Thursday, 27 June 2013

MEMOIRS OF A CHURCH GIRL


I remember Sunday mornings
Grandma coming up the stairs singing church songs
of how much she loves Jesus Christ.
I never understood why she had to get up so early
make so much noise in the house,
doing things she could have done when she got back from church.
Leaving church
then had to rush home, cook the chicken already seasoned from the night before.
Getting shouted at to watch the pot while it simmer,
then rushing to get the door for aunts and uncles who would come for dinner.
There was always noisy little cousins running around
Drunk uncles drinking rum in the living room,
even though it was only 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

I remember my first Sunday without Christ. No need to get up early
put on Sundays best.
Comb my hair properly and wear a nice pretty dress,
that I always use to press
the night before
and hang it up by the door.

I had considered myself enlightened,
from the generations of lies presented to me as facts.
Carefully built walls, around imprisoned souls of my mother
before me,
and my grandmother
before her.
But life had shattered.
The truths of my existence were now falsified.
Searching wherein for other truths, trying to discern the lies.
For I had rejected the Bible as truth,
but still looked to the omnipresent to explain my roots.

Since the very moment of consciousness
humankind have been searching for where we come from,
desperately trying to find somewhere to belong.
Have looked at the stars and tried to make sense of what we saw.

Then Marx came along and declared
religion to be like opium.
Not the disease, but merely a symptom.
An expression of the material realities of the economically oppressed
used to make the exploited poor feel better about their distress.
They hang salvation in your face, 
make you sing to the heavens
“free at last”
not knowing redemption comes at a cost.

Like drug dealers dangle
crack to a mother,
so the authority offer Jesus Christ on a platter.
So long gone are the days of Sunday best
You can tell God this
Sunday is my day of rest.



No comments:

Post a Comment