Becoming

When I grew up I was told I could become what ever I wanted. So, liking boy’s things, I choose to become a boy and was utterly disappointed that this didn’t happen. So I wished to become black, some how I thought that would make me feel save, this too didn’t happen. By then I got the message. But I still wasn’t happy with what I was and started to search for something that would. Coming from a non religious up bringing, I was send to a Christian school, the thought being that it would give me something I’d lacked at home. Knowing this I felt I had to look outside my home to find something to fill my inner need for something bigger than me.

In first grade my teacher told beautiful stories about a man called Jesus, and I fell completely in love with him. I had a real crush on Him, I made him drawings and crafted little gifts, but where to send them? A friend of mine did come from a church going family, so I asked if I could come with, she said yes. The next Sunday I put on my best cloths, rolled up my latest drawing and nervously waited for my friend to pick me up. It was my first time in a church and was impressed by the man in front that spoke big words, the songs and people standing up and sitting down on cue’s I didn’t see. Than there was the magic moment that people walked up to the man in front. “This must be the time when I can give my drawing” I thought, I started to get up but my friend pushed me back in to my seat. “This is not for you, you’re not baptized”. She said. I sat there, stunned, what is baptized and what just happened? I wanted to stand up and shout: “hey wait a minute, I’m in love with Jesus here”, but I didn’t dare. I never trusted that church again.

I thought long and hard and came to the conclusion that if the man I loved was a Jew I should become Jewish. But when you’re eight or nine, living in a small rural community with only a Catholic or Protestant church to choose from, becoming Jewish is very difficult. I got as far as wearing the star of David around my neck and refusing to do the dishes on a Sabbath.

I still wore the star when I went to a Catholic high school, I even got suspended for a week once cause I refused to take it off. My parents pleaded with me to comply and that whole incident sparked a new way to try to fill the void I still felt within. I started being openly stubborn and against everything. I think I kept that up for a good part of four years, that too didn’t make me happy. It did how ever bring me to a place where I doubted everything and everybody including myself, which left me completely open for new thoughts and spiritual paths.

I fell into a group of seekers that had seen far beyond my limited rural world, they took me to all kinds of guru’s and meditations, they had me sing to chakra’s and talk to empty chairs, they gave me countless books to read, and put me through all kinds of altered states of consciousness and a whole series of emotions. And when I was completely raw and turned inside out they sat me down on a safu and have count my breath from one to ten, taught me how to move real slow Chinese style and had me overcome many fears moving fast like the Japanese mountain echo.

And now as I write this, I’m still becoming and very happily I always will.