Church

I seldom discuss my views on the matter. But even I am not impervious to “God”, whom or whatever the entity most people believe in in some form or function is. 

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Today was the first time I have been to a church in six years. 

It’s the same church’s steeple I see from my porch everyday. 

It’s the same church whose bells I hear everyday. 

I felt with all of the praying done on my behalf I ought to go in and formally say thank you to “God” in “His” house. 

I felt it was rude of me not to. 

As a matter of fact, I almost began to feel as if it was taunting me. The church. What with its steeple and bells and everything.

I thought with it being so long I’d have forgotten how it works. But I didn’t. It was just like riding a bike, but less comfortable and with a a lot more elderly people.

The last time I was in a church was for my brother’s funeral.

I remember asking then, “If you exist, where were you as my brother injected a lethal dose of heroin into his body?”. 

I remember asking then, “If you perform miracles, why didn’t you perform one as my brother foamed at the mouth, convulsing. Knowing he was dying. Knowing my mother was in the very next room and could have walked in at any time and saved him. Where were you as my brother sat there helpless and terrified and waiting for a miracle? Where were you?”.

I don’t know where “God” was for my brother. Or anyone else.

But I do know this...

I was a perfectly healthy 33 year old woman who diagnosed with breast cancer.

I most likely had the cancer for years and didn’t know.

That had I not become pregnant, the cancer would not have become aggressive and palpable and alerted me to its existence as I was not due to have a mammogram for another seven years.

I probably would have only discovered once it was everywhere and there was nothing that could be done for me.

I would probably be dead by now. And that is a fact.

Discovering it when I did was a miracle. 

At the time it seemed like a punishment, an insult, to throw me into the hellish abyss of cancer when I had been so careful about my health. 

But in hindsight, I see now it was a miracle.

It was science that brought forth research producing medicine that killed the cancer.

It was a skilled surgeon who exised the rest from my body.

It wasn’t “God”. 

Science saved me! Real people saved me!

But where the researchers come from?

But where did the medicine come from?

Where did the surgeon come from?

What, or whom, guided the right blend of people and skills and circumstances and science together to save my life?

Maybe that is “God” after all.

I’m still not religious. Nor do I want to be. 

It’s okay for some, just not me. 

We all pray in our own way, in our own space. 

There is no right or wrong way to do it.

Please don’t try and convert me.

But I am profoundly aware and grateful and humbled for my chance to live. 

Awaiting my recent biopsy results left me feeling thoughtful about it all. Reflective.

I formally reached out to “God”. I bargained.

And as I did, I thought of all of the people who came before me and did exactly the same. 

Who died anyway.

I thought of my brother a lot.

I wondered what he would say about it all.

We used to have conversations like that often. 

And I thought he would say, 

“Maybe there wasn’t a miracle for me, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t one for you.”

I still don’t think one needs a church to be close to “God”. 

I still think “God” is all of us. “God” is everywhere.

I still disagree with the pedagogy of church, I still question the contents of the Bible.

It still doesn’t really “jive” with me.

And I still don’t know how I feel about miracles.

But I do know I was given another chance at my life, and I won’t squander it. Not even for a moment.