Musing #414
Ever walked into a house of worship and wonder when the lightening is going to strike you dead? Did you ever try to find a spot in the pews where no one will recognize the sins dripping from all over your body? Have you ever been certain the guy or gal on the pulpit was talking about something evil you did yesterday, like they were calling you out? Is returning to a faith tradition supposed to be this painful? And is G-d angrier that you left or that it took so long for you to come back?
These questions rattled through my mind as I walked with my sister Ciara to the synagogue last night. I dare not voice my fears to her for she’d just roll her eyes and say I was being foolish. She’d be right too. All those fears stem from being lost in the ambient Christian atmosphere that covers Western societies like stale ignorance. You can’t help be sucked into it, particularly when you’re a member of a religious minority that everyone, except other religious minorities, thinks is just “Christianity lite”; particularly when those with such an opinion are so wholly ignorant of their own theology. However, my G-d has never sat anywhere let alone on some cloud, the word most commonly translated as "sin", hata, really means "to go astray”, and Jesus lived and died a Jew – nice guy who didn’t say anything new; the revolution created in his name was started by followers who took an advantage of the emotional void left by the dying Roman Empire’s debauchery.
I didn’t leave the Orthodox Jewish community in Cardiff because I liked sucking cock – I hadn’t really figured that part out yet – I left because they chose the revitalization fantasy covering a pedophile’s lies over the health and well-being of a local teenage boy. Even after a trial revealed similar allegations from another community, I got the “whistleblower treatment”. What do Salman Rushdie, Eric Snowden, and I have in common? A lack of a support group. Folks hate it when you bust out their fantasies of perfection. My sister left in solidarity and to avoid having to walk around wearing one of those ugly wigs.
G-d never left me though. Hashem helped me hold on until I found the good therapist. Hashem kept me from killing myself with alcohol and guided me toward expressing my anger through martial arts, and Hashem encouraged me to take a chance on this relationship with Angus. Well, actually G-d was working through my sister on that last one and encouraging me to rediscover faith through a supportive shul.
- From “The Musings of Deetz Mac Innes, 9/28/2016
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