I'm Just Sayin'

I had a conversion with a close friend the other night, in which my friend, "L" described something that had happened to her sister, "C" , which caused "C" a huge amount of anxiety and pain. "C" is a troubled individual, probably, at least in part, due to a chemical imbalance and/or neurological disorder. She is a social misfit with a confrontational disposition and as a result, leads a tumultuous life. She is not an evil person, but has not been able to find the elusive quality of life that we often refer to as "peace of mind" or "serenity".

So last Sunday, she decided to take her young daughter and go to church. I can't speculate about her thought process with regards to her decision to go to church, but it seems apparent that she went looking for comfort...she was seeking  sanctuary. She was, I think, looking for help. As she entered the church, she began to recognize many of the faces she saw. She knew many of the church members and she knew who they really are and what they are really like the other six days...and nights of the week. She recognized those she knew from bars and the "nightlife". She recognized adulterers, drug dealers, drunks, hell raisers, liars, cheaters and thieves. The disillusionment she felt was immediate and severe. She was shocked..not at the presence of these people, but at their actions as they sang the hymns, eyes damp with tears, and prayed with sanctimonious authority and smiled and said "amen" and "praise the Lord".

Her disenchantment was not because the people she knew were worshiping in that church on that Sunday morning...it was not as if they didn't "need" to hear the word of God and seek salvation..but  because they were displaying their hypocritical true selves in a blasphemous show of false reverence. Her despair was profound and crippling. She felt betrayed before she had even had a opportunity to give religion a chance. It was like seeing a preacher exiting the side door of a whore house, or being "hit on" by the married choir director.

I've been thinking about "C's" dilemma. In our phone conservation, "L" brought up a  story I had told her about a similar event that happened to me many, many years ago. I'd forgotten that I had even told "L" about  "my church and the share croppers" story... a true event from my youth, but the parallel is striking. I was about 12 or 13...so this happened in about 1962 or 63 in Memphis, Tennessee.

My family had been going to a small Presbyterian church  and the church had been renting an old house to serve as the church building, but were outgrowing the house and had saved enough money to build a small new church. We decided to build in a new subdivision and so our church property abutted cotton fields. On those cotton fields were 3 or 4 sharecropper houses. Sharecroppers were families of mostly blacks for whom the farmers provided houses in return for their labor. Their pay would be a very small "share" of the sale of the crops...in this case, cotton. The living conditions of the sharecroppers was, for the most part, very, very poor. In the case of our sharecropper neighbors, they had no running water.

One Sunday, after the service, my parents told me to go outside and play, the grownups were going to have a meeting. This was not usual, so my curiosity was immediately aroused. All the children went outside and ran around and jumped and played while the grownups had that meeting. The meeting didn't last long...maybe 20 minutes or so and as the grownups exited the church, I noticed a strange expression on my mother's face.  She looked troubled or worried or confused. I asked her what had happened and she told me not to worry about it...the adults had to decide what to do about a situation that had arisen. I prodded her and reminded her that I had a right to know what was going on...I went to church here too. Honestly, it didn't take much prodding on my part, she broke down and told me what had happened after only a couple of well placed, "I have a right to know"s. I think she had wanted to tell me, but was  embarrassed.

Here is what had happened. Someone in the church had gotten to church early and had seen a couple of the sharecroppers getting some water from our outside faucets. They were carrying some buckets and had made off with some of our water!  The meeting was held so a decision could be made about the best way to stop this water theft...... Let that sink in a minute...... We, the church goers, who were supposed to lend a helping hand and love our neighbors and all that crap, had decided to put locks on the faucets. In my young and naive mind, I thought maybe the teachings of the church would have guided us to not only offer water to these folks in need, but maybe to even make an effort to help them get the water or even take the god damned water to them.  My mother was visibly shaken. I didn't have to even ask her...she was appalled by the whole episode of bigotry and hypocrisy. She knew she didn't have to tell me what had just happened was wrong.

For me, this was a defining moment in my life and set the wheels in motion for my total repulsion of religion and eventually my rejection of the existence of God. I think I knew, before this defining moment, that the church was full of hypocrites and that the whole idea of a big, magic, invisible, all powerful, all knowing entity was a bunch of bullshit, but this event was the catalyst for my decision to seek real answers and rely on truth and fact rather than the faith based guide lines of religion, the  church, and the morally anointed.

I don't know if "C" will ever find inner peace, but I hope she realizes that truth and enlightenment are best searched for by looking within ourselves. Our individual peace of mind is a result of being truthful with ourselves. Even when the truth is painful, it is always the best path. All else is avoidance and avoidance never solves, it merely hides.