Nappy Headed Black Child

i walked away from religion and dogmatic thought practices several months ago. It was a harrowing effort in bringing my emotional connection to church under the reign of logic and historical fact. Long painful many nightmares.

In any case i stopped going to church after going through all of that it church seemed like a colossal waste of time and I'm not a morning person anyway. Every once in awhile (which would amount to twice since i renounced) i do sneak in to check on folks for reasons that will be explained later. Either way when ever i do pop in i keep a fairly robust inner monologue of sarcasm, historical references, and disagreements. My erudition simply wont allow me to by in. Thus me popping in becomes an anthropological exercise.

I went today mostly because it the Sunday where they recognize the college and high school graduates and let them talk and honor their parents and everyone that had a hand in raising them and helping them get to graduation. My little sister was among them so i was front and center no complaints. Now for those that don't know my parents are both ministers and my mother was delivering the sermon. Being there as a part of the service and sitting square in the center of the amen corner i couldn't hide and my inner monologue eventually gave way.

Truth is i miss the place and the people. I was the church baby coming up. Every time i go i get stories of i remember you when (insert memory here). That church was not my second home, but my first one. Those are people to feed me, showed up at my sporting events, had my back when butting heads w/ my parents, sent me care packages in undergrad, and were willing to inconvenience themselves to do something for me. And did so with a smile. I may have major issues with their beliefs systems. But they love me regardless. Enough for me to be the subject of many an intercessory prayer session over the destination of my eternal soul.

In that building for me there is love there. An energy i have not found reciprocated in my forays in to the "Conscious" community. Which renders the rhetoric of loving our people and helping them find their home and unity impotent and hollow. The predominant narrative as i have experienced it we love you if u think like me. The appreciation of epistemological independence geared toward the effort of becoming better beings is HEAVILY LACKING. Granted I'm still fairly new to this thing I'm sure the that community will develop however at the moment I'm frankly disappointed.

I found myself in that service sad for 2 reasons. 1st here are my people. People that i know personally and love dearly, prostrating themselves and professing an unshakable belief in a concept of "God" that has been not only molded to their detriment and founded upon a corruption of traditional indigenous African knowledge. 2nd i am more loved and affirmed here in the absence of truth than i am in the presence of people who are looking for truth and understand what I'm going through.
I supposed i should have expected it but if you really expect folk who claim to be allies, comrades, friends to knife you then the reality is that u don't have any.

What's more there are many people who struggle same as me but the nastiness, condescension and outright contempt of some conscious folk is so off putting it defeats the purpose to which we so valiantly clamor for. In my observation its a combination of bitterness and immaturity that disallows a person from separating the construct (Christianity in this case) from the individual person (the Christian). Being a former Christian myself i understand all to well what its like and thus my compassion. For i know intimately the pain that comes with it. What i needed was not some snide self aggrandizing fool but someone to care enough to point me in the direct of the proper information so i could make a decision.

For many of us, our actions are inconsistent with our aims. Fix that shit because you are hurting our community