When I was a kid I woke up early some Sunday morning and all I found on TV was a religious evangelist. I recognize this douchebag now in retrospect as being either Ernest Angely or Jim Baker, though it’s irrelevant. What is important is that it only took about 10 minutes of their fire and brimstone bullshit to scare me away from organized religion forever.
That’s not totally true, because there was that period in 7th grade where I followed this girl I liked to her church for a few weeks straight. She must’ve figured it out eventually, because I found myself sitting through some terrible Christian rock alone, with her mother. After a couple weeks of being stood up, and finding no true resonance with The Word, I resumed sleeping in. Other than digging the Christian hair metal band Stryper and getting married in a Church, I’ve been pretty successful in avoiding a lot of guilt, and other people’s interpretations of some outdated words in a book.
The lingering negative effects of the TV sermon lasted years. I remember praying at night, making ridiculous barters with their vengeful God. I promised to pray every single night or I’d dutifully be sent to H-E-double-hockey-sticks. That would keep me on the up and up! Fear and loathing. Needless to say, after about 2 weeks of praying every night I woke up one morning and realized I slept through prayer time. Pack your bags little KC, The Dark Lord will see you now. I was fucked. What would be more frightening for a child, watching Freddy Kreuger or watching Jim Baker? Hell is real, and you are going, please phone in your donations now. By the way, I’ll bang hookers and do coke…
After swearing off the religious stuff for a while, life forced me to acknowledge that a higher power is running things. It just felt inaccurate that we could be islands floating out here on our own. Being part of a larger scheme and feeling connected to it was just too important. I had tripped over a few things and experiences that made me truly happy, and connected to my full creative power. There wasn’t anyway that it only came from me though, because it felt too vast, too all knowing.
So brick by brick I built my own church, using only materials that resonated with this life-giving, loving force within myself. I can’t wait for Sundays to reconnect with God, so I went every morning: running, writing, reflecting, trying to get inspired and inspire others. Even going every morning wasn’t enough to counteract the negativity that surrounds us, so I’ve become more mobile. There are ways of connecting so deeply that you carry your church with you everywhere, inviting people in to check it out, but if it’s not their bag that’s cool too. In fact, your church shouldn’t be their bag at all. They need to build their own.
I’m full of love for those disconnected Sunday morning actors and fund-raisers. Bless them for showing me what a church shouldn’t be. Give me love and vitality, happiness, laughter, and bass so deep that it clears your sinuses. The sun and the air and the water too, and the courage to find 15 minutes a day in this chaotic mess to understand the obvious: that we don’t need to look outside ourselves for God or Love or Anything else. The chaos fades and silence swells. We’re not alone, but better yet, we’re carrying this expansion of All That Is forward.
Now why would anyone waste a minute giving themselves shit? We’re all too important for that nonsense.
