Religious 911

I don't see myself as an over achiever. I'm quite content coming in third place as I did much in my 5ks and Figure competitions. We'll talk about that later. So why would I aspire to be perfect at anything? Especially at being a 'sinner' which is pretty much defined as 'missing the mark'. I was really good at it. Not intentionally, but just naturally. I never aspired to be the best in anything. I only wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. I didn't need to be the best. I had no patience for the repetition needed to be the best. So how do you un-intentionally become perfect at it? It is why I am who I am at a 2/3 mark on the yardstick of life. (Some of you have never seen a yard stick I bet).

So where did I come from?

I came into this physical realm to gasp my first breath of air in a red brick hospital in Brownwood, Texas in September of 1964. A little over a year since JFK was assassinated, and almost thee years before Martin Luther King would be assassinated, yet five short years before Neil would take "one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind". In another context think of the end of 'Leave it to Beaver" and before "Mayberry R.F.D". Things were still pretty rosy sans the future assassinations as the political and social environment was heating up. We will not talk politics:).

I was the youngest of three girls and the only one born in Texas. My mother was from Mississippi and my father was from Cleveland, Ohio. Don't ask, that's a whole 'nother blog. My father was a welder that would become a plumber and HVAC entrepreneur, while my mother was a Cotton Valley, Mississippi Homecoming Queen, classical pianist college drop out. That's not the interesting part. They met at a convention of Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1950's, married and lived in Cleveland where my sisters were born and my father became an elder in the church.

They moved to Texas since my mother hated the winters of Cleveland, and my father wanted to 'go where the need was great' as the saying goes in that faith. They were sent to Brownwood, Texas when she was pregnant with me, so I was conceived in Cleveland, born in Texas, but an expat of the stars.

There were no men fit to lead that congregation, and most were widowed or spinster women who had kept the lights on for who knows how many years. This was my spiritual heritage. My hometown. My history. A good town to be 'from' I would always say. Wonderful people are still there.

Why is this relevant? We all have to take a survey of who we came from and where we came from. Why are we who we are today? Did we escape a death camp? Did we escape a war? Or did we escape religion? We are all a product of DNA, nurture, and environment. Not sure what order, does it matter?

My sisters and I were raised with a stern hand, practically potty trained at gun point to later be married off at the age of 17 to whom they deemed 'spiritually acceptable' - yes, all three of us. All of our stories were different, but they all started from the same cloth. If you were raised in an inclusive religion the doctrine's don't really matter, the isolation does. The 'us' against the world, the no one gets salvation without full compliance to a book of law, scriptures, books, dogma's, magistrates, popes, deacons, elders, governing bodies, etc. Do I have your ear? Can most of you relate? Some of us were cut from the cloth of inclusion and exclusion of anyone who doesn't believe what we believe, worship as we worship, pray as we pray. "Everyone else is wrong by God! We are the only ones who have it right! All others will burn in hell!" , or some other everlasting punishment, even non-existence.

What this is NOT. It is not about the religion I came from and left behind, it is not a launch of attack on the faith that was my spiritual heritage, or yours. It is just as the ragged expression 'It is what it is' implies. It's there, stagnant, always in the corner of your mind, this one set of rules and how your life deviated and the sheer beauty that can come as a result. Or the new modern acronym, IYKYN. (I actually had to look that one up not so long ago) I have no animosity of the world view of my heritage, or the people who still reside in the compounds of "The Village". (2004 Movie produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan) It so beautifully depicts the life I experienced. I do wonder on occasion, "what if..." "who would I be if...".

So if I refer to a biblical parable, scriptural reference or doctrine, you understand the weft and warp of the tapestry I weave.

Is it why I continually love those who will never love me back? What part does it play in the betrayals and subsequent grief. Will I always just rinse and repeat? Am I just broke, or broken?