A Condensed Version to a Belief in God

From 1954 to the present

Photo by Peter Kokhanets on Unsplash

In 1953, our Native American people were given the ability to purchase and drink liquor, after it being illegal for many years. I was born in 1954, so I saw many family members drinking alcohol. Many of them would be drunk, as that is how they drank.

There were no teetotalers. Social drinking was to get drunk. Then, in my family, it was men who were called alcoholic, and especially older men. Older women or women who drank similar would go to the psych. ward for treatment, or some would say for drying out. That is what I remember happening as a young person and a young woman.

Then in 1978, our people got religious freedom. When I was about 12 years old, I first smudged with hippies. The guy leading the smudging said, “It cleans your aura man!” I didn’t know what an aura was, but I did like smudging. I didn’t know it was something I would be doing regularly once we got religious freedom.

As a child, I was baptized, confirmed, and was first married at age 17 in the Catholic church. I intend to be buried in the Catholic cemetery, along with other family. I attended 4 grades of Catholic school. When my class was attending kindergarten, I was living on the reservation. There was no kindergarten there.

When growing up I was told stories from the culture. And then my mother would say things about my family living there like, “Your uncle, who is a minister now used to piss on his girlfriend when he was drinking.” And “I will never live on the reservation, or raise my children there, as I was abused there.”

Instead, we were raised in the most racist place I have ever lived. Some friends call it a border town. A border town is a bigger town next to a reservation, or in this case three reservations. I never saw any brown skinned people working in any of the businesses. And there were very few Native people living there.

After my dad died, we moved there because an aunt and uncle lived there. We bought their house when they moved into a bigger house. We had the same number of kids in the family. My mom added 3 bedrooms on to the house, along with a larger basement.

My problem was that I learned about a punishing God and knew I was going to hell, even though as a child, I would make up things for confession as I really wasn’t doing anything to confess. I didn’t consider I was lying to have something to confess. And I don’t remember ever confessing the lying, until now.

In 1978, I got into recovery and spent time getting to know me. I had support during that time and began the grieving process of the trauma, grief and loss in my life until that time. I had a friend that told me I had to fire the God of my understanding.

My picture of God was a little old white man who sat in the clouds and zapped people. A child’s picture maybe, but not one I should’ve had at age 24. So, I started to listen to others. And I started to attend some culture ceremony and picked up some ritual, like smudging that helped me.

When I was 3 years into recovery and one year off drugs and alcohol, I realized that the foxhole prayer I had done when my baby was one month old was how I got into recovery one month later. I recognized all the times when I almost went back and had only two choices in front of me. To go back or not.

Then I learned I could ask to have the obsession and compulsion removed. And I did. I haven’t had the desire to drink in 45 years. And I have continued recovery of the family illness for 47 years.

When thinking about being an atheist didn’t fit, because I thought of how smart you would have to be to prove there is no God, when there are so many world religions, most believing in God, Allah, etc.

So, then I decided I could try going the agnostic route, so would say prove it. When I would get proof, I would still ask for more proof as I kind of liked the proof I would get.

Today I am sold. I learned to have a conscious contact by learning to live in the present. Learning to at least be in the present. The serenity prayer helped me. I was always in the past or future, never in today prior to recovery.

It helped me to say that prayer over and over. I thought it would help me to learn what I could change and what I couldn’t. I didn’t realize it would bring me into the present. Where I could experience the now. That is what happened. Now, I wish to stay in the present most of the time.

Next, I learned about a conscious contact with a higher power that I call Gizheymanido (kind and loving spirit). Today, I understand how that works. The ability to be in the present time is important. Having belief and having built a relationship with a God of our understanding is important.

Originally published at https://vocal.media.