DeeEl's Mo Chroí Scríofa

The Forbidden Topic

Okay, if you know me well enough, you know there are two topics I will not speak on unless asked specific questions; and then I will only answer those questions as long as I do not believe the other person is only seeking an argument.  I refuse to argue these two topics for anyone or any reason.  The mere mention of religion or politics in some arena causes people to jockey for position; some to prepare to argue and others to prepare to head for the hills.

I’d like to break my own taboo and speak here on religion.

Earlier I was reading a Brit friend’s blog and her post on this same subject.  Her words caused words to begin to swell up inside my head and gave me the courage to relay them here in a more definite manner to allow people to see where I am at.  I am not doing this to start a debate or provoke long-time friends to try to persuade me different.

When my best friend Sissy was still alive, she had no reserve about arguing her religious views.  I recall one occasion sitting in a Wendy’s down from my apartment with her and two gentlemen of a different denomination.  An argument ensued.  I firmly stated that I would leave if they did not cease.  The discussion abated briefly.  However, when it began again, I collected my things and prepared to depart.  The gentlemen stood, apologized and returned to their wives.  Sissy and I left.  This is related to remind you how firm I am on NOT debating or arguing religion.

I was raised in a so-called Christian household where one thing was preached and another was lived.  Alcoholism, abuse and adultery were rampant.  As a child does, I accepted what I was told and believed how I was told to believe.  I listened while members on both sides of my family orated their bigotry and hatred for those who were different (I will get into this in an upcoming post as it has more to do with my new mission in life).

As a child I knew there was something different about me.  I recall one Sunday while Grandmaw was preparing Sunday dinner, my uncle and I were playing a game of cards.  Grandmaw came in and said we were sinning by playing cards on the Sabbath.  I thought she was going to have kittens when I calmly said, “But, today isn’t the Sabbath, yesterday was”.  Her disapproving look advised never to broach the topic again.

At the age of 21, my mother, while in the process of disowning me, looked at me and told me I was a “damn Jew” just like my father.  This gave me pause.  I had never heard anything before about Jewish heritage in my family tree.  I have since found that connection.  The statement did give me reason to think.  While studying the Jewish people and learning of their plight, I always felt a connection.  I attempted as an adolescent to hone in on my German roots and forget those feelings.

A few years after my mother’s enlightenment, I learned about a Messianic (congregations of Jewish believers and Gentiles who embrace their Jewish religious roots) congregation in my area and began attending services.  Here, I flourished and began learning about this hidden limb buried in my family tree.  Growing in this setting I accepted what I was taught and began to relinquish the past teaching.  To say I completely gave up my past is inaccurate.  Nor did I pick and choose what I wanted to keep from each.

In my mid-twenties, I began to question.  I questioned everything I believed in.  Recalling there is a place in the scriptures that encourages this kind of questioning, I pushed forward.  I learned through my study that holidays, both Christian and Jewish, I had kept were not what I was trained to believe they were.  It was like a child finding out that there is no Easter bunny nor Santa Clause.  I continued to embrace my Jewish roots and remained with the Messianic congregation.  However, I kept true in my own ways.

Seeing false faith in both the Christan and Messianic worlds, I needed to find my own peace, my own way.  After I got sick and people from both of those worlds began to disappear, I really began to question things.  As I look back over the past few years (generalities, so not trying to diss anyone) it seems the ones who have offered the most sincere support to me are those from the Atheist, Buddhist and mix-n-match realms.

I have not kept anything within the Christianity world in many years.  I keep the Jewish parts in my own way.  It is more in the Buddhist meditations that I have found inner peace.  When things seem to be the most troubling for me, I finally pause and realize I have not been meditating.  There was once that, while in the midst of a Meniere’s bout of full-blown vertigo, I had a passing thought I hadn’t done my meditations.  I focused the best I could and tried to work on my Chakras.

It has been since Passover 2009 that I have attended any religious services.  While I still consider myself Messianic, I don’t really have any formal belief system other than knowing what I have studied and continue to learn.  I will no longer accept with “blind faith” what a mere mortal says.  I will also not look at man’s book of scriptures solely as a resource.  I will prove everything out from historical accounts and keep things the way I keep things and not the way someone else tells me to.  I will not “pray” to a god I cannot trust.   I will send good thoughts and energy to those who need it.  I respect that you believe your way and only ask for the same consideration in return.  I will not try to persuade you to believe differently, which is why I didn’t give details of what I learned when I searched for answers.  I expect the same from others.

Peace

To start, let me specify that I am not using this post to bash religions nor religion in general.  Neither am I trying to sway anyone to believe a certain way, nor open up to a challenge/debate on religion.  However, of the five major world religions, Buddhism, Catholicism,  Christianity, Judaism; only two are not laden with controversy.  I have written blog posts, essays and poems regarding world peace and it never fails that I receive at least two comments telling me that “only G-d can bring peace” or “there will be no true peace till Jesus comes again”.  I sit and ponder which g-d they are speaking of and what religion has to do with what I have written about peace.

In the core of each of the aforementioned religions is the stress for peace.  But with all the controversy and turmoil surrounding three of the five, I find it difficult to see their message of peace.  I am not judging and I do not aver that the actions of some make it the way of the whole.  However, when those actions are so negative, they tent to put a cloud over any good that could be done.

In the United States, especially here in the ‘Bible Belt’, it is supposed to be a good thing to say you attend church or are a christian.  I wrote an essay a while back addressing two christian groups.  One in the US and the other in the UK.  These groups protest poets and writers just because they don’t like what is written, especially when the writer writes against war.  They also go to airports and protest soldiers coming home from the war as well as protesting the funerals of five young girls killed in a car accident on a rainy night driving home from a football game.

I have personally seen church people and Christians judgmentally taunt people for their beliefs and lifestyles because they differ from their own and what they teach.I have often heard the statement made in churches that they “love the sinner, hate the sin”.  Yet they treat those they call sinners in an ill manner when they don’t conform and give up said sins.

I am trying to see the peace through the cloud.

For decades, Catholicism has dealt with its own issues.  One of the biggest issues is the allegations of sexual abuse of children by the priests.  Most recently it is alleged that the pope has known about specific allegations and buried the information.  Priests take vows of celibacy and break those vows to have sex with boys and women.  I was always taught that when you make a promise, you keep it.  Especially if you make the promise to G-d.

If the leaders are discontent, how can I see the peace?

You don’t have to go far these days or do much research to find anything negative regarding Islam.  members of Islam are ever being suspected and blamed for terrorism around the world.  All a person has to do is look the part or be seen attending a mosque and they are suspect.  Not long ago a man in the United States Army went on a shooting spree at a military base.  As soon as it was said he is a practicing Muslim the media went wild that it was an act of terrorism.  I wrote about this and had stated it appeared to be PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  As soon as the authorities came to the same conclusion I did, the media dropped it.

The other day I watched a piece on 60 Minutes.  They profiled a woman who had been a CIA agent.  The woman, originally from Lebanon, came to the United States as a teenager.  She made no secret of her past and had to undergo many stringent background checks to be employed by the FBI and the CIA.  After many years of service she was scrutinized for her place of birth and her (dis)connection to her sister’s husband.  It was later determined that she was NOT a terrorist.  She still lost her job and all she had worked for and was even dubbed in the media as “Jihad Jane”.  I foresee a return to the McCarthy Trials.

With suspicion and a select group terrorizing the world in the name of G-d, I can’t see the peace.

Thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, I have friends of different religious views including those who are Atheist.  Many years ago I was asking friends what they truly believe and why.  One person accused me of only asking like-minded people.  I had only begun seeking, but after this gentleman made his harsh comments, I quit asking.  I just wanted to know what other peoples views were.  I wish I had kept going.  I have one friend now who kind of jokes that he has taken parts of various religions to get to what he likes.  He does always seem to be at peace.  Well, except when his computer eats his music.

I once heard (or read) where someone said, “Prayer is you talking to G-d.  Meditation is G-d talking to you”.  Most religions are about praying.  To me that translates to us making petitions and doing the talking.  When do we listen?  Before I got sick, I loved hiking and spending time in nature.  I felt closer to my creator at these times and did some good writing during and after these hikes (sometimes during long drives in the mountains, too, just listening and feeling).  These days I feel most at peace during meditation.

The veil of controversy is thick with regard to many religions and therefore I find difficulty finding the peace they claim to have and disperse.  For me, I seek and research to draw my own conclusions.  I don’t debate them, but will answer any legitimate questions asked of me.  As for world peace, I still believe it will only come by  understanding and accepting each person without bias or prejudice.