Are answers always necessary...

or is it better to leave sleeping dogs lie??

If you know me then you know that my mom died 8 years ago :( , before she died she told me a secret. She told me that her & my dad had decided to separate & in that time she met a guy, a guy who was already engaged to another woman, they fooled around and I was conceived. For whatever reason he couldn't leave the other woman to be with my mom. My mom's history with men is not a very good history so who knows what the truth of the story really is. But she also told me that he knew about me & that she had taken me to see him when I was born. She told me his first name & where they met, she also told me that if I wanted to know more she would do whatever she could to find out information on him for me. At the time, I didn't want to know. Then the cancer came & took her from me.

For awhile I wondered about him, and had even toyed with the idea of contacting some dumb talk show like Maury but ultimately decided to just set it all aside, I figured that I would never be able to find him anyway, that was alot of years ago after all.

But then it hit me a few days ago, as I was looking at posts on a Facebook group full of old timers that remember so much about the history of Bloomington, how simple it would be to make a post asking about him. Or asking about my mom. I even looked through the names of the members to see if his name was there.

And then I got scared. Is this something that I really need to know? I am 36 years old & up until about 10 years ago I didn't even know this little bit of history. What could I possibly gain from this? What if he is everything I never had in a dad, but what if he is everything I never wanted? What if he is still with that same woman & she hates me for what my mom did? So many questions & too scared to ask them? Too scared of the answers...

Your God vs. my God...

Religion:

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.

3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.

4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.

5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.

This word & the battle of beliefs have been the one thing holding me back from believing in God. Being a stubborn woman has always dictated my opinion on this matter. I don't want to believe in your God, what you believe in is your personal choice. And what I believe in is mine. Day after day I witness "holy" self righteous people doing the exact opposite of what they are preaching. I cannot bring myself to believe in their God. When someone throws their God in my face & tells me what I believe is wrong, I will get defensive & I will fight it. I don't want to believe in your God, in my eyes what you are preaching is the exact opposite of what is at my core, what is in my soul.

In Native American history (at least my perception of history based on what I have been told or taught), when a young warrior comes of age & he is sent out to meditate (I guess that's the right word), to find his spirit, he fasts & does not sleep until his totem comes to him. I feel like that warrior discovering my totem, or in other words, my God.

In my quest to learn about something that I believe in, that I didn't even realize existed, I came across a passage in this book, Many Paths, One Destination: Love, Peace, Compassion, Tolerance, and Understanding Through World Religions by Ram Ramakrishnan. Page 198 thru part of page 199, 'Love, the way to God' is very enlightening. To read this is to see the core of my beliefs in writing. All this time I have been fighting God, I have been fighting a belief that is already instilled in my very soul. Where this belief came from, I'll never know, but my God is a loving God. The way I choose to live my life, the way I choose to treat other people is a loving God that has always been inside of me, maybe I just needed to see it in writing with my own eyes.