Why I am decidedly agnostic

Yesterday, I found this picture in a letter addressed to my grandparents among some photos from their house. It was from the pastor's wife, Mrs. Rev. Garrison, who had found it cleaning out a drawer years later and sent it to my grandparents.

I must have drawn it sitting in the pews, as it is on the back of a hymn printout. I was 10, but if I had to draw it again today- I think it would look the same except for the bubble dots over the "i"'s.

The good reverend's sermon was likely titled "what kind of man is this?.   I had already developed a deep ambivalence towards religion, so it doesn't surprise me this captured my attention.

I shopped around at that age, eagerly going to my friends' churches. Realizing that they all equally believed themselves to be getting it "right". None of them addressing a deep need I still have for genuine, meaningful gatherings and communion. It was all sit and listen, stand and kneel. Facing forward never looking at each other until handshakes and hugging at the appointed times. Only the men talked, unless it was announcements or Sunday school. Ladies got to make announcements. This neatly explains why I will never go to Church.

Last week, my dad told me that when I was about 5 and sick with a cold, I asked him if God wanted me to be sick. He told me, "I don't think so, honey". I left him, only to return a little while later to ask "Then why am I sick?".  I feel like this sums up why I can't get my head around a God as omniscient and omnipotent and omnipresent, but only pure good.

I have been following the pain and confusion over the new LDS Church policy of excluding children of parents in same sex relationships from church rituals, blessings, and privileges. I can think of no better time to ask "What kind of man is this" that creates policies about children's relationship to God and their family? This appears to me to be a matter of social control masked as divine inspiration. This is so prevalent in religions that I don't teach my kids that any one religion is correct.

The fact that it was in a "policy handbook" is all the more repellent to me. The devil is most definitely in the details of implementation. I have never trusted the Christian religion, because it really isn't just "believe in the Lord and thou shall be saved". It is do that and then accept a hundred other rules, fables, myths, and guidelines for living a biblical life.

As I type, the horror of the attacks in Paris are unfolding. The reports say the murderers were yelling "God is great!" Clearly, these are men using religion to justify their terror and righteousness, a scenario as old as religion itself.

I do not believe in Lennon's call to "imagine there is no religion".  Religion is a fundamental freedom. What we should be able to expect is religion without violence. This is the one of the few things that keeps me thinking about finding a faith community, because only a believer in religion could make this truly happen.

Woman with Options

A woman with options

Is not about some Rosy 
Yes We Can pep talk
Because she will, she must
She will manifesto presto
Out of her own thin air.
She is not on anyone's B String.

She seeks to know the contours and shape of her power.
Did you know the so called Venus figurines
were carved by a woman looking down upon her breasts and round belly and cut off feet
not a distorted ornament or object, but a self-portrait.

A woman with options is not a greeting card "Goddess"
She is skilled in the somewhat darker arts of
the delicate application of brutal logic, willful disregard for and the calling out of bullshit, 
and the weeding of potentially fertile ground for her preferred outcome. 
She is not on a pedestal doing this work, she is ready to look you right in the eye . 

A woman with options is dead fucking serious
and entertains all manner of ridiculousness
Until she doesn't.

She knows that a virtuous life 
is not a golden ticket or
karmic ride
lined with good fortune
but rather
a weaving of soft places to land. 

So she tries to be kind.

The nightmares she will tell you about are of
passports lost
timing all off
missing pieces of clothing needed for the celebration
Time runs out while she looks for the right dress or a lost shoe.

Yes she CAN for sure, as a general rule she is known for this
But she knows the devil is in the details
The dominoes fall or don't fall into eternity in all directions.
Options. 

She is never alone
She gives birth to ideas with the midwives of 
ambition and doubt.  
She weighs each one
like jewels in hand but sometimes
hooks in tender flesh

A woman with options knows that finding meaning
could be like deciding what clothes to wear for the day.
What ever suits you.

Chains

In response to "The Way It Is" by William Stafford and 3 days alone in Seattle.

The chain is broken

a door is left open
in the quiet
flow
I can choose.
I can
pause
and
I listen.

Alone
I can hear

Together
Its a series of reactions
and counter-reactions
jibber- jabber
fight-flight
you this, me that.

How do I slow it
all down
to discern if this is a
chain that binds
or a thread
that might hold
it all together.

Space

NOVA's Fabric of the Cosmos on PBS: What is Space?

WATCH THIS!
But here are cliff notes;

Space is everywhere
Everywhere there is space
it gives relation to, respect to the something that is not space
And we know very little about it.
"Fish are not conscious of water either, they are in it all the time" - S. James Gates, Jr.
Einstein found that space and time work together to adjust, so that the speed of light is always the same.