SAINT TWENTY

It took one evil eye from a gypsy to know there are things beyond the material realm.
No, I don’t go to church.
No, I don’t identify with any religion.
Yes, one million percent yes, I know there’s a god.
A higher power.
The creator.
The source.
Whatever it is you want to call it.
Previous experience in the supernatural should have taught me, except being a control freak means burying and writing off things you don’t comprehend. Realizing in fact everything is not under your control, feels like jumping from an airplane with no parachute. Being told through all the darkness, don’t worry god is going to give you wings just before you hit the ground. Talk about living on a prayer, that was my summer trying to undo what psychic Shanna did to me. Never trust a woman with no doorknob, but that’s a story for a different time.

God has always been in my life, coloring Jesus (hi Nikki and Justin) during Sunday service when the kids split from the adults, Jehovah Witness meetings my aunt Vivian roped my mother into, with all their doomsday rhetoric (I had to fight for my right to read Harry Potter), but most importantly was My Book of Bible Stories. A mustard yellow book embossed with shiny blood red lettering, the title gleaming when touched by light. At the time it was the most exquisite book I’d ever seen, filled with vibrant illustrations. The coloring was perfect, the font was perfect, the paper quality between my fingertips, divine. All my life my nose has been in books, a virtue my grandmother poked fun at. In elementary school this book ticked all my OCD bibliophile boxes. I devoured it cover to cover. The most disturbing stories being Jezebel the prostitute falling out of the window and the woman who turned into a pillar of salt, looking back, ignoring god. This book hands down is the basis of my morality, the stories instilled a reverence for god and ethics. But who wrote these stories? People for profit?

Bible stories are meant to guide you, not to be taken verbatim. For example women not being able to wear jewelry, when it was written women donned jewels to signal they were prostitutes. That made sense then, but isn’t appropriate now. As Pastor Donna explained, the context of these stories are everything. Surprisingly the most enlightening revelation of this whole journey, is the lack of critical thinking regarding doctrines and ideologies in play. Who said the only way to be close to god is through a religion? Who said you must follow a set of rules and regulations, or be punished? All that is required of you is having your own relationship to god in whatever manner you see fit, because god is love and not fear, or hatred.

Out of the atheist who behaves morally, spreads love, exhibits kindness, treats people kindly, versus the person who goes to church, studies the bible, secretly does pernicious things, lies, cheats, spreads hatred and treats others poorly, the former will be in god’s favor. Those who behave as the latter can thump bibles all day, as long as they spread negativity they are not of the source. That is the devil’s work. Are you someone who disbelieves in a higher power due to the confines of society? How often do you question the origins of things? Why or why not? My seventh grade social studies teacher gave one piece of advice from the Jewish faith that changed my life: question everything. Via: Lun V Witch