the right thing, but I tried. And I loved him, and I didn't want anything bad to happen to him.
I took him outside and paced around for a while, trying to think of what to do with him. I saw a big mouse scurry into the bulkhead that leads into the basement. It was probably the most upsetting part of the whole event. I assume this mouse is a relative of mighty mouse, perhaps his mother searching for him.
I searched high and low for her yesterday. Where was she yesterday? So I left his little body in the bulkhead, where he will be safe from bigger animals and I will be able to find him tomorrow to bury him, but where tonight maybe his mom will find him and know that she doesn't have to search anymore.
I don't know anything about mice but I assume they aren't as sentimental as people are. But if my baby went missing and I couldn't find it, I would at least want to know what happened to it.
I'm super sentimental, I know, and probably a big cry baby because when I was holding mighty I was dripping big tears all over him.
I told him that I'm sure God has a special place in the palm of His hand where he can nuzzle his little head, and I'm sure it's true. There has to be something special for innocent little creatures.
All creatures great and small
All things bright and beautiful
All things wise and wonderful
The Lord God made them all
He gave us eyes to see them
He gave us lips to tell
How great is God Almighty
Who has made all things well
When I get upset I turn to my faith. Sometimes it is trying, as no one can ever understand God's motivation. I DO understand the motives of people (most of the time...), and people are most certainly not God, which is why I disagree with much of organized religion. Too many people doing "God's work" and screwing over everyone in the process.
And I would never, EVER, push my faith on another. But when I needed guidance, God was there for me, and my Pastor was there for me, even when I didn't know him. Everything happens for a reason, I just happen to believe that God is everything.
When I hear people say they don't believe in God, I get kind of confused, I'll admit it. But I have been there, and I respect everyone's decision to believe or not believe. It's a free country, it should be a free world. I believe we should all enjoy this life, because life is meant to be enjoyed. Bad things happen to everyone, good and bad. Good things happen to everyone, good and bad. Life is just life. But I do believe there is more.
When my father died, I said on any number of occasions that I hated God. But hating something proves that you believe in it. I hated everything, I hated life I hated death, I hated myself.
I've grown up a lot in the, geez almost 11, years that my father has been dead. I've lived a lot more and experienced a lot more. I don't hate anything anymore, and I attribute the freedom from hate to my faith. And that's just me.
I wasn't in the room when he died. And I'll never forgive myself for that. Ever. My sister was out to dinner with her husband, on her way back. We're both scarred by it, I know. We both know what it is like to have an absent father, so to speak. She was twenty-five when he died, but my father wasn't allowed to father my sister when she was young (her mother made sure of that, we're half sisters, but that's another story). And my father wasn't allowed to father me, as fate would have it.
He was a wonderful man. He never got to hear me play my violin, or play lacrosse, or graduate high school, or move into college. He wasn't there to knock the cigarette out of my hand outside the shop class garage in high school. He wasn't there to teach me how to change the oil on my car, something I had to teach myself. He wasn't there when I had my first kiss, my first date, my first heart break, the first time I broke someone else's heart. He wasn't there to see my big mistakes, my little mistakes, the happiest moments in my life, the saddest moments in my life, the days when I couldn't get out of bed, the days when I couldn't wait to greet the sun with a smile.
He never got to hold his granddaughter, or his grandson. To see their first steps, to hear their first words. To look into their eyes and see his own. To know that he played a little part in the great mystery of it all. To know that, he touched their lives, even though he never knew them.
And all I can do is carry on his memory, his kindness.
Which loops me back around to where I think I began this rant. My father was very much like me, where he couldn't just leave a helpless animal to suffer. I remember, vividly, the time that he found a baby bird in the pool. He build a makeshift nest and left the baby out in the trees behind our house. When we went to check on the baby the next morning, it was gone. Whenever I see a healthy young robin, I think of the bird that was saved. I'm sure its mother found it, and I'm sure it learned how to fly. Because my daddy saved it.
I hope somewhere, my father is proud of me, the way I am still so very proud of him.
I know you tried daddy. All we can ever do is try.
I really don't know what to say, because it's just not fair to the poor little baby mouse.
I picked him up out of the cage and held him close for a while, and told him how sorry I am, and promised God that I really tried. I'm not sure I did the right thing, but I tried. And I loved him, and I didn't want anything bad to happen to him.
I took him outside and paced around for a while, trying to think of what to do with him. I saw a big mouse scurry into the bulkhead that leads into the basement. It was probably the most upsetting part of the whole event. I assume this mouse is a relative of mighty mouse, perhaps his mother searching for him.
I searched high and low for her yesterday. Where was she yesterday? So I left his little body in the bulkhead, where he will be safe from bigger animals and I will be able to find him tomorrow to bury him, but where tonight maybe his mom will find him and know that she doesn't have to search anymore.
I don't know anything about mice but I assume they aren't as sentimental as people are. But if my baby went missing and I couldn't find it, I would at least want to know what happened to it.
I'm super sentimental, I know, and probably a big cry baby because when I was holding mighty I was dripping big tears all over him.
I told him that I'm sure God has a special place in the palm of His hand where he can nuzzle his little head, and I'm sure it's true. There has to be something special for innocent little creatures.
All creatures great and small
All things bright and beautiful
All things wise and wonderful
The Lord God made them all
He gave us eyes to see them
He gave us lips to tell
How great is God Almighty
Who has made all things well
When I get upset I turn to my faith. Sometimes it is trying, as no one can ever understand God's motivation. I DO understand the motives of people (most of the time...), and people are most certainly not God, which is why I disagree with much of organized religion. Too many people doing "God's work" and screwing over everyone in the process.
And I would never, EVER, push my faith on another. But when I needed guidance, God was there for me, and my Pastor was there for me, even when I didn't know him. Everything happens for a reason, I just happen to believe that God is everything.
When I hear people say they don't believe in God, I get kind of confused, I'll admit it. But I have been there, and I respect everyone's decision to believe or not believe. It's a free country, it should be a free world. I believe we should all enjoy this life, because life is meant to be enjoyed. Bad things happen to everyone, good and bad. Good things happen to everyone, good and bad. Life is just life. But I do believe there is more.
When my father died, I said on any number of occasions that I hated God. But hating something proves that you believe in it. I hated everything, I hated life I hated death, I hated myself.
I've grown up a lot in the, geez almost 11, years that my father has been dead. I've lived a lot more and experienced a lot more. I don't hate anything anymore, and I attribute the freedom from hate to my faith. And that's just me.
I wasn't in the room when he died. And I'll never forgive myself for that. Ever. My sister was out to dinner with her husband, on her way back. We're both scarred by it, I know. We both know what it is like to have an absent father, so to speak. She was twenty-five when he died, but my father wasn't allowed to father my sister when she was young (her mother made sure of that, we're half sisters, but that's another story). And my father wasn't allowed to father me, as fate would have it.
He was a wonderful man. He never got to hear me play my violin, or play lacrosse, or graduate high school, or move into college. He wasn't there to knock the cigarette out of my hand outside the shop class garage in high school. He wasn't there to teach me how to change the oil on my car, something I had to teach myself. He wasn't there when I had my first kiss, my first date, my first heart break, the first time I broke someone else's heart. He wasn't there to see my big mistakes, my little mistakes, the happiest moments in my life, the saddest moments in my life, the days when I couldn't get out of bed, the days when I couldn't wait to greet the sun with a smile.
He never got to hold his granddaughter, or his grandson. To see their first steps, to hear their first words. To look into their eyes and see his own. To know that he played a little part in the great mystery of it all. To know that, he touched their lives, even though he never knew them.
And all I can do is carry on his memory, his kindness.
Which loops me back around to where I think I began this rant. My father was very much like me, where he couldn't just leave a helpless animal to suffer. I remember, vividly, the time that he found a baby bird in the pool. He build a makeshift nest and left the baby out in the trees behind our house. When we went to check on the baby the next morning, it was gone. Whenever I see a healthy young robin, I think of the bird that was saved. I'm sure its mother found it, and I'm sure it learned how to fly. Because my daddy saved it.
I hope somewhere, my father is proud of me, the way I am still so very proud of him.
I know you tried daddy. All we can ever do is try.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Mighty Mouse
I'm really tired, but I can't stop thinking about the poor wee baby mouse. My friend decided that his name should be Mighty Mouse, and I think it's fitting.
I'm very worried about him. But once he dies, there will be no more worry, right? He'll go to heaven, where all the baby mice, and the doggies, and the dads and the cousins and the strangers go. And he'll have his own place in the palm of God's hand, where he can bury his little whiskered head and soak up all the body heat he ever dreamed of. All the fleas will melt away. He'll never go hungry or thirsty again.
And some day, hopefully, I'll get there and meet him, and tell him how sorry I am that I couldn't save him. All I want to do is save the poor baby and I'm so powerless. I hate being powerless more than anything else in this world.
And Mighty Mouse can share a seat on my daddy's lap with Kashi, and Ducky, and Candy, and Johnny Pig, and Rex, and all the animals that went before him and all the animals that are bound to follow him.
I hope God knows how much I want to save this little baby, and how confused I am as to why I had to find him, and why he couldn't just live to be an old mouse with lots of little mice babies of his own.
It's just not fair. Babies, human or otherwise, shouldn't die. I don't understand why God would create life only to take it back.
And I don't want the God works in mysterious ways bullshit. I just want to understand.
On an equally heart wrenching note for me, I talked to my best friend tonight.
I think I mentioned that we "broke up" and she made me cry. A lot. And my madre is looking for blood. According to her I am selfish, and dominating, and only care about myself, and haven't been a good friend to her in the past five years. These are things she said in anger. And at the time that she was saying them, I said "we're just angry right and saying things we don't mean." But she assured me that she meant the things she said. And that she no longer wanted to be friends. After hanging up with me and leaving me heartbroken, beyond repair I believe, she called our two other best friends to tell them the situation and to basically get their approval.
She called me tonight to apologize and to see if we could work on things. I wasn't really angry until tonight. I was beyond angry. Beyond completely pissed off. Past the point of no return.
I called her back and ripped her a new one.
How dare she end our friendship of thirteen years, and then so casually call back and ask for things to be better. How dare she. How dare she rip my heart out of my chest, put it up to my nose, and tear it into little shreds right in front of my eyes. How dare she drag our other friends into the equation when it was completely unnecessary.
And I said these things to her. And I hurt her the way she hurt me. I told her I'm leaving town after this summer, and never looking back. I'll come back for holidays and visits, but I'm no longer living in CT two weeks from now. I heard the fear in her voice.
I told her the friends I've made in the past year have been better friends to me than she has been in the past five years. I heart her heart break.
I told her that she isn't my best friend anymore, and she probably never will be again. I heard her heart rip apart. The little part of me that died the other night died inside of her tonight.
I feel bad because the whole "you hurt me so now I'll hurt you" thing is so not me, and so unbecoming, and it doesn't feel good. But I hope she knows now. I hope she knows how much she hurt me. She hurt me worse than any ex girlfriend, than any fight with my mother, than anything I've been through in the recent past. It was like someone killed the one constant in my life.
No one can revive the best friend that I lost. That person is dead. Maybe we can start again, but it won't be the same.
I just want everything to go back to normal so badly. So badly. But it never will.
Growing up is too hard.
I'm very worried about him. But once he dies, there will be no more worry, right? He'll go to heaven, where all the baby mice, and the doggies, and the dads and the cousins and the strangers go. And he'll have his own place in the palm of God's hand, where he can bury his little whiskered head and soak up all the body heat he ever dreamed of. All the fleas will melt away. He'll never go hungry or thirsty again.
And some day, hopefully, I'll get there and meet him, and tell him how sorry I am that I couldn't save him. All I want to do is save the poor baby and I'm so powerless. I hate being powerless more than anything else in this world.
And Mighty Mouse can share a seat on my daddy's lap with Kashi, and Ducky, and Candy, and Johnny Pig, and Rex, and all the animals that went before him and all the animals that are bound to follow him.
I hope God knows how much I want to save this little baby, and how confused I am as to why I had to find him, and why he couldn't just live to be an old mouse with lots of little mice babies of his own.
It's just not fair. Babies, human or otherwise, shouldn't die. I don't understand why God would create life only to take it back.
And I don't want the God works in mysterious ways bullshit. I just want to understand.
On an equally heart wrenching note for me, I talked to my best friend tonight.
I think I mentioned that we "broke up" and she made me cry. A lot. And my madre is looking for blood. According to her I am selfish, and dominating, and only care about myself, and haven't been a good friend to her in the past five years. These are things she said in anger. And at the time that she was saying them, I said "we're just angry right and saying things we don't mean." But she assured me that she meant the things she said. And that she no longer wanted to be friends. After hanging up with me and leaving me heartbroken, beyond repair I believe, she called our two other best friends to tell them the situation and to basically get their approval.
She called me tonight to apologize and to see if we could work on things. I wasn't really angry until tonight. I was beyond angry. Beyond completely pissed off. Past the point of no return.
I called her back and ripped her a new one.
How dare she end our friendship of thirteen years, and then so casually call back and ask for things to be better. How dare she. How dare she rip my heart out of my chest, put it up to my nose, and tear it into little shreds right in front of my eyes. How dare she drag our other friends into the equation when it was completely unnecessary.
And I said these things to her. And I hurt her the way she hurt me. I told her I'm leaving town after this summer, and never looking back. I'll come back for holidays and visits, but I'm no longer living in CT two weeks from now. I heard the fear in her voice.
I told her the friends I've made in the past year have been better friends to me than she has been in the past five years. I heart her heart break.
I told her that she isn't my best friend anymore, and she probably never will be again. I heard her heart rip apart. The little part of me that died the other night died inside of her tonight.
I feel bad because the whole "you hurt me so now I'll hurt you" thing is so not me, and so unbecoming, and it doesn't feel good. But I hope she knows now. I hope she knows how much she hurt me. She hurt me worse than any ex girlfriend, than any fight with my mother, than anything I've been through in the recent past. It was like someone killed the one constant in my life.
No one can revive the best friend that I lost. That person is dead. Maybe we can start again, but it won't be the same.
I just want everything to go back to normal so badly. So badly. But it never will.
Growing up is too hard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)