God Grant me the Serenity

Everywhere there are stores with names that invoke God and Jesus: The Lord Will Provide, Not by My Strength but by God’s will, The Lord is my Shepard. The back of tro-tros sport pictures of Jesus, Mary, or religious sayings.

Seeing the pictures, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that Jesus and Mary are white. I recently read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, in which he talks about how Christianity has forced the black man to worship a white God. You would think that people would worship a God in his own image (the converse of God having created humans in his image). I asked Solomon about it, but it seemed it had never occurred to him. I still feel that this is unresolved in my mind and will keep asking around about it.

I woke up Saturday morning to songs like “Jesus, I adore you” and “I live to worship you, Lord.” On Sunday, I was forced to watch a VCD about an American women’s faith conference, full of singing “Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord.” Solomon told me that these are my people, but I vehemently denied that: these are the ones who voted for Bush.

As far as I can tell so far, the women’s rights movement here has nothing to do with the right to choose, a fundamental part of the American feminist agenda. Abortion is illegal, but still happens (even in hospitals). The influence of religion and the desire to push forth other priorities (violence against women, inheritance rights, etc) make it a relative non-issue.

I rant to my sister about those preachy, over the top, religion-in-your-face type Christians. I usually have great distaste for that. She thinks I’m intolerant. The truth is, I behave quite well while in the presence of such people, but can complain to my sister after the fact to get it off my chest. When my Eritrean client and his family told me that I would go to hell if I didn’t accept Jesus as the son of God and said they would pray for me, I smiled pretty. I knew they meant well.

My college boyfriend hated seeing the flyers for Living Water, the religious singing group. So I would take the signs and post them on his door or leave them in his mailbox on purpose. It didn’t annoy me as much when I could use it to annoy him, jokingly. I keep thinking how he would go crazy here.

Forget the bucket baths and long transportation; this religious bit just may be the death of me here.