suffering is religious

are you there god? or was it just me all along

i dip my fingers in the holy water and i motion across my forehead and shoulders and chest and enter the chapel. it felt right i suppose. i don’t pray to a god anymore. here i sit before a looming church and i don’t pray that please, god, let things get better. there is no god, god is real, i am god. i don’t pray anymore because i know now that i am the one that can make things better. i am here because i made things better. i don’t need to close my eyes at night and pray for forgiveness for the things i’ve done or ask for the strength to do the things i need to do. i am the one that gifts myself that redemption.

there is no one else to save me and there is no one else to blame.

i walked into a church in some other country weeks later. i think it was the first time i ever heard the organ being played to a nearly empty room. and for the first time i stopped walking and i sat in a pew. i stared up at the ceiling. i thought about my mother. i thought about being a young child and observing people raising their hands to the church’s ceiling while in service and not understanding what kind of elated belief they could be experiencing. i used to always pretend to feel it.

for some reason i felt inclined to light a prayer candle for my mother like i saw the elders doing while i was visiting, but i never did. i was selfish and saved the 2 euro fee, pocketed for a drink at a bar later.

i sit still and no longer kneel and worship and wish because i know now that i have much more power than any god could. there is no ground to kiss that someone’s feet walks on other than my own. the world is my chapel and my mind is the strongest prayer.