Religion. I don’t know much about it and without looking up the formal definition I can’t even tell you exactly what it means. I do know it means something different to each of us.
As a young kid and into adulthood I believed in something and I wanted to belong somewhere with those who also believed. But as an empath and one who believed solely in the goodness of whatever it was, the images of a dead or dying and bloody Jesus nailed to a cross really didn’t appeal to me or draw me in. Yet at 12 years old I tattooed a cross on my ankle, because I knew this was important to me even though I didn’t know what “this” was. I didn’t grow up going to church and had never spent a single Sunday morning in a church.
One image is representative of how Jesus was (is) portrayed in the mainstream.
The next image is Jesus as I know know Him.
This is not about beliefs though and it is not about religion or Jesus either. This is about finding one’s Truth. It is also about seeking and surrounding oneself with like-minded and open-minded folks.
I spent a fair portion of my life wanting to believe in something. However from what I could tell, God sat by idly as terrible things happened to everyone all over the globe, and Jesus to me seemed a bit of a narcissist- demanding to be worshipped.
Fast forward to the present tense. I’ve found a people where the Truth I believed in as a kid is shared and exists.
As it turns out, my Truth is that God is good (and only good) and Jesus is to be celebrated and emulated not worshipped. The cross has also been transformed for me- from something morbid that represented suffering, torture and death, to something beautiful. The horizontal representing love for humankind and the vertical representing love for God.
My hope is that you never stop seeking your own answers. That you find and live your own Truth. And that you too see goodness in all that exists.
“And I believe we can breathe in the magic of our Earth
And I believe we can exhale anything we feel we didn’t deserve
I believe there was a man called Jesus Christ
And in times like these he said: treat each other equally
In times like these
And I believe in the words of the Dalai Lama
In times like these, with peace and love and unity
In times like these”
