One more note on spirituality before I consider the matter closed. On my way out this morning, passed my next door neighbor and two Jehovah's Witnesses -- you know the sort, ministering door-to-door at odd hours -- arguing about heaven and hell. I smiled politely and kept it moving when they greeted me, not wanting to get roped into the high stakes debate. They kept at it for awhile, likely long after I reached the subway and was well on my way into Manhattan.

I don't have a problem with Jehovah's Witnesses. In fact, one of my cousins converted after one such traveling minister stopped by our house when I was a kid. This same cousin also later went crazy. While I don't think the two things are necessarily connected (in fact, her erratic behavior often led me to believe there was a chemical imbalance at play), it certainly stands to reason that her susceptibility to conversion might in some way be due to mental defect. (I just said that to piss some people off.)

All of this to say. What is it about religion that makes people try to convert/coerce/manipulate others into joining in? Is the Kool-Aid really that good? Furthermore, why do we argue about what happens after we die? Does anybody really know for sure?

The snake oil salesman will tell you that he does, and has a potion that can get you there smoothly with no line at the pearly gates. --AL.

i have noticed, with a degree of surprise, that several of my recent followers have been devout Christians. so devout, in fact, that they have faith blogs. i am not against this; in fact, one of my favorite commenters is also a faith blogger. i am simply curious as to what attracts her and others to my blog.

though i was raised catholic, i have of late joined the scores of heretics who profess an amorphous "spirituality" untied to any religion or prophet. call me a lost sheep or the devil (and some have and gone to their knees in prayer), but i prefer to live my life this way rather than to suppress all my human (and, therefore, Godlike) urges for a higher calling.

there was a time when i thought about becoming a nun; in fact, my mother almost became one. but i now feel like some of my friends must have in the past when i ran around thumping a bible and quoting scripture. i am uncomfortable around catholics. and baptists. and muslims. and anyone who knows with certainty that their way is the right way.

all of this to say. this is a religion-free zone. i welcome people of all faiths and creeds, perhaps even those who dabble in the occult sciences (as i've always had a minor curiosity!). but as i said to a friend (this past weekend, on a long trip home after an open mic/house party), i practice creativity as my religion. i show up every morning and write. and when the words flow out of me, i know that God is real.

i imagine that i could have come to a different conclusion, that i (such a lonely letter) am somehow great and powerful, but i (there it is again) choose instead to believe in something greater than myself.

but please be advised that this is not a faith blog and there will be no proselytizing here. this is just a disclaimer, lest i be accused of misrepresenting myself. i do, nevertheless, welcome all your comments, questions and contributions in the quest for knowledge, truth and light.

I slept in until 1:00PM on Easter Sunday. It marks the first year ever I have not attended mass on Christmas, New Years, and Easter Sunday, which I think means I am officially not Catholic anymore.

I have been trying trying trying to hide the truth of that from my dearest family and friends, for a long time out of shame over becoming a sheep lost in wilderness. Having fully embraced my spiritual alternative, I now hide for fear of being judged by those who wish to pray for my soul, or others who simply might disown me.

Somewhere between losing my mother (and myself), I lost my faith. At a certain point, I regained it more strongly then ever before, then was given pause to consider whether that which I clung to most strongly (my bible, my church, my religion) was simply a fear of change, of growth, of shedding the outdated notions of spirituality that I had long outgrown.

And I had become so tired of trying to explain my divergences from the Vatican, from a Pope who was a former Hitler youth, from a church that covered up and thereby condoned sexual abuse, from a faith that was still being used as a means of extending imperialism and Western hegemony. I realized that it was not I who did not fit in to Catholicism, it was the latter that did not fit in me.

I still pass, though. Make sure to bow my head at all the right times before meals, to go to church on certain occasions to appease my family -- although this year has certainly been different.

So strange to find myself sleeping through Easter Sunday, having stayed out past 2:00AM two nights in a row (first for Haile Gerima's Teza premiere at Lincoln Plaza Cinema on Friday, dinner at Africa Kine and dancing at The Shrine; and then for Egyptian art and music at Brooklyn Museum First Saturday's). I suppose it is only the life of a non-Catholic I am now leading.

It wasn't until 3:00AM Sunday morning that I realized I had forgotten my favorite mass of the year -- Easter Vigil. I found myself missing the candles and the frankincense and our priest, Father Kofi, leading the congregation in chants of Lumen Christi/Deo Gratias (Light of Christ/Thanks Be to God). And my amazement at the mass ending in total silence, the only time each year when our families did not spend at least an hour afterward talking and laughing and sometimes eating together.

I suppose that even though my mind has outgrown it, my heart never will leave Catholicism. Some of my best memories center around a sea green, dilapidated building in which a collection of far-flung, homesick, mostly African souls found sanctuary.

I suppose with the loss of that building and my mother and the home I grew up in, it has just become easier to travel light, shedding excess spiritual baggage.

I had to go to work today, on MLK Day no less, and there was some petty foolishness going down at the office. I got so caught up in it that, in a call on my lunch break, I started yelling at a switchboard operator about why the doctor's office was closed before 5PM when I needed to make an appointment. She reminded me that it was a holiday, and I responded apologetically, saying I was stuck at work and stressed and could she please forgive my temper. She didn't.

When I got back to my desk, I found a "sip of living water" in my inbox. A writer friend of mine sends these weekly prayers, nondenominational, drawing from Rumi, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Gospels and Vedas, or her own verse when the spirit moves her. I can't tell you how much I look forward to this water for my mind every week, especially when I get bogged down in the physical realm -- caught up in my job, the things I have or don't have.

It's so easy to lose sight of the agape that MLK spoke about, the universal love that envelops and nurtures us all the time. Every day is a struggle to grow in that love and peace and resist the temptation toward inner spiritual violence. I apologize again for displacing my frustration on this woman. Tomorrow, by grace, I will be better.

This is a prayer for Haiti, but also for any and everyone, myself included, who needs a gentle reminder.

Senye, ede nou pa atache ak batanklan.
Nou ka gen kat wob jodi a,
men petet l’a gen yon jou
ke nou pa gen ditou.
Ede n’ atache nou a pawol Bondye.

Lord, help us not to connect ourselves to things.
We may have four dresses today,
but maybe there will be a time
when we won’t have any.
[Instead] help us to connect ourselves
to God’s [unchanging] Word.

- Haitian Kreyol Prayer