Do Not Conform
Do not conform to the patterns of this world--- is what I was taught. So, why was I punished when I started to question the patterns I was falling into? The discipleship I was listening to-- the following I was doing? The shepard I was following was my pastor, not the God in which I read about. I was told I was wrong, when the Bible clearly backed what I was saying-- or didn't match what the pastor said at all. I was told to love my neighbor, but when I loved them, I was wrong because they weren't religious. I couldn't have fellowship with the Muslim family who lived down the road or learn about their religions and culture. Unless it was the church telling me how we needed to save them, or me trying to get one of them to church with me. I was taught to love, until we were on Pine Ridge and being asked to preach and continue hundreds of years of colonization work on Native land. I was taught to love until the woman had an abortion, or a child out of wedlock-- but as someone having a child out of wedlock, I am forgiven as a child of God, I suppose--
I was asked why I don't go to a physical building, and I couldn't answer. For my safety, and to not be entirely ostracized from the community in which I was a part of-- Because not a soul would like to hear
"Because in the church, I don't feel loved or forgiven unless I do everything they say. When I know my God is a just and loving God who would hold all of his children-- especially those you have outcast-- in his arms while you threw the stones of judgement in which you do."
I was taught to turn the other cheek, and allow someone to talk down to me, but I stood up and spoke out-- and no one was happy. I was told I was wrong, for questioning the generations of people who believed one thing wholeheartedly and didn't question anything because "it's just how it is". I was taught to turn the other cheek, and a blind eye to the rampant homophobia and conversion therapy techniques my youth group attempted when we gained our first queer "sheep" that my pastor slandered at her funeral.
It was that moment, I found my footing against the congregational body-- because no child of God, no sheep of Christ would allow their neighbor to have been spoken so poorly of in her death. No one could have prepared me for the religious texts that continue to seep into my brain when I attend protests, try to debate on religious reasoning for why someone believes what they do, or to defend myself in why I believe what I do. I was taught to not conform, so I didn't-- and now I am, to burn in purgatory for my sins, according to their interpretation of the scripture.