No Church in the Wild
I grew up practicing the Christian denomination labeled as Jehovah’s Witnesses. This was the religion my parents practiced from the age of 18, so while it was something THEY CHOSE to convert to, it was something I was born into. I found it interesting that they clung hard and fast to THEIR CHOICE to leave the religion of their parents to CHOOSE what was best for themselves, BUT never created ANY space for their children to freely do the same... without the children suffering dire consequences. One of those consequences was ostracism for “abandoning the one true religion.”
So, my siblings and I were expected to adopt THEIR religious choice as THE ONLY thing worth practicing. Before anyone scoffs at that thought process, while I 100% disagree with that train of thought, my parents aren’t the only people on this planet to operate this way. It isn’t because they’re Jehovah’s Witnesses, Black, or Christians. Pick ANY religion, sect, denomination, race, ethnicity, nationality, AND any belief system. ALL of these groups will have people who wholeheartedly feel that any children they provide for SHOULD believe the same things they think and practice. It’s common for parents to feel disappointed and even betrayed when their children choose different values and belief systems. Some parents will view it as a personal failing, other parents will look at their children as morally and spiritually bankrupt (depending on the newly adopted beliefs), and there will be parents who accept that their offspring have as much a right to choose as they did, while still accepting and loving their child no differently than if they shared beliefs.
Some of my grandparents became Jehovah’s Witnesses at the same time that my parents did; the other grandparents maintained their own religious beliefs. However, I’d be dishonest if I didn’t share that I’ve heard with my own ears a couple of my grandparents’ thoughts on my parents being brainwashed into a cult (see: their thoughts on the Jehovah’s Witnesses). Despite that belief, those grandparents still didn’t cut my parents off; their homes were still fully open to their children. My parents? They didn’t extend the same openness to their children. If we chose not to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, we were considered worse than a non-believer; we were once believers “who turned our backs on Jehovah.”
However, at one month shy of being 46 years old, I’m comfortable declaring that MY SPIRITUAL BELIEFS don’t truly hold personal space for worship of ANY deities. This might sound blasphemous, foolish, and heretical... to people with belief systems that involve constant glory being extended to celestial and ancestral sources outside of themselves. It might even move you to think I’m agnostic, an atheist, or full of my own ego. I’m not; I KNOW there are things greater than myself.
There are living colonies of trees that have existed for tens of thousands of years. There are single trees that are thousands of years old. There are jellyfish, impervious to old age, allowing them to have biological immortality. Whales, tortoises, and some birds and reptiles can live for hundreds of years. All of these things are living, tangible organisms we COULD choose to worship, if we wanted to... instead of intangible, celestial amalgamations of our imagination and others before us. Personally, I don’t feel a need to center the worship of anything or anyone. Regardless of the choice, what we believe we derive from these things is contingent on where our faith resides.
The difference between extoling intangible things over tangible ones is that belief systems attached to intangible things only require faith. And here is why there’s no church in the wild...our existence in the wild is contingent on survival, not hypotheticals or prayer.
Colonies of trees don’t continue to thrive for tens of thousands of years because they’re praying to a deity for sunshine, rain, and fertile soil. The immortal jellyfish isn’t in the sea on bended tentacle begging to be spared from any circumstances that would end its existence. The other animals mentioned aren’t applying dogmatic doctrine to their families to maintain a sense of order and longer life spans.
So, when it comes to survival, my hopes, dreams, wishes, and efforts aren’t sustained by the belief that an intangible source will grant me anything. There isn’t a human alive that can convince me that their belief will sustain me, because IF it could, why hasn’t it already? It’s because belief is a personal thing; what someone else believes isn’t automatically a truth for everyone else. If someone doesn’t believe in another person’s gods, those gods hold no power over them because they aren’t a real thing to a non-believer.
I’ll use my own lived experience as an example, and TO THIS DAY, I’ve only gotten silence as a response... even from people who are QUICK to say “not my God!”... as if their god should be exempt from the questioning of reality.
When I was a child, my father told me that if I could count how many times I prayed, I wasn’t praying enough. If my prayers weren’t being answered, it was because I wasn’t praying enough. If you continued to go to God in prayer and remain his loyal servant, your prayers would be answered. God would bless you with what you asked of him. Keep this in mind as you continue reading.
Despite my father being insanely religious, he was also violently abusive. I remember my prayers to God for deliverance from that maniac; they started very simple.
“Please make him stop. Amen.”
It was part of my daily pleadings. It was even included in my thanks for the daily food I ingested. When my father continued to be abusive, I figured I wasn’t praying enough, so I prayed every chance I could. While riding in the car, watching TV, reading, getting my hair done, bathing, getting dressed, and using the bathroom. If I was breathing, I was praying.
“Please make him stop. Please. Amen.”
It wasn’t answered. I figured maybe because I was only mentioning my salvation, my prayers were going unheard. I needed to include my siblings because they needed deliverance too. I prayed even while being beaten, black and blue. NOTHING.
“Please make him stop hitting us. Please make him stop treating us like this. Amen.”
On repeat.
It wasn’t answered. I made the prayers more specific and longer, praying until I was mentally exhausted, imploring God to motivate my mother to save us. Yet it never worked. It made no sense. If God is an awe-inspiring god of love, peace, kindness, and compassion, why did he have none of these things to spare for me and my siblings? WE WERE FUCKING CHILDREN, for crying out loud! I wasn’t just praying; I was fully submerged in the religious beliefs and practices. I got baptized at 9 years old and preached to others about salvation and God’s love. I was a loyal servant.
The physical abuse didn’t stop until I left home at 16 years old...because there is no church in the wild. God is supposedly the beginning and end of ALL things, an all-powerful and all-knowing being that could part seas, deliver an entire group of people from bondage (see: the Israelites, but not Black people 🙃🫠), and resurrect his son from death (that he pretty much sanctioned). He could do ALL these things, but not answer a child’s relentless, heartfelt cries?
I grew to understand that the rules of survival worked differently from religious doctrine. The deliverance of us three children from the vice grip of a father’s violent hands wasn’t coming from any amount of reverence, prayer, and worship. This god, nor any others, was worthy of my reverence, prayers, and worship.
One of my grandmothers saved me. If anyone deserved to be revered, it would be her and ONLY her.
Even for people who think their god is deserving of all the glory, I ask, where is your god during ANYONE’S suffering? ANY god that could prevent the soul-crushing pain of unnecessary deaths and suffering but won’t, doesn’t deserve to be extolled. If there’s no guarantee that we’ll make it out alive even when we’re entirely devoted to our spiritual beliefs and practices, we might as well face the wilderness. At least, when considering the perspective of trees and animals, it can be acknowledged that continued existence depends on circumstances and environment. Nothing more, nothing less.
What we believe outside of that is personal. Beliefs can definitely keep one foot in front of the other when the reality of our circumstances and environments is too heavy to acknowledge. I don’t believe any god or ancestor will aid in my continued survival. Out here in the wild, belief can be one of the things that keep you stuck in dangerous environments and circumstances. Religion tells you that you’re incapable of anything without the worship of something greater than self, but no... we CAN walk away from anything as long as the choice exists.
I seek no religious bias. I live and stand by what I see, experience, and grow to know because I’m not greater than any tree, immortal jellyfish, or animal that can outlive me.
There’s no church in the wild because making it out alive requires more than prayer, worship, and devotion to intangible beings...you wanna survive the wild, you either fight, flee, or a do a lot of both.
