We all have beliefs, I’ve always felt if you did right by others and your heart was in the right place everything is going to be just fine. I’ve seen a lot of religious conflict within my family, who’s right? They all are!

I once caught some Holy Ghost, it felt good to sing but not so much the praise. I have a hard time submitting to organized religion, Christianity. I have a hard time believing sin simply washes away.  My Uncle Mike found Christ, he used to drive his van to hell and back, picking up all the neighborhood kids, red, brown, white, yellow, we all waited at the end of our driveways, young minds, the new sheep, eagerly waiting to fill out the aging flock.

I’ve been to a dozen churches in my life, and only one had a pastor that could lift a spirit to the sky. When family falls to sickness, addiction, whatever darkness this world throws at the heart, this man brings his book and the belief that anybody can be saved.

When Mike lost his boys in a car accident, he lost his way, and walked again with the word, I remember this pastor sitting at the hospital for three days, while Scott went through surgery after surgery, the hardest thing, the brutal truth, was they were so busy stopping the internal wounds, they didn’t realize his brain was dead, this man year after year was there, long after any of us ever stepped foot in his church or even gave him a dime, because of his actions I believed in something divine.

When my Grandma passed away the Medicine man gave his speech, there was drums and singing. I remember this row of little white haired ladies in the front, and how the Medicine man kept saying white man’s Jesus, generations of blood was spilled and this white man’s Jesus was a myth, if you tried to grab him you’d only have empty hands, he wasn’t real, nothing more than a justification to suppress a culture. (Not my words, but I was witness).

The Creator gave us the sky, mountains, trees, the earth we walk on. Things you can hold in your hands, Creator didn’t need a book, he gives you things you can touch, see, and feel. The little old ladies in the front row looked as if the Medicine man was going to reap their eternal souls, and in this time of sadness I smiled, the woman I loved like a Mother, resting in a casket and I smiled, because I felt her smiling in the sky, and thought this is one heck of a show, and Grandma wouldn’t have wanted to pass any other way.

When my Mom passed from cancer, there was two sermons, a pastor and medicine man (in fact the two from above if you can imagine), after words, the pastor walked me around the church, it had changed, but this man still remembered me, it had been over a decade since I stepped foot in the building, his hand on my back, his wife’s eyes lighting up, proud to see the little trouble making Indian kid, grew up into a man. We talked and not once did he question any beliefs, or force any issues, in fact he was open to the fact I believe that all religions lead to the same being, there is just different names, it’s good for our spirit to believe, after all we humans have minds, and what kind of being would create such a thing, not to have them ask questions.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by wnishin.