Spiritual Autobiography
The way my thinking and learning about faith and church has changed from when I was a young person until now is that I can better comprehend the spiritual components of faith and church. Some of the faith and church traditions that I have passed through were focused on the afterlife and how to get there as the premier Christian life emphasis. I went to one such church in which the highlight of the service was the altar call where people could come and get 'saved'. Once you got 'saved’ you needed to come 'tarry’ for the Holy Ghost. In this church, evidence of having the Holy Ghost was based on the ability to speak in tongues, and having the Holy Ghost was the seal of your salvation. You had to be 'saved' if you wanted to go to Heaven. Although this church taught about having a relationship with God, it was mostly a litany of things you could not do because you wanted to stay “saved” so you could make it into Heaven. Relative to Biblical interpretation, the faith and church traditions that I passed through took the scriptures as literal-factual; however, as I have continued my faith journey, I realize there had been a lot of selectiveness on which scriptures were considered literal and factual. My understanding of scripture has shifted as I have learned to read the Bible while holding tension with the historical and current context in mind.
When I was younger, I could only duplicate what I saw, my comprehension was more cerebral than spiritual. The knowledge I gained as a young person was in my head but did not necessarily reach my heart. I did not necessarily know how to convert the information internally hence, I did not always know how to apply what I learned to my everyday life. I had knowledge but no practical application. I sang the words to the songs but did not connect to the meaning of the words. I could sing “Yes, Jesus Loves me” but did not know who Jesus was and why he loved me. I was baptized at age 9 because I saw others do it. I knew it meant something, but I did not know what or why. Now that I am older, and I pray somewhat wiser, I understand how to convert head knowledge to heart power and spiritual principles. I understand the importance of the application of spiritual principles to my daily life.
In my teenage years, some things relative to God started making sense. I am singing the songs. I am understanding what I am singing better because of my ability to comprehend what the words mean. My response is cerebral and somewhat emotional as I am not yet awake to the things of the Spirit.
In my early twenties, while stationed in Williamsburg, Virginia, I start attending a local church. It is here that my encounters with the sacred begin to evolve. This is my spiritual incubator, this is where my spirit begins to take shape, and this is where God’s word becomes Rhema for me. With this evolution and revelation, I get baptized again, in the Jamestown River. This is when I begin to comprehend “Yes, Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, for the Bible tells me so”.
In my mid-twenties, I moved back to Tampa, FL, and began attending a local nondenominational church. This is where I grow in the things of the Spirit, and this is where I get baptized a third time, spontaneously led by the Spirit, at Ben T Davis Beach. I submerge as one person and emerge as another. I comprehend that old things have passed away and that I am new. I comprehend this truth beyond my brain and in my spirit. As I continue to grow, I understand that I must worship God in “Spirit and in Truth”. For me, that meant claiming my queer identity. That meant coming out of the darkness of the proverbial closet and into God’s marvelous and inclusive light. I had to learn to worship God anew, and I had to let the barriers that I had built by projecting my dysfunctional relationship habits with my earthly family onto God, go.
Through various experiences during this period of my life, I began to understand and receive the truth that God’s love came without strings. God knew and loved me before I came to be in this time. God knew my Blackness, my genderqueerness, and my gayness when God shaped me. God called me good because I was created in God’s image. God does not hate God’s self, so God does not and cannot hate me. God is love, and God loves me. I come out but become unchurched because of it. “Yes, Jesus loves me, for the Bible tells me so”, even if it appears that God’s fellow children do not. I am uncertain and unsure, but I lift my hands and bow my heart in worship to the One whom I believe in and still getting to know. This evolution continued throughout my thirties.
Now I am in my forties, and I currently attend an open and affirming church. I earnestly participate in what I now know is intensive worship. This is a result of a tremendous theological shift relative to how I comprehend and relate to God. My beginnings in life were what my initial spiritual experiences were filtered through. Thus, I viewed God as a stern disciplinarian whose love was conditional. That view kept me in despair for many years. It was only when I stopped projecting the hurts and disappointments with my earthly parents onto God, that I began to understand that God is love. This revelation has brought me hope and it continues to do so. I realize that I have had tremendous sadness in my life and some moments of sheer terror but through it all, God has been there whether I could readily sense God’s presence or not.
Where I am today, my lived experience of God surpasses my desire or need to intellectualize God. I have learned that having a personal relationship with God in community with others, transforms you and that it is not a one-time thing. My relationship with God has its ups and downs. Sometimes God and I talk with each other and listen to one another. Sometimes I am not speaking to God because I’m pissed off at God or I am not trying to hear God because I don’t like what God is saying. If I remove “God” and put another name, it still looks like being in a relationship with someone. That is what I have learned, my relationship with God started when God thought to create me, and it will go on into eternity. It will have ebb and flow because God is not static, and neither am I.
My interaction with others is based on how I view God. I view God as a loving Father and an excellent Mother. I believe God has many facets and expressions, and that the diversity of humanity is a literal reflection of this. Because of this belief, I try to be consistent in displaying compassion and show tremendous grace under pressure. I believe when people know better, they do better. I also know that this is not always true. Even so, I believe that I should honor the humanity of others, even when they don’t honor mine. I try to pursue peace as much as possible but at the point that it is not, all parties involved need to part company. I feel this way based on Mathew 10:14 (NRSV):
“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.”
This scripture also helps me deal with grudges because it tells me to shake the dust off my feet. For me, this means that I should not carry residue from a bad situation forward. It is not always easy to do but it is necessary. This view often helps me navigate and /or transcend barriers such as race, gender, and orientation, enabling me to see a human as a human, one who bears God’s image, just like me.
The final component of my faith journey that I would like to share is what I call my “life verse” which for me is a scripture passage that I believe I embody. This scripture sums up how and why I believe I am called. It is I Corinthians 1:27-31 (MSG):
“Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate, and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”
This verse gives me hope because when the attacks come based on my race, my gender, and my orientation, it reminds me that it is typical of God to use marginalized peoples to reveal God’s grand design. I have only to think about Mary, Jesus’ mother who was an unwed teenage mother, something not permitted to be in her time. She persisted and the world benefited. I am Black, genderqueer, and lesbian, and I am called to take the message of God’s inclusive love to the world. It makes no sense to the seemingly wise and the privileged don’t get it, but I hope that they will when they encounter God’s Spirit loving on them through me.
