(Note: I am not interested in your flames here. If you're planning on pulling a drive-by with this diary, please move along to something else. Also, this diary is not meant to offend anyone - in fact, I could use the support, if you are so inclined.)
I can sincerely state that this past week has been one of the most challenging of my life. I am not ashamed to say that I cried for over 5 hours on Tuesday, and that I feel myself slipping away, under the current of hard times, because of the severity of my personal position. In situations like these, I have no choice but to turn to the God of my understanding in order to get through it. Not only that, but I willingly and happily let God in, because I know that this works for me. I've done it before and, now, I do it again.
A little while ago, I visited an excellent diary that made me so angry that I wanted to spit nails. I was actually shaking with rage, because of the motherfucking Bush administration, and I literally needed to walk away from the computer just to calm down. And then I prayed.
In our American culture of fly-by-night celebrity and scrutinizing vanity, I sometimes feel very little hope, so I plug into my God to become reconnected with something nice and pretty. I apologize if you were expecting something more profound, but that's about the extent of it.
I've been a spiritual person in earnest for a little over 4 years now. I was raised Catholic, but I stopped practicing when I was about 17. I've taken religious classes in Christianity, and I definitely think that Jesus was a cool dude, but he's not my personal savior. I tell people that I'm on the "a la carte program": I take little things that I like from each religion and leave the rest. I think that everybody needs to find something that works for them, and I certainly don't begrudge anybody else's personal religious choices. But I also have a sense of humor about religion in general, and I don't like to take myself too seriously because I don't pretend to know everything. In fact, every time I DO take myself too seriously, I'm usually wrong. The plethora of disagreements I've gotten into on DKos are excellent examples of that.
I've been teased in the past for having "the squirrel God", because I find God a lot in nature. No matter why I'm praying, I almost always have to remind myself that there is something bigger than us that made the earth, the stars, the sky, the universe, the trees, the birds, and yes, even the squirrels. I am blown away sometimes by the intensity of this fact, and there have been moments that I've cried with sheer joy at the oneness and the wonderfulness of it all. Geez, that sounds like complete sappy, hippy bullshit, but there it is.
In my mind's eye, my God has the face of a man I met some years ago by the name of Paul. Paul was an 80-year-old dude who, as an acquaintance of mine so eloquently stated, "just oozes spirituality". He was the type of guy who took up an entire room with his aura, but he wasn't aggressive or even assertive; he was the kind of guy who commanded respect and, when he spoke, you could hear a pin drop. He had a very kind face and was known for his large, wide smile and his compassionate, meek voice. He had longer, pure white hair (about down to his shoulders) and often mismatched his clothes. I don't know whatever became of Paul, but he clearly touched me deeply and I only met him a few times.
So my God has Paul's face. He also wears a white choir robe and, funnily enough, wears Birkenstocks with white tube socks. He's always clean-shaven and he lives on big, beautiful, and fluffy clouds. When I cry, he puts his face really close to mine and cries with me. When I try to pull stupid shit on someone else, he shakes his head and laughs at me, and then he tells me to apologize. He holds my hand and we dance to techno together. In my imagination, he has a different face and a different voice for each and every situation.
He is my conscience.
I think my God is fairly similar to Margaret Cho's, even though she's a Christian:
I believe in God – but I don’t fear him. God is my best friend. God is my ally. God is my boyfriend. God is my best fag. I am God’s fag hag cuz didn’t you know, God is a big fag. Serious bottom too. Butch in the streets, femme in the sheets. That is my God. God is my biggest fan. God gets me, dude.
God wants us all to just get along. He doesn’t give a shit about the profanity. The bitch fucking invented profanity. He thinks it is hilarious. He just wants you to talk to him, and he doesn’t care what you have to say. He just wants to keep the conversation going. Like Jay-Z, he just wants to love you. He just wants you to be able to make your own decisions. God is all about you and what you need.
I know some people who call their God a she, and refer to her as a Goddess. I know an awful lot of Christians, and several Catholics. I know some people who refer to a Higher Power, or The Great Spirit, sometimes capitalized, sometimes not. I know a few Buddhists who believe in Higher Self, Lower Self. I know a lot of people who can't use the word "God" at all, because that word still has a negative association for them, usually from bad church-going experiences in their youth. And I also know many agnostics and atheists.
Through my many tears recently, my God wants me to be thankful for what I have. Sometimes, this pisses me off and other times, like this morning, I feel blessed for hearing the message. I often hear God in or through other people; something just kind of clicks in my brain or heart, an instant "ah HA!" moment, and then I remember why I'm here and remember what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's all gravy, baby.
This morning, I heard God's voice through Mark Morford in a column that he wrote, coincidentally, about gratitude:
Here is the obvious, but oft-forgotten truth: It's just stupidly easy to be thankful in the flush times, or to offer thanks for those things you know you're supposed to be thankful for: health and loved ones and a big bowl of spaghetti on the table, the fact you still look OK in pants, that you somehow have the means and the technology to be able to read these words right now, thanks that you aren't living in a slum in India or are one of millions starving in Zimbabwe, that you aren't struggling for survival in the rubble of the Gaza strip or tending to hardscrabble fields of poppies in Afghanistan under the watchful rifles of the resurgent Taliban.
That kind of thanks is easy. It is, of course, far more challenging to be grateful for the clenching and the downturn and the meltdown, to offer thanks for the wicked tricksters, for fate's dark side. That kind of change, they say, can be a real bitch.
I am fucking holding onto the election of one Barack Hussein Obama as my hope. I am fucking holding onto to the fact that I got me a nice(r) townhouse, some food in the fridge, and clothes in the dryer. I am fucking holding onto my friends, who listen to me when I sob into the phone again, for the 3rd time this week. I am fucking holding onto anything that I can grasp, any tangible proof of the existence of goodness and compassion. I am fucking holding on, for dear life, to Marianne Williamson:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
I am holding onto an American prayer.
It's all I got right now. But it's good enough for me.
How do you get through? What's good enough for you?
-----
UPDATE: Can we talk about the awesomeness that is the DKos community?! Yes, I think we can! Thanks to everybody that has been super-supportive which is, again, pretty much everybody. I appreciate the kind words more than you will ever know, and I now have a smile on my face as big as the freaking Grand Canyon!
Plus, I am loving all the discussions going on in the comments. You guys ROCK!
That is all, carry on. :)