God? Complex?

I've been wanting to write an entry like this for quite some time.  Fear wasn't factored in.  I guess I wasn't totally sure about letting others read my story.  Most of my entries are personal of course.  They are my creations (mostly) but few of them actually address my progression as a man.  The man who won't accept anything just because it's there and it's what everyone else is doing.  Let's rewind things a bit shall we?

I think a majority of people's stories start similarly to mine.  Bible stories as a youth, church sometimes, barely once a month.  Bad people = hell good people = heaven was my understanding for a very, very long time.   I would pray, I really didn't know who I was praying to.  Even though in the bibles my parents would buy my brother and I would have a bearded man in the sky pointing a celestial finger at us mortals.

One year my uncle Marty gave me a globe.  My uncle was always giving me gifts that educated me (I still have the insect encyclopedia he gave me.)  I appreciated them, but I was a kid and would have preferred a Transformer.  Anyway, in one of many curious urges I go to look for Jerusalem on the globe finding it and being quite confused. ...

If Jerusalem is HERE then why does Jesus look like this?



Even in my young mind that did not add up.  Hair like lambs wool? Yea if you hit that lamb with some Just for Me relaxer.  I saw all these mighty people, they did great things, the foundation of many families.  So how come they don't look like any of the people who worship/adore them?

This disturbed me for years, but I figured something was wrong with me.  I didn't believe fully in what I was being told by the preachers & the teachers.  Sure it was uplifting, but none of it ever helped my family.  Fast forward to my teen years, my mother has started going to a smaller full gospel church.  Of course I was drug along, getting "saved" (from what I didn't know) and baptized by the order of my Mother.  Like many things I did as a teen, I didn't like rocking the boat.  If moms wanted me to be washed in the blood, so be it.  Long as I didn't get any static.  In those years I acted (and starred) in a few gospel plays, sang in the choir and taught Sunday school.

Don't get it twisted, I learned a lot, but I didn't appreciate being told what I should think about world matters.  Or criticizing others beliefs because they did not line up with mine....it just rubbed me the wrong way.  Oh, and the heated discussion me & her had about my music could take up a whole nother entry.

I did what I always did when I needed answers.  I read...a LOT.  Knowledge is contagious.  (ed. note I'm FF to 2003, after a nasty breakup and having to move back in with my parents.   I have already had my porn collection found AND destroyed.  This was dial up porn...so you can imagine how long it took me to amass...) I wanted...no NEEDED to see everything.  I can't remember what books I brought home that day, but they caused an argument....a colossal one at that.  This was the first time I can remember truly having a debate with her and holding my ground.  I told her I needed answers, she told me to read my Bible, and the books I was reading were disrespecting her and God.  So out of respect for her I took the books back, and out of respect for myself I stopped following a religion.  At least until I found a path that isn't preset.

Finding God should always be a personal thing.  Not tethered to tradition or family.  "We were raised..." should not be a part of your answer.  Finding God for me has been an experience in finding myself, and when that's is completed maybe he (or she) will truly manifest themselves to (and in) Me.