Why Pray?

I wrote this awhile ago..  it needed to be posted. 

Before I can understand why I pray, I need to be clear about what I mean by the word pray.

When I was a child, praying meant saying certain combinations of words, prayers, to a man in the sky and his son. The "Our Father..." was a common one. Later my grandmother taught me to pray to the son's mother, but still there was that element of praying to and asking for. Sometimes there was a thank-you.

As I grew older I noticed this lack of gratitude in the praying I'd learned and decided to change that. I started making a point of saying thank-you for the smallest things - a beautiful sunset, food to eat, a smile from a stranger. At the same time my relationship with god was changing, becoming less through the church and more of a direct communication. My prayers became a simple "I love you" whispered under my breath when I caught the scent of lilacs on a June evening. God was becoming to me less a person in the sky and more a part of the physical world. Still other though...

Many years later something happened while I sat on a hill behind the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. All of my prayers, my apologies for humankind's wrongs, my gratefulness for all of the joys bestowed, disappeared. At that moment I became aware that i was not separate from the lilacs or the sunset or the food or the stranger. I understood that there was no need to pray to god, or goddess, for i am god, as are we all. Now when i pray there are no words. There are only moments of remembering - of returning to the knowing - that we are all one, we are all sacred, we are all god. That is why i pray.

Tonight

Summer is long past and Samhain is just around the bend. I can smell Winter in the air, feel her in in my bones. But before the crack of leaves becomes the crunch of snow the ancestors will walk. Even now they fill the winds and whisper through our hair, as we rush from door to door in our feeble attempts to avoid the harsher side of life. 

Tonight I go to a Goth Ball. On the surface it is a fun pre-Hallowe'en party. Below the surface are weavings and tangles and webs of connection. The darkness simmers there. We play with it, dip our fingers in, knowing that it will not reach a boil. Not tonight, not in that venue.

In two weeks there is the Samhain ritual. We will journey to the lands of the dead and visit with our ancestors. We will step through the gate then back again. The following morning, a more academic overview of Samhain, tucked into 20 minutes. Then it is Trick or Treat night, one of my favourite times. Running through the Autumn in the dark, children laughing and screaming, having a too brief moment with the magik. We'll come home to a fire in the back, and private time spent with our ancestors. Honouring them and learning from them, telling stories in our attempts to re-member. 

Sometime between now and then the garden will be turned and laid to rest for the Winter. The soil will sleep, dressed in compost beneath the snow, ready for the warmth of sun in the spring to waken it. But that is too far ahead and my thoughts are nowhere near the warm and sun at this moment. I think of cold, of boots on snow, the weight of winter coats and hats and scarves and mittens. Then I reel my thoughts in. 

Tonight is the night of the Goth Ball, with Darkness just below the surface. I am choosing my outfit carefully, based on who I want to be. I might just bring a change of clothes with me, since I am feeling many of my facets today. 

In Their Name

I hate Christianity. I especially hate Catholicism. If I lived in an Islam country I'd probably hate Islam. But I don't so that's neither here nor there. 

It's not Jesus I hate, nor is it what he taught, nor even the core values of the religion. It's the hate it spreads, the venom it injects into innocent lives. It's the damage done, the lies told, the families destroyed.

I hate Christianity with the desperation of a raped woman. With the desperation of a woman who has watched her sisters be raped and beaten, souls shredded in the name of God. What God? The God who so loved the Earth that he gave his only begotten son? I doubt it. Perhaps the god who led humankind to murder Jesus for speaking out against classism and sexism. That god I spurn. That god is at the head of the Catholic church. That god guides the hands and mouths of many Christian leaders. That god is evil, that god is hate. That god led to burning people alive. That god leads humans to rape the Earth. That god teaches families to hate one another. The church that god leads teaches families to hate one another. That church talks about God's love on one side while vomiting hate from the other. That church is hypocrisy.

I have friends who are Christian. I was raised Christian. I try to be nice. I try to understand... it wasn't the message, it's not about Jesus, blah blah blah. The fact is that there are Christians everywhere preaching hate. There are Christians preaching murder. So why am I trying to be nice? 

I've been indoctrinated. Brainwashed to be nice. That's how good Christian girls are. Nevermind that I walked away from Christianity over 20 years ago. It's still in there. The training goes deep. So deep that there is gratitude towards the few churches who will accept us. Gratitude for a couple of places that allow us to be who we are. Well fuck the gratitude. I'm not grateful. And I have no respect for these places of worship, for these holy leaders. They are hypocrites. Until they break their silence. Until they speak out. Until they publicly denounce the churches of hate who share their religion. Until they offer formal letters of apology for all of the hate spread in their name. For the murders done in their name. For the families destroyed in their name. 

Blessed Be.

The Obvious

First obvious statement - it's hot. Too hot. Tempers are flaring and it's kind of fun. We're all soaked and sweaty and cranky. We're all real. Slather on the deodorant baby and it won't do a bit of good - you'll smell like a hot sweaty animal within minutes. And it's hot.

Second obvious statement - there's an election up in a few weeks. I'm betting most of those eligible to vote, won't. And that's not hot. Nor is it cool. Remember being a kid and your mother telling you to eat all of you supper because "there are children starving to death in Africa?" (which, while true, somehow seems like some kind of racial slur. My brother and I thought it was funny to tell her to pack the food up and send it to them.) Well, there are people all over the world dying for the chance to vote. Literally. Yet here in New Brunswick in 2003, only 69% of registered voters turned out to vote. The turnout at the last federal election was even lower at just 58.8%. All I can say is wtf? We get to vote, we get to have a say, we get to have a voice. Maybe it's not huge, but it's there. So get off your disenfranchised ass and stop feeling sorry for yourself and the state of the world long enough to go out and fill in your ballot. Then you can go back home and bury your head back in your video games if you like. Although, if you come up from your virtual reality long enough to check life out, you might find that one person can make more difference than you'd thought.

Third obvious statement - the revolution is going to start here in New Brunswick. Some August, or maybe July. During an incredibly intense heat wave. And it will all be due to global warming. Those who deny that global warming is happening will have to find some other reason, like the state of the economy or socialist infiltration. I'll let them figure that out. Personally I think we're all just going to lose our cool (again, literally) and take back what is ours. So a word to the secular powers that be - do what you need to do to stop global warming, because we New Brunswick folks get cantankerous when we're overheated. And if you won't work on the global warming issue then at least send us lots of cold beer.

Fourth obvious statement - see first obvious statement. The not so obvious statement is that the weather seems to shifting and perhaps, hopefully, lightening a bit. So I'm going to go to bed and see if this sleep thing will happen. It's been too long without a good sleep and I'm almost running on fumes. While that was great during Pride Week, I want my sleep now. 

Good night all.