Fried eggs and Religion

It's early Saturday morning and my older Vietnamese neighbors are having some kind of prayer circle. Other older people dressed up in Sunday best, despite it being Saturday have been coming and going while I sit on my porch eating my fried eggs I splendidly prepared. I'm still in my pj's but some say 'good morning' to me and I smile and reply the same. They are chanting in Vietnamese, in monotone speech. Obviously I don't know what they are saying. There's a Vietnamese Catholic Church at the end of my short block, so it's no surprise they are all meeting here. In fact it's why this older retired couple lives here in these duplexes. I talk to them sometimes. They speak broken English.
But it got me thinking about religion. I believe you can worship whatever God you want and in any capacity. As long it's not one of hate or killing. However we all know there are several "religions" or branches of them that believe in this very thing. That it's their God-given duty to rid the world the of whatever they feel is "bringing the world down." When in fact, it's THEM that's bringing the world down. I'm grateful to have been raised in a Baptist Church in Texas that didn't preach hate. If it did, I didn't hear it. It wasn't until my teens that I really started to listen and I remember taking notes on the side of the bulletin. Of course that wasn't every Sunday. I still passed notes to my friends and doodled in the margins, or wrote my own stories wherever I could fit it. But I think I would remember if my Pastor preached hate. That would be pretty obvious. Being someone that was raised in the church, I could be a completely different person right now if I wasn't raised in that particular church or not in one at all. I think I held on to God for as long as I could and longer than most would. It was life. I spent Wednesday nights and practically all day Sunday, there. I spent weekends at retreats, weeks at various camps and mission trips. It was my whole life outside of school. And now for years it's been practically nothing- to nothing at all. Why?
I guess I've become that stubborn child who is holding their breath until they get their way. Not that I was that child when I actually was a child. I was pretty easy going. Taking the backseat to the drama of my younger sister. I obeyed and I was quiet and shy. I took everything I was told as the truth. It's not that I don't believe it all now, I still do. It's just that I don't know that I believe the cornerstone of Christianity which is that God loves you. Or maybe I don't believe he does because I don't have that in human form. He's supposed to be there for you all the time, but all I want is someone else to be there for me all of the time. (Physically, not literally be at my beck and call). I just want someone that chooses to be in my life on a more consistent basis than a couple times a year. That chooses to live in the same house as me, walk my life with me, good or bad, present or distant (metaphorically speaking). But at the same time I want to be left alone until that does happen. I don't want to waste my time with people I don't have anything in common with. I don't want to pay an annual fee in order to hang out with strangers at some restaurant or concert or event. I don't want to email strangers that sound like they have potential, only to be rejected by them without even saying a word (or typing a word). I guess I want the impossible- someone to walk into my life at work, at the grocery store, at...I can't even think of a 3rd place I go. In San Francisco next week...
This all goes back to God not providing for me. Leaving me out to dry, literally and physically and emotionally and metaphorically in every way. I love the solitude though. At this point in my life, even though it would be quite impossible to have 4 children unless I adopted them all at once; I don't even want that anymore. I can't imagine the noise. Thinking about it overwhelms me. Listening to a baby scream for an hour is more than enough for me, and that's in my day job. I do want a kid, but only one. Sometimes I think back on what my life would've been if I had married my first boyfriend, from college. If he hadn't broken up with me after we made silly plans of honeymooning in Disney World in those little cottages because I didn't like the idea of a hotel room where people could hear you through the walls. I could have 4 kids right now easily, if I had gotten married at 22. I had a friend who has 4 or 5, I've lost track and she got married in December before we even graduated. At only 21. I wonder how overwhelmed I would be. I wonder if I'd be sad and lonely still. Longing for someone I couldn't have. Something he couldn't give me. That would be miserable. More miserable than still being single with no prospects at 35 and no one for the past 10 years now.

"God is good," came into my head just now. Whether or not I believe it, I know the saying. I think it's good to believe in something. Even if it's just the Universe and it's own plan. It doesn't make sense, but it doesn't have to. My best friend is Mormon and that would never ever keep me from loving her just the same. People who are passionate about their beliefs, (when they are loving and kind beliefs) are just fine with me in my book. I will put the opposite in a box, I will. I will lump any religion or belief that some people are less than you and deserve to be killed or hurt or taunted just because they believe in something different than you or live a different lifestyle than you, into that box and say "you are wrong." What you are preaching to your children is hate and there is no God out there that would agree with you, if you were to meet them face to face. There can't be. It goes against what an "God" or entity is supposed to be. How could you preach "love one another" or "thou shalt not kill" but then make exceptions for that and say, "oh wait, but you can hate and kill these group of people?" It does make me think about that certain "Baptist Church" you know the one; the one who does this very thing everyday and publicly I might add. Loudly. I've thought many a time that God should smite them down, just strike everyone in the church. But saying that out loud makes me no better than them. Ok, well, a little better, I don't go out and preach that that should happen. But you know what I'm saying. I'd be just like them, hating a group of people and wanting them dead. So I don't think that way anymore. I love the people out there that stand around those funerals where these other people are protesting, and they stand there not in violent outrage, but in quiet unity. They hold hands and create a barrier against them. That's the way it should be. Hate doesn't cancel out hate, it just adds to it. It just makes it grow. (I mean obviously; it is why we have wars). Quiet love. Unity. Connectedness. That's the way it should be. Well enough on that.
I hate summing things up. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I just end my blog. Sometimes I just run out of things to say and it doesn't have a nice little ending. So that's what I'm going to do now. I'm going to end. Go enjoy my Saturday. And I hope you do the same. And tomorrow, go to church or don't. Worship or don't. But like Ellen says, "Be kind to one another." It's not as hard as you think it is.