Peace be with you, and also with you

So writing is just this addiction lately, it's 2am here and my taxi gets here at 4:45am but I have to get the rest of this out...

I grew up in a Catholic household. This basically meant I respected God but didn't really visit with him but for a couple of rare occasions when my dad wasn't sleepy, grumpy or hungry on a Sunday morning. Now I love my father, but if you know him, you know how rarely I ever went to church. Still, to my dad, being anything other than Catholic was a betrayal to my great-grandmother, who in addition to riding with Pancho Villa, getting extradited from Mexico and bucking the "system" of the time period had many children (with different last names) down the Central American coast but never had a need for a man, was a devout Catholic. How you connect the radical with the religious, I'll never know. They say I'm a lot like her. I like that.

I'm a fairly spiritual person, I think regardless of religion, healers are bound to be. I have gone through stages and time periods where my religion means a lot to me. I have had two major breaks with my faith. Once when the first messenger/priest whom I really trusted violated an acquaintance and the second time with the assault its self. It is only now years later that I feel myself reconnecting. But I must admit, I am reconnecting to my spirituality, my connection to the world around me and the higher being that touches me so frequently, not a church.

I don't know how I feel about church. I think in theory, its wonderful. A place of love and worship and spirituality. But in practice it just becomes this weapon. I am not fond of weapons.

You see, I feel like the good relationships I know, there are things that are incredibly private. The pieces, tulmultuous or pleasurable, that are most sacred are not shared with the outside world. That in context of a relationship is incredibly respected. The tighter, intimate and more private the bond, the more I look on admiringly as a public. This is the way it should be.

So here is the disconnect for me, if your relationship with your God is the most intimate relationship you can have. Why would you ever be expected to honor it in the same way as your bretheren? Why is it up for public scrutiny how I choose to celebrate that partner? This relationship is mine and mine alone.

As I lay in this bed, sheets and comforter wrapped around my body, pillows propping me up, fingers typing, I get that I have been blessed. I share with you my blessing not to impose it or to have it judged but to let you know, I'm happy. It took me so long to get here, and there is no way that I could have done it alone. Who or what guided me, I don't know fully and without a shadow of a doubt. What divine prescence kept me safe, I can't for sure say. But the beauty of that safety is God's kiss to me. God's loving embrace. My spirit after all of the hurt, remains in one piece and if nothing else has grown in love and intensity. And again, I am happy. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I am learning to fall in love with myself. Thank God.