#as someone who was raised in a church by a hardcore christian black mom

[meanwhileinthebroomcloset]

Mhm...  This post was meant to be much shorter, honestly. Not to mention it got super personal, which was not my intention. It actually made me a bit teary-eyed and I’m usually an emotional constipated dumbass. 

Am I ready for the potential backlash this is going to cause? Eh, probably not. Am I going to engage in the discourse this can cause? Ah, you wished. I have more to waste my energy on. I didn’t write this post to argument with anyone, anyway. 

Gonna risk it, still.

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Isn’t it kind of ironic that it was witchcraft that made me fully return to Catholicism?

I mean, I kind of never left, hence the ‘’fully’’ in that sentence. But now I really know who I am. Although I don’t think Catholicism is the most accurate label (Christo-pagan, perhaps?) it’s the one I grew up with, and the one that comes more naturally to me.

Studying the beginning of it all, the commentaries of Pagans and Jewish writers at the time are just so fascinating and honestly beautiful.

Then everybody started chasing and killing each order, and it sure wasn’t fascinating anymore.... ‘’Stop being murderous revenge-driven assholes’’ I angrily mutter into my book, while frying my brains for High Middle Ages exams.

And then it split into Catholicism and Arianism (not that Arianism! The no-holy-trinity-on-my-watch one), and that was a totally different can of worms. Then Rome got pissy and the Orthodox Church officially became a thing that existed.

Man, why is religion so messy?

Faith is such a strange thing. So much power, so much potential for good and evil and everything in between. I started losing mine some years ago. 

Contrary to some horror stories you may hear, especially from people who are now no longer Christian, I was raised in a pretty open environment.

‘’Don’t be mean, have faith, give second chances... Here are the commandments. They’re perfectly acceptable, see?’’

‘’Yes, there are different religions, but you should always respect them and the people that believe in them. Remember, Jesus was Jewish. Here’s some historical context... ‘’

‘’What the hell kid, nobody here is going to hell. Also, you’re five, there are no children in hell. No, the cops also won’t... Lord give me patience... Are you sorry? Did you apologize? Are you going to try to not repeat it? Great! Then it’s all fine and dandy!’’

‘‘Man, we are definitely all going to hell... At least since we’re all gonna be there, we could form a basketball team. The devil can be the referee. He will be an awful one, but hey, we’re in hell’‘

‘’I know the bible says the earth was created in seven days, but when that story was written, people didn’t know dinosaurs were a thing. Science is cool, and we are not in the middle ages. ‘’

‘’Blind faith is dangerous, kid.’’

‘’Thinking thoughts and acting upon them are two very different things.’’

‘’Yes, the second mom in that Solomon story was willing to see another kid die for the sake of an argument... sometimes people are that bad.’’

‘’God is perfect. People aren’t. That’s the world we live in and it’s okay.’’

‘’There are people who do terrible things in name of religion or say they’re doing it because the bible says so. Don’t believe them. There’s no excuse for murder and abuse.’’

‘’Yeah, Portugal is very enthusiastic when it comes to Catholicism... ’’

Pretty good summary of religion in my childhood.

Still, I found my faith waning. I didn’t really know why and I’m still a bit iffy talking about that.

‘’What did witchcraft do, then?’’

 Well for once, it reinforced my ideas on how faith worked, and how strangely powerful it can be. Being skeptical is healthy but completely closing yourself off because something isn’t completely clear is too radical and you're just doing the equivalent of closing your eyes to the less brighter lights.

My god, I can hear the hardcore atheists coming...

Can I remind you there are more things in life that will not provide the proof you want, but that won’t mean they aren’t there? Relationships. Relationships are too complicated to have straight answers, a lot of the times. People hide their feelings, they fake them, express them and react to them differently. There are so many things we don’t understand or know about yet, like space and organisms that live on this Earth.

Sometimes what you need is a different approach to see they exist! It’s one of the things I learned with witchcraft.

There was also the religion itself. As I worked on my magic, I started seeing magic around me again. Not just with gods I had never considered and the one I was leaving behind, but with the faith I had always known.

The affection when someone says ‘’Our Lady’’ when talking about the Virgin Mary, my family calling upon Saint Barbara when thunder comes, children screeching excitedly because the Compasso has arrived to give us the news that Jesus has come to life again in Easter, the marble cemeteries, the comforting prayers, the masses I couldn’t ear because the local church’s echo is terrible, those boring long-ass weddings (oh my god, how many blessings do two people need?!), the loving dedication I see in every saint carved, my church's priest’s good humor... I never owned a rosary, but I always like the ones my aunts and grandparents keep.

I found Christian and Catholic witches on this site and I finally got to my conclusion. It’s really there. I just needed a different approach to it!

These things made me believe again, but also in new things.

‘‘But you can’t do that! You can’t combine magic and christianity’‘ 

Oh, watch me. And also watch the centuries of cunning women and witches in European history and those still alive today. The women that make ‘’mezinhas’’ and other types of favors in Portugal sure as hell are doing witchcraft, but you can bet your ass they don’t think they’re any less Catholic than anyone else. They don’t care about your opinions and I will hopefully do the same.

Relationships with deities are personal, and my relationship with God, Jesus and all of them is no different in that regard. I am a witch, I am human, I am catholic. I’m a follower, not a fucking mindless sheep.

You know what? I always compared God to Aslan. The lion wasn’t always there for Narnia, he wanted his people to solve their problems on their own. Get their independence, as a good parent does. They both don’t come up all mighty, that’s a posture reserved for evil and people who need a good slap in the face. They come to your level. God may come through one of the less eldritch abomination looking angels, though...

‘‘Well, if you have god, you shouldn’t need anything more. He's everthing. Why are you also a witch?’‘

Excuse me, do I look like a goddamned saint to you?! What part of human did you not understand?

And before you bitterly start quoting the Old Testament, let me remind you that it’s Old for a reason. Christ came to this earth to give us new rules since he technically saved us and things became different. That’s why Jewish people follow the Old Testament, for them, the messiah hasn’t arrived yet. Not to mention that to them that testament is not Old, it’s just the Torah.

You can keep quoting the bible to me all you want. But in my short twenty years of life, I was thankfully able to learn a few things. One of them is that the world isn’t black and white. Yes, I know this sounds obvious but there are some really dumb people out there. Also, this is the hellscape that we call tumblr.

Anyway, as I have mentioned several times before, I’m a never-ending knowledge seeker I found the world beneath my feet is not pure myth and I want to explore it. Look at me go.

I keep a critical mind with everything. Faith and religion are not an exception. I’m not overly skeptic about faith itself, but I am of its writings, interpretations, translations and etc... I study history, it’s a skill you naturally develop.

And there’s quite a few plot-holes, characterization differences and much more. It was written by humans that couldn’t do a cohesive collaboration even if their lives depended on it. Godphones sometimes don’t get a good reception. There’s a ton of cultural context to unpack. I hear people saying all the time that taking the bible’s words literally is one of the most stupid things you can do.

And when I say people, I mean priests, clergy, theology students, etc... I didn’t hear this from my drug dealer in the street corner..

...... I don’t have a drug dealer.....

Anyway...

There are many problems with the catholic church. There are many problems with a ton of catholic and christians out there. I will never deny that. Shit needs to get fixed and maybe even chucked into the trash.

But I still believe in God, I still believe in the saints but I also still believe there are more gods and spirits out there. And those things are separate.

I have no interest in converting you. I’m just yelling into the void.

If you are one of those that no longer is a christian, or catholic because some dipshits banged self-hate onto your head, I’m really sorry. I hope you heal well and get the help you need in your new faith or lack of it. Banging the ten commandments back onto their heads repetiedly and tell them to actually read the damn book is optional, though.

In the end, if you are (or are trying) to be good, you deserve respect and freedom to worship whoever or whatever you want. You don’t need to be perfect, you can just strive to be the best you can be in your situation.

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And now back to our schedueled programing.

[raisingsupergirl]

My Supernatural Courage, pt. 1

*Author’s Note: Since writing this, I’ve had a thought, and I’m mulling it over. It might change my stance on things. It might not. Regardless, proceed, dear reader, to better understand where I’m coming from and where I may end up.*

I've been nervous a lot lately. I think everyone has. Not scared. Just nervous—uncertain. I've been nervous about the corona virus. I've been nervous about maintaining my hours at work. I've been nervous because I overcommit. I've been nervous because this past weekend I had to give a speech in front of my freemason brothers and had to play music in front of my church family. And, most of all, I've been nervous about the widespread civil unrest. But the weird thing is, even though national tensions seem to be on the rise, I'm finally starting to achieve some inner peace. Not because I've reached some sort of new normal or because I've given up in some way, but because my frayed nerves weren't actually about the civil unrest at all. They were about my own inner battle. And it took a bunch of local hillbillies to finally set my mind at ease.

If you've followed with me for long, you know that I stay pretty busy. A few weeks ago, I posted about how I didn't have time to truly commit to the conversation regarding ALM vs BLM. The week after that, I posted about not being ready to die because I still have "stuff to do." Well, even though I knew this past week would be crazy busy, I had one request for Father's Day weekend—I wanted to do nothing. And nothing is what I did. My family spent Saturday at the waterpark, nothing but fun and sun. And then we went out to my mom's for dinner on Sunday. That's it. No blogging. No editing. No mowing the grass. Nothin'. And it was amazing, not just because I needed a breath, but because I needed a moment to think. Creatives know that it's essential to recharge every so often. And after I took Father's Day weekend off, I had newfound clarity on, well, a lot of things.

Like I said, the following week came with its own stresses. Not only did I have a ton of editing to do along with practicing songs for the upcoming weekend's church worship team, but that Thursday night, I was to be installed as my masonic lodge's master for the upcoming year. It's been five years in the making—five years of growth, learning, mistakes, and patience. I've learned so much about what it means to be a man in that time. The core masonic principles are brotherly love, relief, and truth, and it's principle duties are to be, "diligent, prudent, temperate, and discreet." And as I said in my speech last Thursday night, masonry is a confirmation of the men we've always been and a reminder of the men we want to be. It doesn't forge us, but it does sharpen us. And as I dwelt on those principles the week leading up to our officer installation, an inner peace settled over me. But, unfortunately, as I said before, it took a bit of a slap in the face by a really ugly counter protest in a nearby town to get me there.

Growing up and living in central Missouri, you'd think I would be used to racism. And I guess I am, but only in the, "Oh, look, a black guy. How about that?" sort of way, which I guess isn't really racism, but I'm also not surprised when I see someone raise an eyebrow at an interracial couple (I also won't deny that I've heard plenty of racist jokes in my day, but I'm not going to get into the nuances of political correctness, Mel Brooks, and South Park). Again, I've always seen it as lack of exposure more than actual racism, and while I've known there were hardcore racists living amongst us, I guess it's just been an out of sight, out of mind kind of thing. But those blinders were ripped off this last week.

There was a BLM rally in a town about thirty minutes from my house. And, as you'd expect, there were plenty of people who showed up with "White Lives Matter" and "Blue Lives Matter" posters. Which is fine. As I said last week, we live in a free country, and our diverse viewpoints make up the spirit of this huge country. But this rally was pretty awful. First, there were local storeowners standing on their roofs with rifles, looking down on the protestors. I guess I get it. Protect your house, and all that. But, geez, was it really necessary to have your weapons shouldered and at the ready. And, obviously, that increased tensions, leading the BLM and ALM folks to move from "peaceful" to a little more verbally aggressive. And that, unfortunately, led a few of the more, ehem, outspoken anti-protestors to (and I almost hesitate to say it) act like monkeys and pantomime lynchings.

I've seen the pictures. I've heard the reports. The BLM protestors weren't innocent. They threw out racial slurs and accusations. But they didn't resort the that level of debased scum. And I don’t use that phrase lightly. Thinking about it makes me want to spit. Or punch someone. It's no different than making sexual jokes to someone who was molested as a child.

It's easy to write that horrible display off as a small, idiotic percentage of the community. It's easy to sigh and move on, remembering that most people aren't that way. But… some people are! They exist in my community! And those people infect the rest of us. The more they talk, the more they normalize actual (even if it's subtle) racism. Thankfully, their public actions have called them out. They've done much more harm to their cause than good. And that event was at catalyst for me. Well, that and one other.

This next turning point was a small one. It was a simple comment by a black lady. She responded to an "ALM" Facebook post. It was simple and humble. "Everyone already knows that all lives matter but everyone don't agree that black lives matter and if it is never said then we will never matter. So because I say black lives matter it's because I wanna be just as important as you would be to the world…"

Yes, I already knew this obvious truth. Yes, I'd heard it a hundred times. But the way she said it, the fact that it came from her, and the timing of it in my life just made things click. BLM isn't just a social movement with an agenda (which I tend to tie together with human imperfection, various other motives, and some of the rioting). It’s a statement. And it's a simple statement, at that. It doesn't have to be political or loaded. "Black lives matter," I said with a smile and a nod as I waited for her to cross the street. Just imagining that scenario makes me happy. Is it wrong to open a door for a woman, wave a tattooed biker on in front of us at a stoplight, or pay for the meal of someone richer or poorer than us? No. Such acts don't relinquish any of our own self-worth or threaten our futures. They're simple, humane kindnesses that make the world a better place. They're acknowledgements that we are a diverse world, and it's neat to remind specific peoples that they are important, not just to us, but to the Most Holy Lord God.

Oops. I'm sure I lost some of you just now. And that's okay, but stick with me. I'm a Christian, through and through. Christ is a part of my everyday life, and one thing that I've reminded myself of for a long time is that every person I meet is a unique child of God. Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, and Freemasonry reminds us by proclaiming, "Every human being has a claim on your kind offices. Do good unto all." And even though it took me a while to get here, I've found peace in those sentiments. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. And I'm not afraid in the slightest about the future.

When I hear about rioters pushing down statues, I'm reminded of Jesus overturning the moneychangers' tables in the temples. There are plenty of excuses to maintain the status quo, but none of them are really good ones. What are you afraid of? Losing our history? Really? I can still find MySpace comments I made fifteen years ago, and my mom still has pictures of me naked in the bathtub. We're not talking about destroying someone's personal property or threatening their lives (or livelihood). We're talking about a symbolic act of desperation. Was it smart? Or right? Or productive? Who knows, but it's nothing to freak out about!

White people, what are you afraid of? Seriously. Are you afraid that black people will enslave you? Are you afraid of economic collapse? Are your guns going to be taken from you? Your jobs? Your freedom of speech? I mean, c'mon. Even if all of those things did happen (which they won't), who cares!? … Okay, wait. I get it. Slaves care. I'm sure it sucks. But you know how black slaves survived in early American history? They relied on God! Remember the Jews? Christianity was literally born out of a nation of slaves! Oppression is woven into the story of humanity, start to finish. We're a broken world. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. The first shall become last, and the last shall become first. Are any of these ringing a bell?

Okay, sorry. I got a little worked up there. But I can't help it. Everyone is so afraid of losing stuff, and nobody is taking five seconds to ask why. Why, truly, are you alive? What are you trying to do? Okay, yes, I get the compulsion to protect your family and future generations. It's biological (which doesn't make it any less important). It's engrained within our race's perpetuation. But we are one race, and I’m sorry, but your family isn't the pinnacle of genetic, moral, and intellectual perfection for the human race. Your kid may have won the spelling bee, but he's not going to cure cancer.

So, ease up a little bit. Let the rest of the world have a little space. Do I agree with everything the BLM movement has been associated with? Of course not. And I never will, because there are a lot of people who hitch themselves to bandwagons, regardless of their own, personal motives. If rioters make the USA into Mad Max, well, then you'll finally be able to tell your wife, "I told you so" about all of the guns and ammo you've been buying over the years. If one truly evil civil rights activist rises up and turns us into a nation of white slaves, well, I guess we'll just have to focus in a little more on being kind to our neighbor, looking to the afterlife, and trusting in God to reward us for obeying his commandments. But more than likely, all of the extremists on both sides will be cut off from the herd, and the rest of us will (eventually) live in a slightly different-looking America than what it has been for the past couple centuries. That's the funny thing about time—the present eventually becomes history. We don't continue to live in it, and we don't forget it. We accept it, learn from it, and move on. Simple enough.

In the end, it's your choice. I've probably offended just about everyone with this post (but as usual, I did it in a super nice way, so good luck calling me out, jerk). But this has been my journey to peace with the situation. My family will live on. My nation will live on. Maybe we'll be blessed with earthly comfort, or maybe we'll be sharpened by trials and tribulations. But eternity waits for me, and while I still walk this earth, I'll have no problem praising and building up specific people and specific groups. Why? Because differences are what make people awesome, and I'm not afraid to remind them of it.

[smol-selkie]

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This is probably the most personal thing I ever posted on here and I feel like I’ll go to hell for it: When you’re raised in a Jewish family and have different beliefs than them but you were constantly told that Hebrew isn’t a religion and if you don’t obey every little whim the Bible tells you, you’re a demon and you only have two choices so if you break one sin you break them all and you’re constantly told that you’re rebellious or sinful for being a teenager and liking metal music even though that’s the worse thing you’ve done...So then you truly start believing that you’re the bad seed of the family and no matter how much you read Scripture you will never be redeemed and your parents will go to heaven while you won’t because you betrayed their family bloodline by having doubts of Him and everything you enjoy is sinful so you slowly start believing that He’s cruel enough to send anyone into the pit if they sin once in their life regardless of virtues. – my-life-is-a-downed-system

[Reposting as a combined post so I can relate and share my experiences as well.]

Alright, [possibly long-ass] story time under the cut.

I come from a pretty weird family; my mother and brother are staunch Christians and my father claims that he's Atheist (though he does subscribe to/practices some familial Buddhist/ancestral folk religion). Me, I'm definitely the 'black sheep' in my immediate family, though I lean towards my father.

It all started sometime around third grade when my mom was trying to convert me to Christianity. She brought me to this one play that terrified the shit out of me, IIRC, it was two families got into fatal car crashes, one went to Heaven and the other went to Hell (and damn, I give the producers credit for doing one hell of a job making shit terrifying, especially on children at an impressionable age).

From there, she regularly took me and my brother to church, with me out of fear because I didn't want to go to [someone's interpretation of] 'Hell'. I tried to take in and believe what was being taught at Sunday School, studying/memorizing Scripture and such. This went on until about junior high.

Then junior high swings around, and some pretty awful harassment starts happening (to make it worse, said bully was once a good friend); it got to the point where my parents were threatening to sue the school district because the administration did fuck-all to mitigate the situation. At that point, I would go to church, crying a lot and praying and pleading to God to help with my problems.

No help ever came. I spent two years in complete misery, literally dreading each day of school.

This is where my doubt began; where was God when I was suffering? I was a goody-two-shoes, straight-A student all the way through grade school and junior high. Fuck, I even thought words like 'crap' were awful swear words, and that the littlest sin would send me to scary, scary Hell forever.

Was it the summer of 8th or 9th grade that this happened? I can hardly remember. But my mom took my little brother and I to the Church's summer camp. I also recall this was when I was really getting into sketching, and listening to metal/hard rock (mostly Black Sabbath and Disturbed). This comes into play in a bit. I had my two CD's (We Sold Our Soul to Rock and Roll and Ten Thousand Fists, for anyone who was curious was I was into at the time) to listen to on my CD player on the way to and from camp (CD players weren't allowed during camp, so I kept it in the shared dorm room).

One night, after some 'rousing' sermon about 'seperating oneself from earthly (therefore, evil) things', the counselor and the girl group I was assigned to decided to take all their 'evil earthly' things and destroy them, defacing, trampling, stomping, and breaking all of it. I was both horrified and terrified. I ended up cowering in the far corner of my bunk, clutching my sketchbook and music with dear life, lest the hysterical, wound-up girls and/or counselor got their hands on them to destroy them.

Thankfully, nobody noticed me hiding.

I did a complete turnaround in 9th grade as far as my personality went. Out went the goody-two-shoes façade, in with as 'hardcore, tough-ass goth and metalhead' as I could get away with, which was (is!) pretty damn laughable when I look back on it. Still a straight-A student, but I started hanging around with a pack of guys who were pretty bad influences, and started getting into 'dark' things.

This went fine and dandy for the first three years of high school. I actually started getting a rep as the vicious bitch who wouldn't hesitate to literally claw someone if she was in a foul mood. Pffft, lmao.

Things started going to shit in Senior Year. On top of five college applications (three of which required extensive portfolios), like four(?) full-on AP classes (two in Art/Design, so tons of work there), and extracurricular activities, I'd pretty much bitten off more than I could chew. For some unknown reason, a whole bunch of people (outside the group of guys I hung out with) started in on bullying me, which, long story short, I got three days of out-of-school suspension (which, tbh, the punishment was racist bullshit; I knew someone who got the same punishment for fist-fighting, and I did nothing of the sort). So, there was all this major stress going on (and I suspect my anxiety and depression was developing then), and by this time, my faith in God had dwindled to basically nothing.

So, I gave religion one last shot, and I realized after all the shit had gone down, it was not God, but me who pulled through, mostly out of spite. From then on, I considered myself Agnostic Theist (which seems weird, I know), where the gist of it was 'Maybe there's a 'God' or higher power/being out there, but until someone provides concrete, irrefutable proof of [its] existence, then I highly doubt it'.

To top it all off in cementing my becoming an ex-Christian was the incident with my mother one summer between college years (though I forget which). She insisted that my dad and I attend my brother's Baptism at the same summer camp in which I was traumatized at, which both my dad and I agreed that it would be better without the two of us because of our non-belief. She got extremely verbally violent with the both of us, nearly taking it to a physical fight. My dad ended up begrudgingly taking the four of us to the ceremony only because he had the car, though he and I spent lunch together awkwardly, as a couple of areligious people in a sea of religious people.

I guess what drove me away from [organized] religion was the overall sheeple mindset (if you don't believe what we believe in, and do as we do, and fit in, you'll go to 'Hell'), and the constant guilting that comes from its adherents. I don't want to spend my entire life feeling guilt-tripped and eternally paranoid; I'd rather be a filthy hedonist that lives life up and dies on my feet feeling satisfied.

TL;DR – These days, I just claim that I'm an Agnostic (leaning towards Atheist) as a short answer. I have a totally different set of beliefs now, but that's better left as another story for another time.