I do believe in God,” I said.
Fixing my two platinum chains—one slightly longer than the other with two-toned Jesus heads attached to each. I hated when they tangled.
“Don’t you ever question my religion; Jesus hangs on my neck twice!” I said laughingly to my mom, who stood over me with loud eyes and a twisted lip—her neck was cocked east with the rest of her body leaning west.
I was sitting on the park bench over Ellwood where I asked her to meet me. Sometimes I wasted Sundays feeding pigeons, blowing weed circles, and trading war stories with some dope fiends from my neighborhood.
My mom was church ready. She looked royal—fuchsia form-fitting dress offset by a huge purse. Her shoes and Sunday crown matched.
“I know you believe in God, Dee, so come to church!” she pleaded.
I’d rather eat used tampons, is what I thought; “I’ll pass” is what I said. I never spent too much time in churches, but I know “Church Folk”—I can’t really comprehend them.
Church Folk are thirty-to fifty-something, slightly overweight, and programmed to be judgmental. Most are broke but a few are paid, with some middle-class people sprinkled in—the seating chart is donation-based, meaning that the elite sit in the front and the bottom-feeders are lucky if they can peek in through the back window. They all gather for approximately twelve hours every Sunday to praise God.
God is neither the Kenny Rogers–looking guy that Michelangelo conceptualized, or the Isaac Hayes rendition that emerged from the black community.
God to “Church Folk” is the Kool-Aid-red robe-wearing, $100,000 car driving, Jheri Curl glistening, central incisor gold tooth having, gator-skin boot sporting with two fists full of gleaming fourteen-karat rings dude—slanging globs of praise and spit from the throne in the pulpit every Sunday, always playing the saint when he’s really more crooked than a meth fiend’s smile.
Fuck listening to that guy. Most of the fake prophets only focus on profits. Congregation members who struggle to pay their light bills wouldn’t dare ask the church for a loan, and if they did, the only answer they would probably receive is “I can’t give you money but we can pray on it!”
Multiple hardship stories like this in combination with what I heard about the infinite number of boy-lusting Catholic priests who hang around Boy Scout conventions and in the back of Toys R Us made me question organized religion.
“Church ain’t really for me, Mom.”
“All churches aren’t the same, Dee. You need to give mine a chance. I’ll save you a seat!” she said as she hopped in her car and peeled off.
I didn’t answer. She knew I wasn’t coming just like I knew she wasn’t saving me a seat. Just like me, my mother is a serial escapist, and she just used the church scene to replace the nightclubs—same thing, if you think about it. Flashy cars, money flowing, addictive music, excessive fucking, and respect based on financial status.
Soni always rapped about how the religions we celebrate were used as tools for implementing genocide, colonization, and the enslavement of people across the globe, but I don’t blame God. The fundamentals of these religious practices are great but the people—the people fuck them up, leaving me to separate myself from them and develop my own understanding of what God is.
Orgasms, an exotic marijuana buzz, the smirk on my homie’s face when his ten-pound son popped out of his lady’s vagina, the feeling you get when you are starving and the waiter arrives with your appetizer, or the warmth that shoots through you after a good-bye kiss from your love at the airport make the existence of a higher power undeniable.
We have the power to create our own realities. People who chase and catch their dreams are in heaven while the others who travail daily in a hate-packed existence reside in hell.
My mom had her heaven and I had mine.
And in the midst of her trying to bring me to her heaven, I got zero advice on reconnecting with Soni.