A REFLECTION OF ME TODAY—–As 2016 comes to a close I feel I should reflect on the things I’ve learned through my research and my experiences in my life. I’ve learned a lot about myself recently and much of what has been revealed to me as I’ve reflected on myself, is that I have more strength and courage in me than I ever thought I did.
I grew up in a very small town with so many conservative and ignorant people. Sadly, I have carried ignorance with me through much of my life, so much so that at one point I thought I was sick because of how I was born and I was making the world a more vile place for humanity. I thought that all Muslims were out to get me. I thought that Christianity was the only way and there was no other way to go about life. One thing I realized is that when you are ignorant, you have no idea that you are ignorant, it takes seeking to learn on your own accord to determine truth and find your way out. It is not always an easy thing to evade ignorance, and from what I’ve learned, some of it is a mentally painful struggle to break away from falsehoods that you were taught for so long as truths. I have been oppressed and shamed for most of my life, until I got away from my home town. I couldn’t see past what I was taught growing up and told as I developed in to a young adult. After getting shunned by the church and almost completely losing my faith and myself, I found a way to rise. I decided that it was time that I either prove them right and I should likely end my life or do all I could to live the way they told me I should, or I would prove them wrong and be free of all the chaos that was within and around me. When I set out, because I trusted so many of my elders, I set out to prove them right and confirm my fears. I just knew I was going to have to find a way to be “normal,” fit into the Christian box and make my family proud.
After about three years of research, I determined that they were very wrong about me and that I was born how I was born for a reason, though I was not sure what that reason was. I continued on my journey, listening to my Creator and researching the history of Christianity, digging for answers that the church not once could answer for me. I asked too many questions and that was frowned upon more so than not. I was always told read the Bible and see what it says. There in I found a huge problem with Christianity, they never once talked about the history of Christianity, always just believed the Bible was a book without error penned by man but written by God. In my research after a few years, I found out how much the Bible has been written and rewritten to fit ideologies of different leaders (one of which was a gay king) and scholars. I found out that there had been many books removed from the Bible and I found out that the history of Christianity was not such a nice one. With the way things are looking today, it is proving once again to be not such a nice religion. They (some not all) will back the people that stand with them, but damn to hell in their self-righteous view point, anyone who does not fit inside the box they so faithfully believe that people should. They get angry and become hateful when people are for something they believe to be wrong and their dark hearts are revealed in the mist of their anger. In saying that, I know and believe that with any religion unless it is solely based on hate, has good people that follow and believe in it. I know good Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims, so religion doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person, it just depends on how you use it, and how you treat others because of it.
I am still doing research, just not as much as I did before. I pretty much threw myself almost completely into my research for about 8 years, because I wanted to know the answers to the questions I had and if I would survive this place or the next. My research has gotten broader, I don’t just research Christianity, but religion in general and how it has evolved. I’d like to research other religions to learn more about them at some point, but only in an act of curiosity for knowledge on the things of this world. I have pretty much deemed religion as beguilement of the Creators people, for a couple of reasons. One, my research has lead me to understand that there are far too many contradictions in Christianity to be able to stand on that as a solid base for a faith. Two, because while driving to work one day sitting in silence, I heard that statement that, “religion is the beguilement of the Creators people,” and that statement freed me. The basics of most all religions that I have touched base on is that they are a control mechanism created by man, not a god or gods. I believe that our relationship with our Creator is all that was ever meant to be, not all the religious rituals and standards, but simply loving each other and our Creator and appreciating our home Mother Earth.
My faith has been shaken to its core, but never faltered. I do believe that we were created, we are far too complex and this world is far too complex for this to have all happened after an explosion. That makes no logical sense to me at all. I do believe in the core values of right and wrong that we should love our neighbor as ourselves and love our Creator. In that one statement all right and wrong can be settled. We are not to cause harm to each other or our home that has been provided for us, yet we do both daily as the human race. I am now Spiritual if I am to claim a faith or belief. My understanding of this world, humanity, and religion are very different than what it was when I was growing up. I no longer believe all Muslims are out to get me, as I have become friends with Muslim people and now understand the peace of their religion, and though I do not agree with religion in general, it is their right to follow it as they see fit so long as they do not harm other people by doing so, which goes for any religion. If you fit inside the religious box and it makes your life more full filling, by all means, enjoy your faith. I think my beliefs are more along the lines of the Native Americans in certain ways, things need to go back to their ways and we need to take care of Mother Earth, for if she is sick and in turmoil, so shall we be. I still pray every day, to my Creator, I pray for my friends and my family that they might find their way in this life, and that love and not hate will flourish in my homeland and the world.
Humanity needs to learn some very important lesson and they need to be learned swiftly or we will not have a home very much longer, for future humanity to live. We need to learn to love and respect each other and live and let live so that we can flourish throughout our world and grow as one people. The hate that is in so many hearts of so many people, is part of what destroys the earth. If you’ve never noticed, a plant will grow much better when it has positive vibes around it, than if there is negative or harshness around it. We feed off the earth and the earth feeds off of us in more ways than we are willing to acknowledge. Our home is dying and if people don’t start waking up soon, there will be no more humanity and no more earth.
