I am often asked what my religious background is and I never know how to answer or what details to go into or leave out because I get exhausted explaining.

My biological mother was into witchcraft, she had her hands dipped in really dark stuff. It pulled her into the dark side, a little too far. I witnessed three priests exercise her, to relieve her of the grips that had a hold of her. I had just turned six years old. I had set foot in Catholic churches after that episode. 

 It would be an incredible shock to the system moving to Springdale, Arkansas and being surrounded by Southern Baptists. I couldn’t shake the feeling of how horrible these people would treat you if you didn’t agree to get “saved” and the shame they would lay into you about burning in hell for all eternity.. I also just couldn’t get behind that there was this “man-god” upstairs or in a cloud demanding 10% for tithings, especially when your family was living paycheck to paycheck and having food around the house was a luxury. I couldn’t understand why God would allow these Southern Baptist folks to meet in massive buildings that resembled mini-malls, in their nice outfits, guilt trip you and shit talk anyone that was not conforming to their ways. There were some things I enjoyed from the variety of church experiences, the hymns and some of the prayers. But the rest could be thrown out for me. I didn’t appreciate the guilt and the stress of always fucking up. 

I understood at a really young age that there was a force, something otherworldly that was looking out for me. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I knew there was something there.. Almost like a father figure. I had never had a father figure in my life until my late teens. I remember falling victim to one of my mom’s fits of rage, she would often take out my poor little body. I was being beaten with an extension cord cable one day, and I fell to my knees and stopped trying to fight, I started praying.. My mother asked what I was doing and I told her I was praying for God to save me. She left me alone, this meant that this God was of something powerful, that even she feared him. This made me call out to this God more often, I had access to this majestic God. 

Once I was in the backyard of a neighbor’s house, I was waiting for a little girl my age to come out and play. I was intercepted by the older brother, he wanted me to go into the shed with him because he wanted to show me something. Once inside with the shades drawn, he began to take off my clothes and told me to never ever tell anyone about what he was going to show me or that he would sneak into my window at night and kill me and my mother.  He wanted me to lay down on the cot so that he could teach me “about sex”. I remember having this pit in my stomach and thinking that this was a very very bad sign, I called out to God and was able to get away from my captor, he had double-locked the door and I managed to get the locks undone and I ran home as fast as I could.. Was that God looking out for me? Had he come to my rescue? 

When I turned 19 I had this incredibly realistic dream that included Satan and essentially my test of faith, this dream I awoke from had me shaking and crying. It was my recalibration to the true creator, signifying that I was nothing in the grand scheme of things and he was in charge and he was everything. I threw myself in the word, I was a serial church dater because I could not get down with the horrendous hypocrisy. I took what I liked and chucked the rest. Then I made the mistake of joining an extra women’s small group. It sounded harmless and could be a good influence on my life. The first few meetings were pleasant and it wasn’t until I realized I was the youngest person there, not married, no kids… I realized that I had become these bored housewives’s little extreme makeover project. They wanted me to change my appearance, my clothing, my hair color, to cover up my tattoos, to meet a nice “church going” guy. If I showed any sign of resistance, it was the “devil” doing his dirty work and that I needed to do exactly what they said. I didn’t understand why my appearance had anything to do with God and bible study, didn’t God love me exactly how I was??? All this fuss they make in the bible about God knowing the exact number of hairs on your head and that he already knew all the sins you would commit, why were these bitches changing the script??? I disappeared from the group but they definitely sent out their search party. 

When I moved to Little Rock in my 20’s, I found a group of misfits that met up on Sundays, we would read from the bible and have small groups we would break into and study the word and what it meant to us. It’s like they took all of the things I liked about some of the churches I belonged to and made it exactly that. They dressed differently, cursed, and had Mexican food and beers after the service. I made some very wonderful friends at this church.. UNITL I didn’t conform to the pastor’s bullshit ideas, and he fucking blacklisted me to the group! Fucking typical. 

What does “my God” or “Higher Power” look like to me today? In my early 20’s I longed for a dog, I came to work that day and found a puppy in my office. An Irish-terrier poodle mix, that I would name Elvis because my partner at the time would not agree to holler Dracula in our West Little Rock neighborhood. This dog loved me unconditionally and I loved him, I refer to him as my soul dog. He was just so pure and the most loyal thing I have come across in life. I would come home wasted or be hungover the next day and he would just lay as close as possible to me, he never judged me, and he was always wagging his tail anytime I made an entrance. He was there through breakups and funerals, hard days at work, and all of the good times too. Elvis would be by my side for over 15 years. He’s outranked any boyfriend or family member for that matter when it comes to a consecutive timeline. In an assignment from a life mentor, I was permitted to give my “Higher Power” an image that would work for me, I would like to imagine mine as Elvis’s spirit.