Deepak Chopra Ain't Got Nothin' On Me . . .

Let's talk about God . . .
Or as I like to call him, Sammy. Sammy and I have always had a somewhat tenuous relationship. Well, I won't say tenuous, like he's an absentee father or something. I'd describe it more as "non-existent." . . . Like an absentee father. I was not raised in anyone's church, so when we moved to Chicago at age 13, I resented the fact that my presence was required in church as a condition of my family being allowed to live in my grandmother's dark, cold and cramped basement. St. Mark United Methodist Church is a pretentious brick and mortar building filled with all of the guilt of Catholocism, and none of the joy and reverence of a black church. The twenty foot pipe organ would belt out the classical versions of "His Eye is on the Sparrow" and "Oh Happy Day" and I would writhe in agony as Mrs. Slaughter would belt out the lead in a horribly immitated operatic rendition of "Swing low, sweet chariot." But i attended faithfully throughout high school, having found a reasonably entertaining social outlet in the Youth Choir . . . and my first legitimate boyfriend, Sean. Every Tuesday we would meet and catch up on high school drama and even start a little of our own because as teenagers, all we knew was drama. In retrospet, I feel sorry for Sean who dealt with every blow of my pendulimic, neurotic, and irrational emotions. When I left for school, Sean intact, I returned pregnant (sans Sean) and was asked not to return. Not by the mothers of the church or the pastor, but by my own grandmother, who was ashamed of my big belly and naked ring finger. . . When I returned home with a big big pretty baby, her sentiment changed, but the damage was done. I refused to go to church and in doing so, placed Sammy on the back burner.

Not to say that Sammy was on the forefront of my mind while I was in church. . .

In fact, I never really gave Sammy too much thought. I spent all my time thinking about how to make life miserable for Sean. I wasn't happy unless he was miserable. Call it teenage love. So while I spent all my time sabotaging anything Sean had going, I really neglected Sammy. It was like hanging out at a friend's house. You never really thought much about their parents being there. You just liked hanging out with your friend. You don't really take the opportunity to get to know your friend's parents, even though they are RIGHT THERE, almost waiting for you to ask them for words of wisdom. But you don't ask. You look at them like they're old and gross and out of touch. And not to say that Sammy is old and gross, but he might as well have been because I ignored him like a homeless man in the street beggin for change. . .


So in college, got knocked up, banished and then I finally found the relationship I was looking for. I found true love, and like any fool for love, i did exactly what I thought that true love wanted me to do: I went to church. Mount Zion Missionary Baptist church started out as a modest, delapidated black church right on Jefferson street (aka Da Hood) in Nashville, run by a charismatic young pastor named Bishop Joseph Warren Walker (Jay Dub Dub as we call him in da streets). But by the time I got around to going to Mt. Zion, it was being held in TSU's basketball stadium as the meager church could no longer contain the massive congregation comprised mostly of black college students. Soon we moved into a massive megastructure built into the side of a mountain, and JWW would remind us at every tithing that the light bill to this place was 32k a month. . . He would also remind us about how awesome his car was (escalade) and would mention that he didn't need our time, he needed our money. Really, JWW? I'm trying to listen to "Holy Ground" and you're making me feel bad about some lights to a place in which I do NOT live? . . I thought this guy was a big fat joke, but would keep going because I liked the singing, and getting dressed up, showing up, hand in hand with the man i loved. . . Its just too bad he didnt love me. Wait, I'll strike that. Maybe he DID, but as much as someone who was being crushed under the weight of my undying affection, and wanted to know what it was like to breathe could muster. . . We broke up on a saturday and the next day i took the liberty of sleeping in. He called me later that day and told me that he had hoped I would go to church despite what had happened. I told him that he, Jay Dub, and God could all line up, in that order, to kiss my ass. . . He has always known I was a skeptic, distrusting of all "men of God" and this confirmed it for him. Just as he wasnt ready for my love, I wasnt ready for Sammy. . .

I generally do not spend a lot of time entertaining coversation about my spiritual preferences because, frankly my dear, its none of your damn business.Its like asking me if I'm menstruating. You're really pushing it. But lately, I've been thinking about Sammy a lot. . .

Allow me to quote the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

As a control freak, I am generally not one to who does well with the idea that i don't have some control over something, so as far as I'm concerned, there is no "acceptance of the things I cannot change" because I should be able to change all things. For example, when my father died, i spent months thinking there was something i could have or should have done to prevent his death, as he demonstrated signs of heart disease for months leading up to his death. One particular instance, about 6 weeks before he died, he had blacked out while driving. He went to the hospital and the doctor asked him to stay for testing. He didnt have insurance, and because of that, he chose not to. He asked me what I thought, and I said "I think you should stay, but its up to you." I know that if i had emphatically insisted that he stay for tests, he would have as he did everything I said, and they might have found the blockage that killed him before it did. . . In my thinking, that is something I could have controlled. . . At least it was until I started thinking about Sammy again . . .

So I am in transition. I am realizing that at some point, you have to let go of the things you don't have control over. What are these things, you ask? Damn near everything. I only have marginal control over my car, my kid, my dog, even myself as I damn near dislocated my shoulder by walking too close to the wall when turning a corner. Damn walls . . . So now that I have acknowledged the lack of control in my life, i now must acknowledge the fact that something guides us. Some small pilot light within us ignites the machine that is our bodies and guides us through our lives. It lead Jesse Cooper to sit on that bike that eventually threw him into a pole and split his body in half. I can't help but think in some twisted way that, that was supposed to happen. . . For every freak accident, there are a dozen freak accident near misses which again provides the proof that i need to let me know that I'm not in control of the situation. . . ANY situation. . . Which brings me to faith . . .

The substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen (thanks Am) implies that I should just believe all willy nilly about something I can't see. . . like the trust test, i should allow myself to fall into the potentially incompetent arms of my idiot coworkers. See the cynicism there? Sammy isn't incompetetn, and I know this, but I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I should close my eyes and just fall . . . fall into what? Sanctimonious bible thumpers who will cast me into hell because of my pierced ears and tattoos? Judgemental hypocrites who have one eye on the sparrow and have the other firmly planted on my husband? And what about the Jay Dub Dubs of the world, who don't want my time, but my money?

Religion gets in the way of Sammy. . . I don't want religion. I want Sammy and I to come to an understanding. . . a relationship. . . a conclusion. . . I like all the good things that church has to offer, but like a job you like, the good things rarely outweight the bad. I see the advantages of church. I see how people walk in in a bad way and leave with their spirit lifted and a whole new focus and while that new focus only lasts a week, hell next Sunday, you're back again, getting all that unfocusness straightened out and that's all I'm really looking for - a little focus. . . Hell, alot of focus. . .

I didnt pen this blog to ask for advice as to how to find a church home or how to study a book about Sammy but to allow myself the opportunity to kind of let Sammy know that he's on my mind, and somewhere in my heart. . .