GOD THE FATHER<\/b><\/p>\n
My fifties childhood wasn\u2019t unusual.\u00a0 Yes, there were only three of us in my grade school whose parents were divorced, but that made us special, not weird, that made us friends.\u00a0 Yes, I had experienced unforgettable but minor childhood trauma.\u00a0 Not wanting to go to kindergarten.\u00a0 Scared of the teachers.\u00a0 Afraid to tell the teacher or the librarian I had to pee and instead peeing on my wee self in shame.\u00a0 But, I didn\u2019t know I wasn\u2019t white, not even sure if I knew I was poor, but not being white or poor didn\u2019t ostracize me, didn\u2019t keep the neighborhood children \u00a0from playing with me, even though I discovered only recently that they knew what I didn\u2019t!<\/p>\n
Kids liked coming to our home-it was lived in.\u00a0 We were allowed to play hard. The carpet was worn, the furniture second hand. Plastic didn\u2019t cover our used davenport.\u00a0 Mom\u2019s sewing machine was always in the dining room and pins and needles and patterns on the dining room Duncan Phyfe table.\u00a0 We had a television and a hi-fi.\u00a0 The neighbor lady whose husband worked for Wonder Bread supplied us with Hostess Cupcakes and Twinkies.\u00a0 On summer afternoons we set up a card table in the living room and shuffled maj jong tiles (you could hear the shuffling of tiles a block away) or played Canasta or Sorry or Monopoloy.\u00a0 We had a second hand upright piano on our front porch that we all took turns pounding on, \u201cHere we go up a row to a birthday party.\u201d\u00a0 We played with our dolls.\u00a0 We dressed my baby brother in our baby girl doll clothes.\u00a0 In the winter we had a skating rink in our back yard, in the summer we had a sandbox that covered one-fourth of the back yard, an enclosed playhouse that took up another fourth.\u00a0 We had a stone fireplace to roast hot dogs and marshmallows.\u00a0 In the front yard we played Captain May I and Red Rover Red Rover.\u00a0 We played baseball in the street, only to be kept in when they, once-a-year tarred our street.\u00a0 Being caught ever so often with oily tar on our tennis shoes, shoes we didn\u2019t usually have to take off when entering our home.<\/i><\/p>\n
In second grade my writer\u2019s voice appeared from nowhere.\u00a0 As children, we were taught to be charitable, even though nobody probably knew we were the receivers of charity, of turkeys at Thanksgiving and blonde blue-eyed dolls from the Salvation Army at Christmas.\u00a0 I wrote my first poem in second grade:\u00a0 save your nickels and dimes, Channel 2 needs you, bring your money to school!\u00a0 <\/i>My teacher paraded me in front of each elementary school class where I recited my lines and solicited money for a cause.\u00a0 Later, in high school, when the Church solicited money from our neighbors, asking to help the poor family who needed a new roof on their house, or was it to pay the mortgage, the good Christians gave generously, but that money was never given to my mother, and shame burdened my mother until the day she died.\u00a0 Shame isn\u2019t an isolated incident, shame sneaks up on you, says you\u2019re not worth shit, says it over and over and over again-even if you\u2019re not listening.\u00a0 Even if it takes a lifetime to \u00a0recognize it, to name it.<\/p>\n
My sister eagerly quit confirmation, but I needed the Church.\u00a0 I needed God, my only father.\u00a0 I needed unconditional love and forgiveness, but was love and forgiveness truly abiding in the Church?\u00a0 I stayed a devoted member of the Church, a member of the choir, and later editor of the church\u2019s newsletter.\u00a0 Once, I even got married in the Church. At first the minister wouldn\u2019t marry us because we were living together, supposedly that\u2019s a sin.\u00a0 We lied, said we would separate until the wedding, and had a shot gun wedding.<\/p>\n
Eventually, I ran from religion because of what I believed to be sexist, and racist practices\/doctrines of the Church.\u00a0 I no longer folded my hands to \u201chere<\/i> is the church here is the steeple, open it up and see all the people<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 However my belief, my faith in God and prayer and miracles \u2013in love imagined-remains strong.<\/p>\n
In fifth grade I was a participating member of a poetry club.\u00a0 I was sheepishly proud to see my words on blue-lined paper, mimeographed so all the fifth graders could read: \u201cpitter patter, pitter patter\/ the rain does splatter<\/i>.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0I belonged to a community! By sixth grade, however, my pride falleth.\u00a0 Emotional puberty threw me a curve ball.\u00a0 Although popular enough to be elected student council class representative, I still ache each time I remember having been called to attention by my teacher.\u00a0 Shame.<\/p>\n
She reprimanded me for hovering in the doorway of Standish school, at recess, instead of playing on the playground with all the other kids.\u00a0 How could she not have known what I knew-that no other kids would play with me.\u00a0 That each budding bra wearing sixth grade girl had a guy she was pining for, and a girlfriend to whisper it too.\u00a0 I was pining to be a nun.\u00a0 I wanted to be Catholic.\u00a0 Catholic girls, although not necessarily any more popular than me, they were smart, and they had been confirmed in fourth grade.<\/p>\n
In fourth grade, I expanded my Christian practices by holding a girls\u2019 club, once a week, at our red formica table, in our yellow kitchen with the red cupboards where we hid the ginseng (today I wonder if it was really ginseng or just plain ol\u2019 ginger).\u00a0 Our club was based on Unity\u2019s Wee Wisdom<\/i> magazine.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember, but only can imagine us, nine year old girls, praying together and drinking kool-aid.\u00a0 But, I do remember that my mother, a firm believer by then in the Unity church-that if you sent the church money, they would pray for you.\u00a0 That belief, along with our belief in the Ouija Board, brought our family the answers to many prayers.\u00a0 Unity also taught me to make \u201ctreasure maps\u201d-visual prayers, an added assurance that our needs would be met.\u00a0 That\u2019s probably what my Wee Wisdom Club did, cut and pasted our dreams in the pages of sample books of beautiful, sometimes flocked, wallpaper.\u00a0 It\u2019s what I still do today.<\/p>\n
In fourth grade, my Sunday school teacher asked our class if we thought a Black family should be allowed to become members of our Church.\u00a0 I could only subconsciously have known that I was Black, yet I wondered aren\u2019t I already a member?\u00a0 Shame<\/i>. The family was not allowed to join, but years later, when a new minister arrived, he and his wife arrived with several adopted black children.\u00a0 If I was truly white, if I truly blended in as a child, why are my memories so vivid of knowing what I didn\u2019t know, and didn\u2019t think others knew even though they did?<\/p>\n
Today, the Church I had a love\/hate relationship with has been transferred to Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Church.\u00a0 \u201cThe Oromo (uh-ROH-moh) people are the largest ethnic group in East Africa. Facing persecution by the Ethiopian government, thousands of Oromos have fled to the United States since the 1970s. About 12,000 Oromos live in the Twin Cities area. There are five Oromo churches in Minneapolis-St. Paul; Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Standish Neighborhood is the largest, with 700 plus members.\u201d http:\/\/www.tcdailyplanet.net\/news\/2007\/11\/27\/welcome-oromo-evangelical-lutheran-church-farewell-our-redeemer-lutheran-church<\/a><\/p>\n When I first learned of this beautiful congregation I cried.\u00a0 Tears of joy and forgiveness.\u00a0 And the music (forward through the video to the music) http:\/\/oromochurchmn.org\/index.php\/videos\/video\/march-3-2013 reminds me of my choir days, and even though I couldn’t hold a tune, I loved the music-and my heart sang, and contines to sing!<\/p>\n http:\/\/oromochurchmn.org\/<\/p>\n Our Redeemer merges, deeding building to Oromo Evangelical Lutheran<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n