Tag: Spirituality

15 Min Read, Family, Parenting, Re-parenting, Relationships, Robert Samuel Walker, Spirituality

I am Regina Lynette. I am a Baptist Christian. Probably.

Regina Lynette

I was raised in the Missionary Baptist Church. At eight years old I publicly made my confession, was water-baptized, received communion, and was offered the right hand of fellowship with membership into my childhood home church, from here on out to be called NNMBC. About nine years later that church split, let’s just say over issues with follow-on leadership. I would spend the next year of my Christianity absorbing religious teachings with an unbelievable and relatively new zeal in a new church, from here on out to be called NBMBC. Later, I would start cautiously wandering away from what I was taught, testing ideas about my religion, and finding out some truths for myself.

Daddy was my trusted personal religious leader and when I had questions about anything regarding religion – ours and others – I trusted him to be completely honest in his responses. I would go to Daddy before anyone else because I knew that what he had to say would be based on experience or from his own research and education, and that he would refer me to texts that would support his answers. I also trusted him to honestly admit if he didn’t know something and that he would do the research and get back to me or encourage me to do the research with him. Even though some of what he would say would fall in the category of dogma, his delivery was never dogmatic and always logical (despite religion or spirituality not being what I would define as logical). But then I went to college, and everything went to hell. Okay, everything didn’t go to hell, and I can’t even justify that level of melodrama here, so, I take it back. But college was the start of curiosity, circumstance, and independence taking me along a slightly different path than I ever imagined.

This is Regina wearing the suit that would become my “Communion Sunday” suit. How I never spilled grape juice on my all white was miraculous.

The first year of college, I partnered up with a new friend who matched my particular freshman demographic in my search for a church family in the town where I attended school. We were both female, away from home, and part of the 5% minority population of the university. One of the things that created a firmer bond early in our friendship was that we were both daughters of black Baptist preachers who needed to find a church to attend regularly while we were away from home, and we believed it should be a Baptist church. We were glad to be on this search together and found we wanted similar things from a church-home-away-from-home. Unfortunately and universally we found, beyond doctrine and styles of worship, that we didn’t feel welcome in those churches. We were our best Baptist Christian selves and were snubbed by those who we expected to welcome us to the family and offer the right hand of fellowship. We dutifully stood as visitors, reciting the most relevant details of what I like to call our “Christian resumes”, offering ourselves to be cradled in the arms of the churches and we didn’t find a place that felt like home as we hoped. After reporting back to our families our lack of success and the new routes we planned to take – seeking Christian churches of other denominations – neither of our families were particularly happy but they trusted us to make the right decision (which was simply joining a church). It wasn’t terribly long after we started with this new plan that we landed at a charismatic church – House of God I believe was the official denomination. This church will be referred to as BHOG going forward.

I didn’t know much about the charismatic churches at that time and had to be brought up to speed on the charismatic denominations. To shorten my learning curve, those who knew I grew up in Memphis likened House of God to the Church of God In Christ. I had been curious about the Church of God In Christ forever. In my ignorance, it was the only church that I would consider charismatic (even though I didn’t get that vocabulary until I was an adult) and therefore stood alone as a strange but intriguing group of Christians. When I was growing up, Memphis was where their official leadership & headquarters was located and the place where they held a large annual conference. I knew it as “the saints coming to town” or “the COGIC coming for conference”. I wouldn’t understand that COGIC was an acronym for the Church of God In Christ until I was a little older so it sounded more like an affliction than an affiliation, and is partly why I seldom use the acronym today, even in writing. The other thing sparking my curiosity as a child about the Church of God In Christ was that Daddy and my siblings from his first wife were involved in that church for a period of time and something went terribly wrong because they spoke about the church with some unpleasantness that I don’t want to give a label. I know the story from a couple of points of view but each of them experienced it in their own way and I can’t articulate their feelings and don’t want to label them. But the point is I was always curious about the Church of God In Christ. And because the pastor of my NBMBC came from the Church of God In Christ I was exposed to certain influences that made for a more energetic style of worship than I had been accustomed.

As I said earlier, curiosity (about charismatic churches and styles of worship), circumstances (feeling terribly unwelcome in the local Baptist churches and incredibly valued in a charismatic church), and independence (more on my own than I wanted to be) led me to BHOG, ready to join under Watch Care. Watch Care was a way of joining a church under temporary circumstances – being away from home at college – so that we’d have a spiritual leader, spiritual family, and could fulfill our Christian obligations and rituals for the duration of the temporary relocation. That’s my own definition by the way, based on my experience at the time. The process of joining a church under Watch Care included presenting a letter from the pastor of your home church (NBMBC) to the Watch Care pastor (BHOG) and then finding out if you were “accepted” which, as long as there was no issue regarding beliefs about baptism (water and immersion) and you came to an understanding of where your tithes were going, you would generally be “accepted”. What I was unprepared for was that my pastor (NBMBC) would outright refuse to write me a letter because, as he explained, he’d spent time in the Church of God In Christ which to him was equivalent to BHOG and I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I found this a bit irrational and not only insufficient but also an unacceptable explanation, so I decided to go to Daddy. He was not my pastor, but he was the assistant pastor at NBMBC; the person who responded to my tugs on his heartstrings; and the person whose guidance, for me, would trump anyone else’s. I would explain all this to BHOG so that I would be “accepted”. Unfortunately it was one of the few times that Daddy hid behind a very weak excuse, refusing to write a letter because he wasn’t officially my pastor. But I knew it was because he didn’t support my choice of church. He did believe in order and that it was my pastor’s place to write the letter, but if he’d felt differently about the church I’d chosen, he would have written the letter and that would have been the end of it. So, with no possibilities of getting a letter, I approached the BHOG pastor and before I could even start to explain that I couldn’t get a letter, he told me that he never expected that I’d get a letter and that if I was still interested in joining his church, he’d give me a modified version of the process which combined regular membership orientation with Watch Care orientation. And he was careful to explain to me that my tithes were expected to go to BHOG and not NBMBC.

This was the last Sunday that I attended BHOG This is on the steps of the new building they moved to just before I graduated college.

While in college I took two religious studies courses while having “left” my home church and denomination for a “new” church and denomination. It was so interesting learning academically about so many other religions and this was the first time I began to embrace all the Abrahamic religions and became unusually fascinated by the Wiccan studies. I’d determined that if I had been born with absolutely no religious belief set and sought out my own by studying them all, I probably would be Wiccan. It would be years, literally over a decade, before I would openly share that with Christians who felt invested in my religious path. It didn’t go over well but at least I wasn’t met with rescue efforts because by then I was certain that I was going to be a Christian for life.

Daddy got sick when I had about two years left in my college career. He was struggling with a cancer diagnosis, and he was nearly 80 years old. As the possibility of his death felt almost tangible, I took my prayer requests to my BHOG church family. I didn’t feel I had a place at NBMBC anymore except on paper and my NBMBC pastor was in jail much of this time anyway. (Yes, I’m going to leave that right there for now and I can’t promise I’ll revisit it with any significance.) And so my BHOG family supported me and prayed with me and believed with me for Daddy’s healing. While I prayed for his healing, I also began grieving him. I had no doubt that God would hear my prayer, but I also didn’t want Daddy to suffer simply for the sake of my not wanting to let him go. After some time Daddy was effectually healed of the cancer but his body was a wreck from the treatment. Not to mention, as assistant pastor at NBMBC he took on the responsibility of managing the church in my pastor’s absence. He fell into a vicious cycle of taking care of the church until he would get sick and be admitted to the hospital. He’d recover somewhat and head back to the church to start the cycle all over again. I was infuriated. All along I had begged my NBMBC pastor not to make Daddy the assistant pastor because he was in his 70s and to get some more preachers at the church. My NBMBC pastor was not in agreement with what I thought was quite logical – having someone who is twice your age be your second in command was impractical to say the least and stupid to say the most. Don’t you want someone who can take on the torch after you’re gone? And hadn’t we as a church just struggled with the idea that my NNMBC pastor had to be “sat down” by the parishioners because he was too old and didn’t want to let go of pastoring? I mean if you are of the opinion that there is such a thing as “too old”, why would anyone who was over 70 years old be in position to takeover the church? I appreciated that he regarded Daddy as a wise advisor – the only reason he gave me for his choice – but I disagreed that Daddy needed any responsibility for the actual running of the church. I digress, but only a bit. My experiences, disappointments, and other slights from NBMBC (along with the ones from NNMBC that I haven’t mentioned) began to change the way I viewed what it meant to be a Christian.

After Daddy’s cancer was in remission and while he was sick from the treatment, I continued with my grieving. I felt he wouldn’t be with me much longer – even though I still had ideas that he’d at least see 90 – and I needed to be ready to let him go. The only problem with my acceptance that he was nearing the end of his life is that my BHOG family didn’t listen to me and continued to pray for something I was no longer believing for or wanted. And my confidences were betrayed – with the best intentions of caring for me – so my trust in them faltered. Daddy died during my last semester of college and while my BHOG family cared for me during my grief more than any other spiritual family, I felt unseen and therefore, though it sounds extreme, no longer loved or safe. I remember being asked to stand at BHOG during the Sunday evening service held the same night I returned to college from having attended Daddy’s funeral. I went because I didn’t want to be alone with my grief and my religion was supposed to be the thing that held me up and strengthened me and would help me finish my college degree. My BHOG pastor said something about how impressive it was that I was at church because it said something about my commitment to the church – not being lazy or using my travel to bury my father as an excuse to not make it to church – and that was the end of my time at BHOG even though I would not officially leave until I graduated.

I’m not headed to church here, but I don’t have any post-college church pictures so, next best thing.

Just before I graduated college I began isolating myself from the church in general, beginning with intentionally not attending church regularly. I remember the first Sunday I purposely didn’t go to church. I sat on my bed and read the newspaper and felt so free. I very specifically felt exactly free. People came by to check on me after service – because as I said I truly had a church family – and I was a bit defiant with some, testing their ministry to me. I remember one thing I thought truly trivial yet hypocritical was that in all the years I had heard “come as you are” in every church, it apparently didn’t apply to me and no one could even hear the contradiction in what they were telling me. What I heard was that based on what I call my religious resume, I was no longer in the category of folks who could just come as they were, and if I didn’t attend church in my regular “uniform” (which at the time was a suit or dress, control top pantyhose, and heels) then I would be inappropriately dressed. Offering that I couldn’t afford dry-cleaning was not met with an offer of financial help but with encouragement to just find a way. I maintained it should have been acceptable for me to wear jeans to church. All of these tiny contradictions and small hypocrisies, the prophe-lies* and the manipulations, and all the things that humans tend to do to anything they put their hands on all wrapped up into one big trauma, and it wore on the ties I had to the religion I was born into and loved – Missionary Baptist Christianity. Add to that the season of Rebel Gina which followed college graduation – my seemingly unpredictable, irrational and consistent anger along with a uniform of olive green and black – and I essentially walked away from the church. It is most important that I am clear that I walked away from the church (the building and the fellowship) – not my beliefs. While I agree that I am instructed not to forsake the fellowship, I maintain that I should be particular in choosing who is in the fellowship.

Tons of words again. Have we made this a three-parter? Probably.

I am Regina Lynette. I am a Baptist Christian. Probably.

*Prophe-lies, pronounced ‘prof-uh-lize’, is a lie, typically that serves another’s own agenda, that is shared under the cover of a prophecy.

10 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Family, grief, Holidays, Mental Health, Parenting, Relationships, Robert Samuel Walker

I hate Mother’s Day.

Regina Lynette

As a child Mother’s Day was not a huge deal to me specifically. It was always hot that Sunday. I would usually have a new shorts ensemble. I don’t think it was a “ring curls” event but I can’t really remember and for some reason I can’t find a single photograph from Mother’s Day. And as a motherless child with a dream of parenting deferred, it was hell and now it’s just unpleasant. But I remain slightly melodramatic and declare I hate Mother’s Day.

At my church – the place where I was baptized and a member until my last year of high school, Mother’s Day events happened for my family mostly on the Sunday and Saturday before. We still attended whatever rehearsal or practice or meeting that was scheduled even though we weren’t going to be in town on that Sunday. And at the end of either the Sunday before Mother’s Day or on that Saturday just before the day, we’d go to the ladies with the trays of corsages – carnations made from tissues – in red and white. I can’t be certain, and it doesn’t seem quite right, but in my mind the ladies were selling these faux carnations. We received 3 – white for Daddy and red for me and Mommy. Remembering this transaction means this memory happened only a couple years but they were obviously poignant years. It was after Grandmommy died and before Dorothy died. (Mommy’s mother was always identified by her first name instead of any version of Grand Mother.)

And for a period of time, I remember the 3 carnations – one white and 2 red – carried a little bit of pride and a little bit of sadness. I was sad that Daddy had to wear a white carnation, but he seemed to wear it proudly. And I took on that emotion and carried it as if it were my own. I was sad that Mommy wore a red flower and as she pinned it on her left side she’d always say, “I don’t know if my mother is dead or alive so I will wear red. I hope she’s still alive.” She was sad, but hopeful to some degree and I took on that emotion, added it to Daddy’s, and carried it as if it were my own. And then she pinned my red flower on my left side, and I was proud. My mommy was still alive, and I saw her every day and I knew for sure that she loved me. I chose to put my feelings in my back pocket, carrying my parents’ emotions as an expression of loyalty. Even though she received the tissue carnations from the church ladies, we usually wore a different faux flower, a pretty one that Mommy bought, to go to Mississippi.

If my memories are accurate, we went to Corinth and Rienzi in Mississippi – the place Daddy always called home – every Mother’s Day until I graduated high school. I don’t remember the years before Grandmommy’s death vividly – just little flashes of only her like when she saved me from a grasshopper and would have to call me out to come and greet her because I was too shy to just jump in and hug her when we got to her trailer on my uncle’s land. I’d hang outside the door or against a wall, maybe hiding behind Daddy’s leg until she asked about me.

We dressed in our Sunday best, I remember Daddy wearing his clergy collar and I felt like it made him royalty for a Sunday. We’d get into the car and drive toward the country. We would make one stop before heading to church – the church I always believed my entire family for generations belonged, even though truthfully I don’t know for sure how many generations before my father’s attended that church.  We’d stop where Grandmommy was buried, beside the grandfather I never knew and Daddy would go alone. Then we were off to Mount Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church. On the way to finding a seat we’d speak to everyone – I told you I felt like Daddy was royalty that day, greeting all of the parishioners who seemed so excited to see him. I determined after all those greetings that we were related to no less than half of the congregants. Daddy preached the sermon. My aunties and cousins sang in the choir. My uncle was a deacon and usually led devotion. After the service was over we spoke to the people we missed or who arrived late. This is when I tried to figure out how I was going to ride to my uncle’s house with my uncle. Most of the time that meant finding his wife, my auntie, because she always just told me I was going with them. There was no asking permission and no risk of hearing “no”. Uncle would always call me his “pretty little niece” when we greeted and for some reason my braids and shoes didn’t feel so tight anymore. We’d head to my uncle’s house where I’d change into my shorts ensemble to play with my cousins. Sometimes we ate at my auntie’s house in Corinth and sometimes she came to my uncle’s house in Rienzi. The fried chicken – Grandmommy’s recipe – was the star of the meal for me. After filling up on dinner and getting to have sodas – pops – without permission (carbonated water irritated my system so they were off limits) I spent the rest of the day playing with my cousins. We’d return to the city (Memphis), and we’d do it all again in one year’s time. Nothing about that day meant Mother’s Day to me. It might as well have been called Mississippi Day.

When I was 6 or 7 years old, Dorothy surfaced. She was dying of cancer and the family who had been estranged to Mommy for what seemed my entire life were calling her to California. After what felt like an eternity of Mommy sitting at her mother’s bedside, she came back home to me. But Dorothy took another turn without Mommy with her, was refusing to obey some doctor’s order – like eat or something – and was calling for Mommy to return to her. I wanted to go but she was going for an indefinite period of time and I had school. Dorothy died a few days after she returned to California and it ended up being about 2 weeks from the time she returned to California, Dorothy died and was cremated, and Mommy returned home to me. The next 4 or 5 Mother’s Days, mommy wore a white flower. Even though she seemed sad, she also seemed relieved to a degree. She would shed a couple tears, but I think just knowing for certain whether Dorothy was dead or alive was enough. I also think whatever happened in Dorothy’s last days allowed Mommy some closure if not a repair of over 40 years of a challenging mother-daughter relationship and she could more easily wear that white flower.

Two weeks after my 13th birthday, I lost my own mother. That first Sunday going to Mississippi the only assertion of my own rights (as opposed to unspoken rules) was to wear a white corsage, one that chose and found beautiful, and I wore a white dress. Even though I had been sitting alone at church services for about 5 months, that Sunday felt particularly lonely. And it was the last time I would wear a white flower. The main reason was because that white flower served no purpose to me and all it did was made me angry. But the secondary reason was because people – I think Daddy was one of them – told me to wear a red flower because I had a step-monster the next year. I hated the entire system of red and white flowers and determined to leave Mother’s Day on the calendar as simply the 2nd Sunday of May and Mississippi Day. Who the hell thought I was supposed to replace my white flower with a red one because of a step-monster? Did no one see that it meant replacing my mother and dismissing that she ever existed? Why didn’t anyone think of at least saying I should wear 2 flowers to represent both women? I wouldn’t have but at least they wouldn’t be suggesting that I erase my mother completely and embrace the monster that my father married in her place.

I tried to pass on some love for Mother’s Day to the other “mothers” in my life. I tried to come up with something to honor Sissy because she was a mother. I always made sure to tell Ms. Bell because she loved me with a mother’s heart and hand, but she was gone I believe just about two years after my mother. But it soon felt that acknowledging other mothers meant dismissing my mother further. It highlighted her absence and was painful. I would be in my 20s before I realized I needed help for my grief and I was going to have to find it for myself – professional help. Until then whenever I remembered Mommy, I felt the exact same trauma and pain that I felt the moment I found her. Once I had been alive longer than I had had her in my life, I determined the pain should have lessened over the years and that it was a problem.

After finding more peace with the loss of my mother and dealing with the associated trauma, I still found I hated Mother’s Day. For at least a week prior, everyone from the checkout counters in stores to the man who detailed my car, wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. And people who knew I wasn’t a mother came up with a list of reasons I should still be recognized as a mother – aunties and sisters and nearly all women were recognized as a mother for Mother’s Day. And in addition to highlighting the fact that Mommy was gone, I was reminded that years were ticking by that I imagined I would have had my own kids. And then I’d approached the age where I’d decided that I would give up on biological children and began grieving my children who didn’t exist and a dream I’d had since I was 11 years old. So, I started staying indoors on Mother’s Day avoiding social media, heartsick.

What happens to a dream deferred? Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life. (Langston Hughes, Harlem plus Proverbs 13:12 AMP)

The only joy I find is knowing that my niece and nephew make sure to celebrate and honor Sissy. I hate carnations and sometimes have peonies in a vase on the day for myself – my favorite flower. I celebrate Mommy’s birthday as Mother’s Day, my Mother’s Day, instead of the 2nd Sunday of May with cupcakes and champagne and tulips – her favorite flower – when I can find them (her birthday is in fall). And I wish the mothers in my family a Happy Mother’s Day on the Monday after.

I hate Mother’s Day.

10 Min Read, COVID, Fasting, Holidays, Spirituality

I am fasting in a time of feast.

Regina Lynette

When I experience emotional pain, I build a fort around myself in an attempt to feel safe. I don’t generally respond this way for sudden and traumatic experiences that cause pain but in response to the microaggressions, sarcastic and sardonic remarks, insults delivered with kind tones, and all the other little pin pricks that wear away at your resolve on a daily basis. For me, this fort manifests in different ways. To keep myself safe from my own thoughts I keep the television on as much as possible, only turning it off to focus on a game that requires little skill but keeps the mind engaged. To be safe from people coming too physically close, I allow clutter to accumulate, not only making it an unappealing space to share but also literally leaving no space for anyone to get close. To avoid spending time with people who don’t treat me with respect, I get deeply involved in secret projects where I have to deny invites with cryptic excuses and sometimes outright lies.

When the fort I build around myself becomes a prison – junky rooms, mountains of paper on my desk, isolation and loneliness – I have to begin to deal with the pain in more constructive ways. I have to allow myself room to think which means having some quiet time – no listening to anything, no talking to anyone. I have to clean up and organize the chaos and mess. I have to stand up for myself and demand respect when necessary as well as give of myself to others who value and love me and let them in.

Along with the entire world, I thought that COVID-related challenges would be temporary. I never believed that we’d close down for two weeks and resume business as usual as many people talked about just before April 3, 2020 – the start of confinement where I live – but imagined it would be closer to two months and I was hoping that I was being overly pessimistic about that much time. Never could I have thought that I would be masking up seven months later with no end in sight. I found myself drinking too much because I mixed cocktails at home rather than going out to have one or two a month on average. My at-home pour is heavy and when I stepped back to look at monthly expenses, I couldn’t believe how much I was spending monthly on alcohol. I am now addicted to lemon pepper chicken wings and coffee. I eat bacon and eggs literally every day. And my grocery and eating out expenses have tripled. I have cancelled doctor appointments for anything preventative – I am at high risk for various cancers and have not had any regularly scheduled preventative screenings. I haven’t had professional dental cleaning and x-rays. I haven’t had my hair professionally styled. I look and feel a whole mess. And my confinement is showing symptoms of agoraphobia.

I refuse to enter 2021 in this weakened state, so I am taking a 40-day fast from November 22nd through December 31st.  

I don’t typically fast during the end of the year winter holidays because it is a time for feasting – October: candy; November: Thanksgiving; December: my birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. It’s a time to enjoy extended family and indulge in mac-n-cheese, brown liquor, and pound cake. It’s a time to watch holiday movies and catch winter finales of my favorite series. Holiday music is a constant soundtrack of the season. And it’s a time to dismiss the insensitive remarks from family and friends for the sake of creating pleasant memories.

Because I have no idea what the holidays will bring – I forgot when Halloween happened until I looked at the date on that day and we totally forgot that Thanksgiving is upon us – I am doing a modified fast. While I’m not missing out on my sister’s mac-n-cheese and tropical pound cake that only makes an appearance twice a year, I have a list of foods that have become a comfort and a crutch that I will be abstaining from during this time. I’m limiting my television time to one news show, one feature length film, and one hour of sitcoms a day – I will not miss out on my annual viewing of Miracle on 34th Street, This Christmas, The Preacher’s Wife and It’s A Wonderful Life.

Since there will be no travel or visitors during the holidays, I will be completing several declutter challenges to get my space in order, and thus get my life together. My holiday decorating will be limited to my Advent calendar, turning on the birch trees that stay up all year, and glimmer strings in my lanterns and on my shelves – which means the only thing I’m pulling out of storage will be 4 DVDs and my Advent calendar. I also have some organization projects related to work that I will be tackling during this time – I look forward to seeing the top of my standing desk and emptying the storage bins where I dumped things I haven’t sorted.

I won’t have to make a lot of time to avoid people and have meaningful times of silence due to COVID-related restrictions, but I will be making some strides against the cabin fever and agoraphobic-ish reactions that are becoming harmful to my spirit and mental stability.

Every day I will get outside for some movement – temps where I live are like Spring and Fall with very little rain so I have no excuses there. Every day I will run an errand using the necessary precautions versus having everything delivered. And I plan to go to the beach at least once a week, likely on Sundays for some quiet time in nature and time to write.

With these sacrifices, I expect to tear down my fort of safety and the self-made prison so that I can receive spiritual rejuvenation and answered prayers that will bolster my resolve and give me strength to tackle 2021 come what may.