Reflections on Faith

I am really proud of my baby brother. He has handled the unwarranted attack on him with a cool grace that I really envy. I have a tendency to blow up when pushed or when someone I love is being hurt. The attacks ranged from the rapacious ego of the author to obscene, hypocritical, you bullies, ad-nausea from her followers. All this because she has no sense of humor. I have worked with some very big, and some big only in their own mind, stars. The ones with real talent don’t feel they have to be worshiped. It is only the mediocre that crave that adulation.

 

This whole mess has made me examine my feelings about hypocrisy especially when it is wrapped in religion. One of the things I learned to dislike the most about those who claim they are “born again” is that their are too many of them who feel that it gives them a moral superiority that is actually a thinly veiled prejudice towards others who do not have their same beliefs. I believe everyone has the right to worship God however they see him/her. As long as they don’t try and stifle my right to worship God the way I want to or use their religion as a device to harm others then I’m okay with other religions. As I told someone who was pushing me about being born again sorry I don’t need to be born again because it took the first time.

 

Part of my lack of tolerance stems from my ex-husband who made a great deal about being born again and how religious he was. The reality of the situation was that he used it as an excuse for cruelty. When religion is used as a cudgel then it has ceased to become a worship of the true God that embraces us all.

 

I was born and raised a Catholic and while I don’t always agree with the Church on everything I find that when I do attend Church it is at a Catholic Mass. I do find a comfort in the ritual that makes up the Mass. I am most grateful to the Church for giving my mother strength to face the death of my Dad. I sometimes wish I had the strength of faith that she does. I have the faith in God but I don’t have the strong attachment to the Church that she does. I still call myself Catholic and I’m sure if I find a Church that I feel as comfortable in as I did in my last one when I lived in California I will probably be a more regular church goer. In the meantime I do pray daily and I do love God.

 

It is my belief that gives me the strength to fight for what I believe is right. My model is Jesus who threw the money lenders out of the temple. The lesson I learned was that God wants us to fight things that are evil. He doesn’t expect me to be a milquetoast and to lay down and let people walk all over me even if I know they are wrong. I am a red-headed, Irish, Aries woman and take it or leave it I have a temper and a strong sense of justice. I am who I am. I learned through six years of Hell that capitulation of self does not bring peace. If you are so afraid that you can’t speak up against intolerance and hatred then you are existing, you are not living.

 

The picture is called “Wind Beneath My Wings.” I dedicate it to you baby brother.