This morning I woke up knowing that this is my second day into year 52 and it was a Sunday. Scanning through the headlines or propagandist matter that floats through my media feeds, I realized in 52 years I have been leading a life filled with lies and hypocrisies. Some I have known long ago and some I have learned over the years.

I am sad and angry at the same time but you know that.

I think you’ve asked me a couple times indirectly, why I no longer go to church. It’s simple. I don’t believe that my faith in god requires me to present myself to a gathering other others to prove I believe. I go in there and all I can do is look around and see a bunch of poseurs just gracing each other with their presence in their finery and to me, it is purely superficial.

“When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for

they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the

corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most

certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward.” – Matt. 6:5

I believe every action and word is a prayer/offering to god. The omniscient ever present deity sees what is in your heart and all that you do. And although I should not, I do judge those who show up and posture in the churches and on the street corners –shouting/singing the loudest as if they think their volume lofts them closer to their place in heaven.

That’s why I do not go. I invest my time and money in the immediate community regardless of their faith because I believe that is what we are meant to be doing. And I am not looking for recognition for any of it.

This goes to my next bomb. I don’t think people need a pat on the back for every good deed turned.  Being a decent human being is not a show which requires some sort of compensation/reward.  I think that’s why it irks me to see people filming themselves doing good in the world as a sort of self promotion. Dear lord! If you have to be seen doing it otherwise you won’t, then you’re lost far beyond what a map can handle.

I will also stand by my avoidance of all things evangelical. I should not force my opinion on you or anyone else. I can tell you what it is, but I am not going to expect you to believe the same thing. Everyone has a choice to do good or not. It is not up to me or anyone else to coerce others toward a path to be a decent human being. Ultimately, one will face their deeds on their last day.

I will say it has taken a number of years to put aside my vigilante ways. Fighting against those who have done wrong to show them the error in their ways. I felt it was a cause I needed to front. Sometimes I was able to deal the punishment for the crime, but sometimes it backfired on me and I should have taken that as my hint to leave it to their last day as it was not for me to exact the retribution.  I know now it is not up to me.

I know we part ways on the next bomb and that is that I believe a woman has a right to choose how she handles her own body. If she chooses to terminate a pregnancy, prevent it from the onset, remove her reproductive organs, or change her sex completely; it is her choice and not yours or mine. What you do with your body is your business and yours alone and what I do with mine is mine alone. We do not get the right to decide how others should manage their own bodies.

Nor do we have the right to decide who lives or dies. This is ultimately not for us to make. No murder, death penalties, wars are something we should promote or participate.  That said, I do not decide your fate nor you do mine…

BUT….

I do decide my own, as that is my body – my choice. I will not serve to decide if someone gets the death penalty. I will not kill someone in self-defense or in times of war; but if my condition becomes so bad that I will be a burden you or anyone else I will find my way out.

The one other thing that I believe is that the guiltiest of guilty are the most vocal and exaggerating in their piety.

“The lady doth protest too much methinks.”  – Hamlet (Shakespeare)

Being an observer of people — when one overcompensates (too goody goody) or is totally vocally condemning and overly pious, there is a strong chance they are hiding something which is the opposite of their posture.

After all said, I am no saint and I know my fate if everything I have studied is correct. I would rather be a sinner than a hypocrite.