faith

May 29, 2025

Emotional Self-Flagulation

This started out as a bluesky post and then I realized that the well in which I was drawing inspiration was overflowing. So, here I am to put it out on the internet for any person to read.

I miss my husband. I think I miss him more than I have this past year. I was told that it would get easier after the “firsts” but apparently not. This change coincidentally was ushered in by the wise words of my Papa Bill during out monthly ALS support meeting. He shared that, for him, it was worse in the second year. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. (I never do.) Until yesterday I had to pull over because I just started crying.

I happened to be playing Pokemon go at the same time and where I had stopped a Charmander simultaneously spawned in the game. My husband’s nickname, to his blood relatives, was Char. The name took me by surprise when I first heard it, because I immediately equated it to the anime. Another cute coincidence was that it’s CP was 776, which is super close to 777 which followed him around. I know none of this means anything. It was something that comforted me in the moment.

The other night I had a moment of realization that tipped my opinion of the BF and the brother. It dawned on me that these people are strangers. I don’t know them as well as I did my husband. Charlie was someone I trusted implicitly. These two men don’t carry the same weight. With that thought I suddenly felt very, very alone. And it has stayed with me since then.

In the abstract I know that I am being unfair to them. They have not shown me any reason to distrust them. Not once. My assumption is that I am carrying past trauma into this new future.

When I was a kid, for whatever reason I was a horrible judge of character. I trusted way more than I should have, and shared even more of myself than was wise in a desperate attempt to gain their trust. That was stupid on my part. Inevitably these kids would turn and use my truths against me to humiliate or isolate me from my peers. Awesome!

Since then I learned to own my truth and fuck everyone else. My level of shame is not very deep as a safety net for myself. I refuse to let anyone use my life as a weapon against me. I’d rather tell you I had cheated than have someone share it as if it was some dirty secret.

What does this have to do with my brother and BF? Well, I don’t know them. Not to the level I had with my husband. Which, in itself, isn’t fair since I knew him for 20 years. I never felt afraid with him because I knew he wasn’t going to leave or “betray” me. These men are “strangers” to me. I don’t know what they’re thinking, I don’t know their intentions. Are they here because they want to be or because I’m “useful”? (Which is another exposed nerve from my youth.)

All of this has weighed on my mind and I feel so alone and sad. Which is ridiculous because there is no reason to feel this way. It is all self-inflicted.

September 21, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 31 – Closer To Myself

One of my favorite past-times is looking back at who I once was. The beauty of life is there. It shows that no matter what, we are never a fixed point. We move on, grow, change, and become someone almost entirely unrecognizable to the person we once were. In some cases, that person would hate who you’ve become. They would have seen your existence as an absolute failure for the effort they, at the time, invested every ounce of energy into not becoming.

Another lifetime ago I was a very, very devout Christian. Of course that would occur when I was cultivated to be such a child. I went to Christian school from pre-k to 8th grade. And the only reason I ever, ever left religious education was because the local faith based high school priced my parents out. They couldn’t afford the exorbitant tuition. So much for spreading the word of God, right? That’s how you do it. You make it where only the rich can attend.

When I transferred to public school I made my faith my entire identity. From the day I started until the summer after my freshman year, I wore this hideous teal hat, embroidered with a “Jesus fish.” I swore that if I made it to Hollywood (as was my want at the time) and won some sort of acting award I would wear that ratty old hat to show that christ provides. Good lord, I was insufferable.

I was also the worst kind, I was a biblical literalist. I believed that what happened in the Bible absolutely occurred in the timeframe in which was outlined in this ancient text. And the verse I believed, with such a flaming ball of hatred, was the sin of homosexuality.

What makes that so problematic is… well… I am a big ol’ nelly queen.

I remember the rage I felt about any kind of queer representation. I vividly remember, saying out loud, that I wish that all “fags” would be killed; or given their own island where they would die out, because they can’t procreate. Which… in hindsight does actually sound kind of awesome. A gay space with no heteros to ruin our fun? Where do I sign up? And, die out? That doesn’t make any sense. Gay people aren’t just born to gay people… if that was the case… there would be no gay people.

My religious story sounds all too familiar. I will not offer you any new detail that hasn’t been said by countless others before or after me. Faith has become a burden. A costume we all don to “fit in” with the rest. For us to “feel worth.” I tried so hard to be a good Christian. I didn’t want to disappoint myself, my parents, or “my god.” I wrote allegorical stories, I listened to faith based music, and I tried to surround myself with others “like me.” Problem was, I was not like them and never could be.

I would pray every night that god would take away my gay feelings. There were a couple times that I pleaded so much that I cried. Yet, here I am. Sometimes I wonder if I just didn’t want it enough, pray as hard as I could. Then I remind myself that I don’t believe in any powerful deity and those antiquated thoughts leave my mind.

Religion has it’s hooks in me until I die, I’m afraid. I was immersed in it from the moment I could talk. It was the only perspective of the world I was offered and I bought into it because it was what my parents shared with me. And how could they be wrong? They knew everything. And it wasn’t just them, it was my teachers and my peers. All of them going along with this bull shit with zero questions. They just believed for the sake of it, and deliberately searching for “god” in everything they did. The thing about looking through rose colored glasses at the world is you’re always seeing red. So, even now, the faith bubbles up in my brain and I have to talk it through. I ask it questions, because there is nothing “belief” hates more than any kind of inquiring thought.

I do think that faith can do good things, but it doesn’t. It has become too consumed with maintaining power. It’s lost any sense of message, except to hold others down and lift up just a select few.

My loss of faith officially occurred after my mother’s diagnosis. It had been on life support at the back of my thoughts since my early twenties. But when I heard what my mother was about to endure any notion that there was “a higher power in charge of everything” was eliminated. Because how could a “loving god” strike down one of his most devout with such a horrible disease? To teach her a lesson? For what? Believing? Is it a test of her faith? That seems like a pyshopathic god to me. That’s like me sticking out a leg to trip someone, offering them a hand to pick them back up and saying “Now, tell me how awesome I am that I picked you up.”

Embracing the idea that there is no reason for what happens, that life is chaotic and meaningless has actually brought me so much peace. Without any meaning, we get to give life the one we want. We are only guaranteed today. So, I will live it the best way I can for the reason I want.

Letting go of faith has brought me closer to myself.

I gotta say, this song does rock. Despite it being a Christian tune. The fact that it was included in the movie “Never Been Kissed” astounds me to this day. The message in the lyrics is finding a version closer to her true self through faith. They included it in a moment where the main character of the film finds herself through her own self-discovery and failure. They may be similar ideas, however the shared space is very thin when considering the broader implications of the actual song.

I also don’t think god brings us closer to who we are, but separates us from our true identity. It tells us to fear and hate anything that doesn’t fit into the crucifix shaped box. And being such an odd configuration, doesn’t allow for too much.

July 23, 2022

A Son’s Eulogy to His Mother

It’s truly an overwhelming task to write a eulogy. One wants to pen something that encapsulates everything about that person. Their strengths, accomplishments, joys and what their presence meant to those around them. The thing that inevitably happens is it is filtered through the writer’s personal prism and one’s own experiences. As a result, some things get lost or not told at all because of limited knowledge. Or even worse it becomes about the author and how that person effected them. But My mother meant so much to so many people that, to do so, would be a great disservice to her memory. For that, more than anything, I don’t want to fail.

This is my 4th draft. Every time I write one I sit there thinking that it just isn’t good enough or that I’ve missed some crucial part of who she was. Like her undying faith in Christ, even at the very end. Or how she exemplified what it was to be a true Christian. My mother was someone who lived with an open heart and an open hand to to help all who crossed her path.

In one I tried so hard to focus on the fact that while she wanted to be a stay at home mom of 7 kids, like the wonderful woman from which she got her name, she got more than 7 instead. She got them in her nieces in nephews. From the moment they came into her sphere they were everything to her. She took them shopping, trips to theme parks, and was an ear to bend when they felt like no one was listening. And I couldn’t bare to leave out how at times, for some, was another parental figure. When life took very unexpected and cruel turns she moved into their homes to help care for them. Family was of the utmost importance to her. And to leave that out would have been a sin.

Then there was the draft where I talked about how her life didn’t turn out the way she had planned as a housewife. I tried focusing on the beauty that comes in the unexpected. Like when my father noticed her from across a bar. The two hadn’t been what the other was looking for but the two turned out to be just what the other needed. They complemented each other in the most beautiful broken symmetry. She wanted to be needed and he needed to be loved. I wanted so much to impart how much they each loved the other. Even when things seemed so rough. They held onto each other ever tighter and merged that brokenness into a whole.

And with each of these drafts I had to mention her dedication to her job. She started working at State Farm in 1964 and stayed there until she was forced into early retirement in 2005. She would have kept working to this day if she had had the opportunity. Her work gave her such a sense of importance and held so much of her identity. Even when words and thoughts were difficult for her to convey she would somehow manage to talk of her 40 years of work.

And then most importantly I could not leave out how much she had wanted me. But that one was difficult for me to write. I never could include that in any of my drafts. I felt like it took the spotlight away from her and onto me. But I know she wouldn’t have been upset at that, because I was what she had wanted. While I may not have turned out entirely as she had planned, her and my father both never missed an opportunity to tell me how much I was wanted. Or to share how much they loved me, how proud they were of my accomplishments and my sense of self.

But try as I may in each version of this eulogy I could not capture who my mother was. She was so much more than just anecdotes or bullet points. She was love made human. Any would have known that the moment they met her. She may have been shy, but it was only because her love was so great she was worried that it would be dismissed.

I will leave you with some of the words that inspired her:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says “love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil  but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

May 27, 2020

A Three Step Process to Disbelief

Damn… I have attempted this blog post from multiple angles but for whatever reason none of them have “sparked joy.” So, I deleted them and started again, not looking back. But with each new iteration more personal story came bubbling up to the surface and I felt compelled to continue on.

I was inspired to write because I had read an article about the lead singer of a christian band revealing that he no longer believed in god. It was inspiring and very touching, and some of his words mirrored my own thoughts. Except the journey to how each of us arrived at our conclusion was very different.

His was a lingering sense of the bible not being true, whereas mine was revealed to me step by step until I arrived at the peak of this new way of thinking.

When I met my husband I had lived a very religious life. Up until that point I had even still believed in god, even though I was gay. It was just me carrying the bonds of my former imprisonment. (Brainwashing is hard to undo.)

My husband was the one who shook my faith. He asked me questions, and the one thing Christianity hates is inquiries into the validity of belief. And the answers that are typically offered in response to most are nonsensical and unending self-prophecy. Where the one giving the answer has this overwhelming sense of accomplishment for these “spiritual attacks” and doesn’t see their own bullshit. Except, most people who ask such probing thoughts are not my husband. He is the most antagonistic person I have ever met and has a way of driving you crazy with his interrogations. And to say he made me angry in those early days is an understatement. I truly do not understand how I stuck around or didn’t murder him. Yet it was these mental exercises that put deep cracks in my religious foundation.

The next big step was silly and kind of pathetic looking back…

I was a biblical literalist. I believed that everything that was mentioned in the bible factually and literally happened. It wasn’t meant for interpretation or was used as allegory. It occurred. And so, when I realized that if you could see a man sunbathing on the roof of a building with Google earth, you’d most certainly find a flaming sword guarding the entrance to a mythical garden from whence all life sprung forth. That revelation truly made me doubt everything. Dumb… I know.

The thing that inevitably killed every ounce of lingering faith within me was my mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. I couldn’t understand why a woman who had devoted her life to this mystical entity, acted as a “true christian” should, was just given the worst death sentence. My brain tried to comprehend it, like was this a punishment for letting me be faggot? And if that’s so, why would he use my mother as a device to torture me? One of his most faithful. These thoughts led me to my ultimate conclusion that there couldn’t be a god and if there was one he was the biggest asshole, one who didn’t give a shit if you tried or not. He just wanted to know that he could, much like the one in the book of Job.

The last thing I ever told my father, before he died, was that I didn’t believe in god anymore. I outlined the reasons above and he just looked at me silently, with his appraising eyes. He didn’t respond. I wonder now if he started to question it also. At the time, he was in the thick of my mother “losing her mind,” before getting leveled out by medication. I can’t imagine what he felt. (Sidenote, I really do miss him.)

Now I am a staunch atheist. Life to me is just one big accident filled with a lot of cruelty, lacking any reason. It just is what it is.

The lingering religious thoughts come to the surface and said “well that doesn’t seem like a good way to think of life.” And my response to my own ridiculous thoughts is, yes it is. It removes this belief that I have to have my life mean something, or that it’s some sort of test to get to enlightenment, acting all on “faith” that it even exists. So why would I waste the time I have now chasing some figment of imagination. I’d rather just live my days trying to be a good person because it’s the right thing to do, and not because I will receive some awards in the afterlife.

P.S. I also don’t believe in an after life.