Purple: Spirit

Welcome Back to another post!

July

• The last week of June/First week of July was the first week that we had kids at our camp! While the original goal for the camp was 50 kids for the summer, we haven't quite reached that, but the kids that we do have at the camp have been absolute joys to work with. I'm very thankful to have taken this job for them. For some of the more adulty-elements, not so much... 
• I survived living with Roddy & Rebekah's chaos for a whole month! :) I'm moving out tomorrow :/
• Nickadeo came and visited for the first time which was very nice! It was cool getting to show him my home.
• My mom visited me in New Haven for the first time and was Too Much, but that's just her! :)
• I've been doing quite a bit to get ready for grad school! I'm so very excited and am continually validated by professors, fellow scholars (Shout-out Queer Group Chat!), my not-very-distant-at-all-future roommate, Will, and the pre-class work and seminars I've been given as a replacement for the more traditional Before the Fall Orientation. 
• Jane turned 21??? Which is not weird at all?!?
• Also I've been hella sad boi hours because I've been doing a lot of thinking about who and what I'm spending my energy on. While I'm not ready to talk about that struggle quite yet, I am thankful to be surrounded by people who love and support me during this time and am grateful that I've found a space to process through this blog. 

Purple: Spirit

This picture is an oldie, but a goodie! I feel like it described "Purple: Spirit" the best because I feel like the person I've shared the deepest spiritual connection with has been one of my besties, Jane. (And we're both wearing purple here! And this was taken at my church!)

Purple is the color in the Pride flag dedicated to Spirit. 

For this post I wanted to talk about my relationship with God, how it has developed, and how I believe God Forms Me with a Purpose. It is basically a rehashing of a talk that I gave to the Southeast Emmaus Community in November 2019. 

Buckle in because she's a long one, folks!

When I was originally asked to give this talk, I was extremely nervous that it was too early and that I didn't think I had the life experience to give such an important talk to the community. Despite the self-doubt, though, I did it and I think it helped impact the people that were there. 

In the outline for this talk, the first thing that it mentions is a passage from Jeremiah 1:4-8: "The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’ ‘Alas, Sovereign Lord,’ I said, ‘I do not know how to speak; I am too young.’ But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, “I am too young.” You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,’ declares the Lord.”

I feel like I'm always amazed when I happen upon this verse, but it was especially nice to see when writing this talk because it helped me pause and remember what I believed I'm called to do; what I believe my purpose is. God knew my purpose way before me, way before I was even a possibility, and God inspired then-rector, Felix, to choose me for this talk. I believed that it was through God's will to deliver the talk, because even though I felt I wasn't ready, God knew that I was. 

God reaffirms this in 1st Timothy 4:12, one of my favorite verses: "Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.” My age had nothing to do with my readiness for this talk or to be a leader in faith communities- it’s all about my experience; my personal journey through faith that brought me to that moment and every moment that I’m called to be a leader.  

Now, I'm a firm believer in the adage that everything happens for a reason and that, truly, God never gives us challenges that we can't handle. 1st Corinthians 10:13 continues to affirm this: “No testing has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear. But when you are tested, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” God is with us through every challenge, no matter how tough or difficult, and God calls everyone, especially young people to be an example for believers. Of course, all this is easier said than felt. 

While I do believe that everything happens for a reason, I can't say that I'm knowledgeable of many, let alone, all of those reasons. I don't know why bad things happen to good people, or why some good things happen to bad people, all I know is that I trust in God to deliver justice and peace in the end. I trust in my abilities to take my hardships and turn them into methods of growth, learning, and evolution.

To unpack how I've come into this part of my faith journey, the part where, through all the self-doubt, I ultimately feel confident in my abilities to lead, I want to bring y'all though my faith journey: 

At this point, I don't remember when I started attending Union Baptist Church in Mystic, CT. My grandparents brought me when I was very little. When I was 5 I had started singing at my church, which eventually turned into acting in musicals and plays, playing handbells, and participating in choir and bell festivals. When I was 7 or 8, I had decided I was ready to be baptized: I somehow knew that my faith was going to carry me for the rest of my life and I was ready to dedicate my life to living as a conduit for Christ... or something like that, but in the way a 7 year-old would say it. 

When I was 10, I joined the Youth Group program, which turned into participating in many ecumenical youth gatherings, youth group parties, a mission trip, delivering a few sermons at my church, field trips, Bible study, and youth jam band sessions. 

The earlier parts of my life were fairly carefree. I mean, my family wasn’t exactly perfect. My parents didn’t have a perfect relationship: I’ve always lived with my grandparents and my mother because that was the best option for my family to provide for me and I saw my dad every so often at his apartment he shared with family in New London. It was complicated. Adding on to that complication, mental illness is prevalent in my blood. I'm not willing to publicly announce the specifics of my family's struggle, but there have been times when the people that I love the most have negatively impacted me the most too. My relationship with them has had to heal multiple times throughout my life, but ultimately, I know that they love me and that I have to separate their struggles and the impact that it has from the love I know they have for me. 

When I was growing up, my family raised me to be intelligent and thoughtful, but also loud and annoying. They raised me to love deeply, but to also fear authority and confrontation. In general, though, they taught me to love God because God will provide what I need. 

I was 13 years old on December 29th, 2010 when my mom told me that my dad passed away. From that moment on, life seemed definitively finite because death had taken my father, someone so close to me. Now, we weren’t as close as I would say my mom and I are, but we were working toward building a better and stronger relationship. I knew and know he loves me deeply, even when he didn’t know how to show it. Death stole so much potential from me; potential of a stronger relationship with my father and the potential to be a completely different person than I am now. 

I don't talk about the story of my father's passing because there's always a silver lining in the darkest clouds, or because it taught me the most valuable lesson. I think there was a time that I actively believed that, but at this point in my life, I struggle with that belief. I can't offer anyone an answer as to why bad things happen to good people, because I don't know.

While my father’s passing did transform me in positive ways and made me appreciate the finite nature of human life, it still feels terribly unfair; In the past, I preached about how it made me appreciate the people in my life more, but I oftentimes feel that ultimately no relationship could parallel the one I could have had with my dad. There are times where I get angry at God for taking my dad too soon. I’m even angry for how my dad’s death still affects me. When I was younger, I had chosen to not see a counselor to unpack this trauma and to grieve; I threw myself into school work and the play I was doing at church. I let people shower me with apologies and sympathies even though they felt hollow and empty. I dealt with the pain and the sadness by putting myself into a neurotic overdrive- I think, a part of me did this to ignore this encroaching feeling of emptiness, of brokenness- which I now get to unpack in my adulthood, but more on that later. 

Eventually, I found a semblance of normalcy again- a routine. High school happened and I joined Emmaus. I met some fairly emotionally vulnerable adults and through singing there, at church, and in school, I realized that that was how I spoke to God the most, rather than through traditional prayer. Singing for me is a way to feel, to process, and to speak to God. It's how I show my passion and appreciation for the musical gifts I feel bestowed with. Over the years, I've come to more realization that even some of the music that I listen to regularly: Beyoncé, Lizzo, etc. can still be me conversing with God because God can sense the longing I feel in their lyrics, rhythms, and melodies; or the anger, or the sadness, or the joy. Music is a gift that God gave us and I know God hears me when I sing. 

Through Emmaus, I also started to realize that a lot of my religious experience had been going through the motions of the religion- I don’t know if I had critical thought in my faith before Emmaus. I know I doubted God in my life before being more critical about my faith, especially when my dad died, but I was too afraid and immature to articulate this. Emmaus allowed me the opportunity to explore within myself and with others the more tangible nature of God and God’s works in our daily lives- through the talks that I hear, the feelings I feel, and the conversations I have with members of my chosen family. 

Emmaus was my main source of a religious community throughout high school. My youth minister had to find another job during my freshman year of high school and our youth group fell apart, and, subsequently, extracurriculars at school became my main focus. I was also starting to feel a little unease about organized religion and how dangerously bureaucratic church families can become. 

I can’t tell you what made me avoid joining a church family while I was in college. Part of me thinks it was how comfortable I had become with UBC, part of me thinks it’s because I needed to explore what faith meant on my own, and part of me thinks the few times I went to church I felt too alone to continue to go. In my first two years of college, God seemed a little quieter than I was comfortable with. 

However, at the end of my sophomore year of college, I declared a religion minor because I had thoughts of “what if neuroscience isn’t a good fit for me? At least I’ll have something to fall back on!” I pursued an academic approach to religion and I loved every minute of it. I got the chance to explore medieval Christianity and discuss imagery and iconography in medieval and Antiquity-era Christianity. I compared Islam, Buddhism, and Native American Traditions, took a class on Religion in America, and learned about philosophers and some of the more theoretical/sociological/anthropological studies associated with the interpretation of religion. I got to be an Intern at the Interfaith Center where I participated and facilitated in dinner & dialogue events where people of different faiths, beliefs, and traditions got together and dove deep into discussing concepts like joy, respect, happiness, justice, and more. 

My favorite course ever was Islam & Race, which taught me about the racialization of Muslims in the United States, despite ethnic backgrounds, and how that effects and is affected by the racialization of marginalized communities in general. I’m thankful for the religion department for opening up and expanding my mind, challenging me to think critically and intentionally, and reaffirming my belief that I’m an intelligent thinker, even when my science classes didn’t offer me the same kindness. I saw God in my religion department: in the critical race and ethnic studies that I got from my Islam & Race class, in the formulation of religious thought and practices, and in the study of religions different from my own.

As some consistent blog readers or friends may remember, I name this transition of my life as a transition into Era 3.5, a time of transformation and self-renewal. 

Simultaneous to the beginning of my religious studies in Junior Year, in my more personal life, three major events occurred: The first was when I publicly came out to my friends and family on social media as biromantic. This has evolved into a more blanket term of queer, mostly because I’m still figuring out how I identify, and I’m still going through the necessary steps to unpack some of the internalized homophobia that I’ve developed from the small comments here and there that my family, friends, and society have made about queer people, my old beliefs of a limited version of God, incapable of loving me due to this “great sin”, and my previous assumptions that my life would include having a wife. I pull solace from another one of my favorite bible passages in order to better cope with this internalized homophobia. Psalm 139:13-17 says: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depth of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!” How could I not approach every bit of God’s creation and plan with love, patience, and wonder? How could I not allow myself this same love, patience, and wonder? If I don’t love every bit of myself, I know I’m not being mindful of all of God’s careful, thoughtful creation. Proverbs 19:8 reaffirms this: “Whoever gets sense loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding will discover good.” 

The second thing that happened during my junior year was the proliferation of white supremacist messages on my college campus that specifically targeted people of color. The administration was not as responsive as one would expect they would be. My blackness was not something that I explored in depth until my collegiate journey, but 81% of the population at the University of Vermont is white… my blackness was made salient in the microaggressions I experienced from peers and in the fact that I would oftentimes be the only black person in a class or group. Because of the lack of administrative action, student activists on campus, called NoNames4Justice took it upon themselves to draft up demands of the administration and scheduled protests and rallies in public spaces to call attention to the wrongs being committed on the college campus. I had the privilege of being an integral part of bringing the list of demands to my college’s dean and subsequently helped to found a diversity and inclusion fellowship within UVM’s College of Arts & Sciences. Within me sparked a need to challenge authority and confront people on what I believe is wrong. I was affirmed in my abilities as an advocate for social change. 

The third thing that happened my Junior year was that I started seeing a counselor at our Counseling and Psychiatry Services Center. Seeing a counselor is a resource that is offered for free to UVM students and I had finally taken the opportunity to commit to bettering my mental health. At first, my journey in therapy was a lot of unpacking unhealthy friendships that I had with people that are no longer in my life, but as I continue therapy post-college, it’s now spent unpacking some more, heavier emotional traumas; like the sense of abandonment I feel that’s associated with my dad’s passing, my parent’s relationship in general, my family’s mental health, and my grandma’s diagnosis of dementia. I’ve felt extreme loneliness in multiple areas of my life and therapy has helped me address them along with other parts of my being that I need to unpack in order to be the best version of myself that I can. 

These events all have to do with how God Forms me with a Purpose because they've all been a part of my formation. Like I said earlier, I don’t know why bad things can happen to good people. I can’t even tell you that I’m confident in the purpose that I believe God has called me to serve God in. At the end of the day, I trust in God to make everything right and that ultimately means accepting that everything in my life has happened for a reason. As unfortunate as they’ve been, without the traumas that I’ve faced, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I don’t think I would have been as self-aware, passionate, or caring. I wouldn’t have been able to see God the way I do and that, in itself, allows me to remain grateful for life. Without the things I’ve faced, I wouldn’t be able to know what it feels like to love myself more fully- to love myself despite the baggage I may have, and to establish a home within myself and not leave it to dependence on my friends or the location I’m in.

The purpose that I feel called to serve humanity in is affirmed by a passage that a lot of people who’ve grown up in a Christian church might know: 1st John 4:7-8 (paraphrased song lyrics) “Beloved: Let us love one another. For love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not. Knoweth not God, for God is Love. Beloved. Let us love on another, 1st John 4: 7 & 8.”

I believe I am called to be a conduit for God’s Love and Christ’s sacrifice by spreading love, light, and truth. I want to do this in my daily practice- how I carry myself, how I treat people in my life, how I treat the ones I love, and how I focus my energies on continually becoming the best person that I can be. I seek more and more self-awareness so that I can continually be a light for others. This is further affirmed in God’s message in Matthew 5:16: "In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven." I best remember this through a song I learned in Youth Group based on This Little Light of Mine that I could teach you sometime if you see me in person!

My purpose manifests itself in my family life. My family doesn’t have the healthiest relationships with one another, and I want to work hard to break this curse by developing healthy relationships with those I choose to be my family, especially as an example to my little cousins who I love with my whole heart and for my future children who I already have a deep sense of compassion for. 

My purpose manifests itself in my future career. I feel called to become a Licensed Clinical Social Work and Youth Minister, or something that combines my two fields of interest, so that I can help people, especially marginalized youth, unpack their emotional traumas, learn how to make homes within and among themselves, and explore their own ways of knowing, meaning-making, and truth. I want to advocate for social change so that we can all enjoy an equitable environment. I'm hopeful and trusting that my Joint Program through Yale Divinity School and UConn's School of Social Work will help me to develop this calling and purpose. 

All of these are the ways I believe God has a purpose for me.

Before I end this post, I want to leave with some ways in which I've felt God. 

For me, God is Love, Light, and Truth, literally. There are times when I don't sense these, but I try my best everyday. 

I feel God in myself. I sense God in the intricacies of the universe, large and small. I’ve felt, heard, and invoked God in music. I feel God in social activism and striving for equity. I see God in my friends, theist or atheist; Christian or not. I feel God in my pursuit of knowledge and truth. I see, hear, and feel God in nature: the beautiful flora and fauna; the roaring Ocean; in life. I see God in visual arts. I sense God in people, but mostly in children. I sense God in my family, both living and dead. 

Sometimes, when I’m feeling my most lonely and don’t sense God in the ways I’ve said, I take solace in a message that I originally learned during my last Mystic Area Ecumenical Choir Festival in 2014. It’s a message that was written by a Jewish prisoner, found on a wall in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. I want to one day get a tattoo of it as a permanent reminder of Light, Love, and Truth. I last referenced it in my post "Yellow: Sunshine": 

I Believe in the Sun, even when it's not Shining. 

I Believe in Love, even when I don't Feel it.

I Believe in God, even when God is Silent.

God continually transforms and renews my spirit and I'm so very thankful for our relationship. 

I hope my sharing of my relationship with God helped you in some way. 

Thank you for reading.