III

continued from here, started here

In a move hastened by being a young man in want of a better situation, as subjective as 'better' is and was, I left Trinidad and Tobago and dived into Irving, Texas. The college application to DeVry Institute of Technology asked for my religion, and I remembered wondering about that. As I recall, the cop-out was "Other". So I used that. This was to become my standard response to race and religion. "Other". And when they asked for an explanation I wrote in, "None of the above".

The first few years back in the United States were almost completely clean of religion, though there were some interesting points. One friend claimed to be an atheist but it was apparent that he was a poorly adjusted Christian.... living in a Christian dominated society. The parents of some friends who were around sometimes queried me on religion and I came up with some very creative answers - but most of the answers were answers of conformity rather than answers.

A few incidents stand out. One was where someone in one of my classes started thumping his Bible. So in a very serious way, I asked him if in his discussions with God that he could mention the dumpster in our living area (an apartment complex) that was overflowing. Maybe God could take care of it since DeVry administration and the apartment complex seemed powerless in dealing with this chronic problem.

That very night, as luck would have it, the dumpster appeared to spontaneously combust. Well, really, no one knew whether it had combusted. My roommate and I watched the fire department show up. The next day, I told the Christian fellow that God had certainly taken care of that dumpster. He didn't know what to say. I laughed, and I don't think we ever spoke again.

God, as it were, continued clearing that dumpster with fire until the local authorities could get the dumpster's clearing done on a regular basis. God works in mysterious ways, you see.

Another time, a supposedly staunch Muslim friend from Turkey was having dinner with a few of us, and I pulled him up when he ordered some ham. "Ham is pork". He wondered how I knew, so I told him that I had grown up around Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago. I told him I had no problem with him eating pork, but if he was going to tell people he was a good Turkish Muslim he might want to eat less pork to retain his credibility. We laughed. I rarely saw him after that; when walking through the campus he always found somewhere else to be. It seems that he wasn't OK with knowing someone else knew. I imagine he still ate pork, drank alcohol and did all the wonderfully mind expanding things that colleges in the United States are noted for.

When I left DeVry in search of meaning beyond being 'asked' to wear a tie to class and to pay more every semester for tuition, the world opened up a bit more. Granted, it was not in me at the time to put up with syllabuses. Sure, I read a lot - if you were to ask anyone from that period of my life, they would say that I was always reading as well as playing chess with myself. Yet I still remained social.

For a while, I worked at a 7/11. It wasn't a great job, but it was a fun job - I typically worked the midnight shift on request because I liked observing the sort of fun and interesting people that showed up at those hours. The cocaine people would zip through the store with their Wayfarers on. People on ecstasy would touch everything in the store. People on LSD would laugh uncontrollably, sometimes for hours, and would eventually buy some orange juice before leaving. The bloodshot eyes of the stoners would be attached to hands holding a wide spectrum of munchies. You could have fun with them, too. Sometimes I'd use my fake Indian accent with a wig of long brown hair and some goofy shades. And when I did that, all of the weirdos were OK with me. The few, the normal people, just... left quickly.

But in observing all of these people, their interactions, their predictability... it was apparent that there was something that tied them together aside from the obvious. I puzzled over this for years. I still haven't figured that out completely.

Now, if you want to have some real fun - anyone on such self-medication has a few interesting things to say about religion. Most of it was a lot of propping up of their own faith or lack of it, but sometimes they would come up with some gems. Things like, "God is a donut", "Religion is like... deep... and they won't tell you the secrets unless you give up your right to reproduce", and, perhaps my favorite, "Do you think God likes original or double-stuffed oreos more?"

One Sunday, a pastor showed up from a church nearby. I don't know what denomination. The store was empty - it was early in the morning - so when he cashed out his coffee, he said that he was sorry that I had to work on a Sunday when I should be able to get to Church. So I said, "God doesn't pay my bills, and churches typically want money. So it's better to earn than be leeched."

Dumbfounded, he stared at me. I couldn't leave well enough alone. I asked him, "How do you say that everyone is a sinner, but you devote yourself to the one place where the people who claim to be better than everyone else congregate in their fancy clothes and disdain anyone who shows up in poorer clothes?"

He excused himself. Apparently he needed more coffee to deal with early morning theology.

I took other jobs here and there. I ended up doing a spirit walk in New Mexico where I was invited, oddly enough, for Thanksgiving. My totem is supposed to be an owl. But I never went into anything resembling a church - not for a wedding, not for a funeral, not for a mass, nothing. I had people claiming to be Warlocks next door to me for a while; they were interesting but they could never conjure themselves out of their circumstances. So the devil doesn't work very well either, which is sort of disappointing because that would mean that God is just as real. Prove God, prove the Devil - and vice versa. No God, no devil. No devil, no God.

Once some Jehovah's Witnesses showed up at the door and I answered with '666' written in red on my forehead - I begged them to come in but they begged out of it. At least they stopped knocking on my door.

And then I joined the Navy, which in and of itself wasn't very religious by itself. The highlight of boot camp in the context of religion was a conversation with the Chaplain:

"Seaman recruit, why don't I see you on Sundays?"
"Sir, I have more comfortable places to sleep, sir."
"Honesty. I like that, but keep it to yourself next time."

But once I got my training - and training, and training - I had more time to read. In fact, the very foundation of the KnowProSE.com quotation book was started during this period.

In later years in the Navy, I worked in the Emergency Department in a hospital and out with the Marines. In these instances, God would pop up in conversation most when people felt least in control. People live, people die. When they live, they thank God and the staff. When they die, their families blame the staff and don't blame God. They'll even sue the staff. I can only assume that since there is no precedence for lawsuits against God, no one has actually sued God. You can sue a corporation - a legal entity - but God's got no address to leave a summons for. Faith based entities are immune to the Law. Some say that this is because the Faith-based entities created the Law.

At the tail end of my stint in the Navy, I encountered Buddhism. And when I read Buddha's teachings, it made sense. Basically, everyone has to find their own way - which to me makes quite a bit of sense. It can be used as an excuse for just about anything, too.

So at the end of all of this, I started telling people I was a Buddhist because of one particular quotation:

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Heresy to most, it seems. Even some Buddhists.

to be continued