Organized Religion

For the longest time, over half my life, I was happily a part of the southern baptist church. My parents went there, and their parents, and probably their parents but I don't really remember. Then I went through my biggest transitional period. Divorce. I realized that I had spent my entire life up to that point living up to everyone else's expectations, but never really knowing what I expected of myself. If you want to see what you really mean to the people who have been your family for most of your life, get a divorce that no one really understands but you. Not only did I lose faith in my church, but I lost a good many people in the mix as well. My biggest problem, and main reason for not wanting to continue to be a part of this "church" that I had devoted so much time and energy to? The way they ever so slightly edged me out. Not only did they not understand, they didn't even try. No one wanted to hear my part of things. Divorce is never the answer. You have to try to work it out. As if I hadn't been doing that silently for years. What about your children? What will this do to them? As if I didn't think of them. Why continue to go somewhere that you don't fit in? I had been at this church for 21 years, and then a brief period at another church, and then back. I knew most of these people my entire life, and now I feel like an outsider. Someone they passed on the street without a second glance. It had become some sort of specialty club, and if you didn't fit in the box they created, you were just cast to the side. So, as I sit at home tonight, on a Wednesday, when I would have normally been at Bible study, it hits me. I don't fit into their mold. I have no desire to sit with a group of (now) strangers and have them secretly judge me for my faults. I don't want to hear about fire and brimstone. That's not what I need. I know my faults. Do you? As you sit there talking about the Bible and praying for people's troubles. Do you feel a sense of superiority because your God would never let you get to where they are? Where I am? A fallen woman. Someone who chooses to be nice to people, not because a book tells me to, but because its the right thing to do. Someone who shows love to all people, because I know what it's like to be unloved and feel unlovable. Someone who tries desperately not to judge you by the chapter of your life I walked in on, because I have been judged. Remember the parts of the Bible where it says you're supposed to love all people? Judge not? Where Jesus fed the masses, no matter their religious affiliation, or lack of? Where the widows and orphans were cared for? Did he not make sure his own mother was cared for, even while he was dying? Where is this church? The church that is striving to make the world a better place? Not because God will judge you if you don't, but because you know in your heart that its the right thing? Oh, wait, that's not a church at all. That's my friends who have been in the dark places, or judged harshly by "christians", or treated terribly for who they choose to love, or the amount of melanin in their skin. Those people are my people. It would be a disservice to call them a church. I don't want my children to act right because they fear retribution. I want them to act right because they know its the right thing to do. Because they want to contribute to the world and make it better. Be the solution. Don't do it because big brother tells you to. Be a decent human, for humanity's sake.