Serious Sunday: Transfiguration

Since it is Easter Sunday, I thought I would share a bit of how and why a good little Methodist girl, Sunday school teacher and former preacher’s wife became polytheistic and chose to worship a goddess of love and life.

Some of my first memories are sitting as quietly as I could through my Nanny’s Sunday school class filled with women in sixties, seventies and eighties. Note I said as good as I could, I was still swinging my little legs and kicking the chair with my tiny black patent leather Mary Janes, but these women still called me a ‘good girl’ and gave me a piece of peppermint for trying.

By the time I was thirteen I was indoctrinating others into it all by teaching Sunday school to younger children. My teen years were spent working on this and that church board  as the youth representative, even going to the annual state-wide conference. I planned events for other youth…and I earned more ‘good girls.’

Then my Nanny died in my late teens and I began my first ‘wild’ days. I did not loose my virginity until I was nineteen but I made up for it REAL quick. I worked as a stripper in Fort Lauderdale during Spring Break. I did drugs. I was anything but a ‘good girl.’

But that shit takes it toll on you very quickly and while I was not ready to return to the church, I did find a ‘regular’ job and begin to date ‘decent’ guys instead of a string of one-night stands. That was when I met ‘the preacher.’ Except when we met he was a good atheist and intellectual…and that suited me fine.

I suppose his ‘transfiguration’ is mostly my fault though. You see when our oldest was born I felt this nostalgia and wanted to give him the stability that I had known growing up. Mind you…I went to the most progressive church we could find. Heck, they sheltered an illegal refuse from ‘communist’ Nicaragua under the sanctuary clause. We even hoped to go there as ‘missionaries,’ meaning hippie communist sympathizers, but they did not want to assume responsibility for our infant son.

Then we made the fatal mistake of going to visit my ‘sperm donor.’ The man who had sired me and abandoned my pregnant mother and me. He had ‘found’ Jesus and was holier than though. Until it came to his REAL daughter. When I ratted her out for sneaking out to be with boys in the middle of the night…I was the bad one. And he and his new wife kicked us out.

Unfortunately, he had infected my ex with the ‘Jesus’ virus already. It took a couple of years to incubate as we stumbled through life with me once more earning our bread as a stripper and model. We even tried swinging.

But when things did not go his way, the ex immediately turned to the ‘Jesus’ bug. He said he had never felt that kind of ‘power.’ I held out for months. I had had enough of two-faced Christians as a teen. But eventually he wore me down and I got ‘saved.’

But see that is my root problem with Christianity…no god can ‘save’ you. Only you can do that for yourself. Truth is that for MOST (90+%) Christians, god and Jesus are just blanket excuses to continue with the same fucking personality flaws they came into it with. Then when things go wrong they can blame the devil and ask forgiveness of god. There is no REAL reason to change.

There is nothing different about them. They are just as greedy and selfish as the sinners they condemn. More so in fact as they too often judge your very spirituality upon your ‘blessings’ and the size of your tithes. While they drive new cars, live in mansions and build ever larger churches that stand vacate 90% of the time.

If they bothered to read their own Bibles they might actually realize that if their beloved Jesus did come back he would knock over their precious offering alters and take a flogger to the preachers. Yes, Jesus did that to hypocrites of his day, but people don’t like to remember that he did not always turn the other cheek.

As you know…once more I woke up. My eyes opened and I saw them for what they were. My ex never has…and remains as unchanged as he always was.

Granted…the next decade was more of my ‘bad girl’ stuff as I broke off the shackles of all those ‘thou shall nots’ and indulged my carnal flesh. But still I knew…there had to be something. Maybe I cannot worship (I did not say believe in…that is what polytheistic means) this Christian god and his son that allow such atrocities in their names…but there has to be SOMETHING?!?!

Then three years ago, right in the middle of my ‘sinful’ BDSM exploration, my goddess began to speak to me…about the most important thing of all…the only thing with the true power to save us…

LOVE!

Yes, I write about it. About the special bonds between a man and a woman…and sometimes three men and their woman…or five men and their two…or two men…three women. The truth is…it does not matter.

One of my most profound works got lost for a bit within an erotic anthology. Nothing Done in Love is so much more than that. It is the story of intergenerational transfiguration. The dying New Age guru mother’s love for her only child that spurs her to call upon the best friends that were lost themselves. Her final days spent meddling and matchmaking to give them all new birth, new life, through love.

My Sergeant Mike’s Miracle Tour series is just as transformative as he and Esther save one another. Even my naughtiest, BDSM, polyamorous Ægir’s trilogies have that same theme as the guys capture Kirsty and ‘save’ her from a meaningless existence…and she in turn heals them and unites them as the family they should be.

But there is more than just love between individuals. That is not the only way to ‘salvation.’ Because if you spend your whole life waiting for some man…or woman…to save you then you are no different from those Christians and their Jesus.

No, the highest love of all…whether you love someone else or another god/goddess…the highest form of love is…

to LOVE YOURSELF!!!

That is NOT easy. Because it requires you to look into the mirror of your soul. To see your ugly as well as your beauty. To forgive yourself for the mistakes of your past as surely as god or Jesus did. And most importantly to GROW. To CHANGE.

Not to merely keep making those same damned mistakes and coming back over and over to someone or something else to seek forgiveness.

Worse yet…it is a NEVER-ENDING process. Day after day, growing and changing. Even when you know that you will make more mistakes. Even though you know you will never achieve ‘perfection.’ Never ‘arrive.’ It is like taking a road trip with no set destination point…and just enjoying the ride.

So you see I have gone from the little girl and young woman, who looked to male gods to ‘save’ her and forgive her…to an imperfect but mature woman, who recognizes the truth in many forms, many faiths, many gods. And who chooses to worship a goddess of love, not because I expect her to forgive and ‘save.’ But who knows her truth…

I am the only one who can truly forgive, love and save myself. 

And only then am I truly capable of loving others…whether that be my children, my friends, this world…or especially someone (or ones) special, who is as whole as I am all by himself. You see two halves do not make a whole. Two wholes hold infinite power.

So join me this day is celebrating Easter by rising from the dead untruth of religion to the transformative power of learning to love and accept yourself. 

Goddess bless you.