Dear God – Good Friday Thoughts
Dear God,
I didn’t go to church today. I didn’t feel like going because yesterday when I went, I had no connection with the service, no connect with the spiritual and it became just a repeat of traditions and rituals enacted over the years. There were too many people, too much hullaballoo. I honestly felt horrid. As I walked home looking for a way of getting back, I decided that I am not going to church today. Ammi mentioned today is not a service and therefore I said I am not going.
I also didn’t want to go today coz I don’t believe in kissing a statue of a Caucasian man depicted to be your son Jesus. I have read in the Bible not to worship idols. What really put me off this (besides the hygiene factor of kissing toes that everyone has kissed) was that a man from a wealthy family donated a life size statue of what he imagined to be Jesus on a cross and we were expected to venerate it and only that. I hated what it represented. Money, power, fame. It repulsed me. And from that day forth I stopped kissing crosses or toes of statues supposed to be Jesus.
Half the time I was thinking of the judgmental gazes I would receive from fellow Catholics when I tell them I didn’t go to church on Good Friday. Judgment supposed to be reserved for you but these days everyone is a Jesus and God and the rest of us relegated to the role of sheep or prodigal sons (in this case daughters). I preferred to stay at home and listen to the sermon on the radio. And then read a bit of the scriptures today on my own. It felt a lot better. Than joining a herd of people trying to prove their piety. Or so it feels.
For me I connect better with you on my own. In the peace of my little garden where I see your signs and messages to me daily. In the plants I have nurtured, in the animals that roam and in the peace of my own mind where I can talk to you like this now, clear and true. There’s no noise. No distractions. I often recall the times I have gone and sat in front of the altar of the school chapel in all its stillness and darkness. And it felt home. Like I was in the presence of you. Where my thoughts had clarity and my prayers had meaning. Not just parroting things and trying to look pious for those watching eyes of the judges of this world. Sitting sanctimoniously in the pews and observing others. Because going to church and saying prayers equates a good Catholic these days.
But never mind them. I chose this path today and it wasn’t easy but I am glad I did. I know it’s a path less trodden but it taught me to question blind ritual and ask myself what it truly means to connect with you. I don’t answer to the people of this world anyway. I answer to my conscience and to you. So I followed both. Thanks for showing the way, albeit tough, tis nothing new to me. A bit like your journey to the cross. Few understood, most were appalled and the rest just followed.
I will talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
Me
