I know who I am.

When you’re raised in Christianity, you hear about the depravities of your own heart from a very young age. You’re told that sin and bad things are your natural nature. You’re told that you have a natural lean toward indecency and evil. And because of this, you’re told that you need the approval of a domineering, patriarchal god to put you right. 

But now, I know who I am.

In leaving the church, I thought, “if I really am evil, if that’s the nature of my heart, I want to understand. No, I need to understand.” So I ventured on the journey I had been warned against throughout my youth. I took my eyes off the heavens, off of their god who blesses them with good parking spaces, but leaves millions of human beings starving and poor and I set my sights on within. 

And now, I know who I am.

I took a deep dive into the depths of my soul. I sifted through the grotesque layers of pain and grime built up over the years of societal norms; hiding myself, protecting myself. I felt the feels I had hidden away, sitting in the silence of the years of all of the things I thought, but couldn’t think; the things I felt but couldn’t feel, the things I saw but couldn’t see. 

Now, I know who I am.

Where I expected to find evil, I found goodness. A goodness and so deep and so rich, it circled me like the delicate but firm swaddling cloth of a newborn. Not only was I safe, I was love, both in feeling in and in be-ing. Love and goodness is who I am. It is woven into the fabric of my creation, embedded into the DNA of the matter that makes up my physical embodiment. Love and goodness and worthiness flow through my veins and through all of the challenges of this experience, it was that love that kept my heart beating, kept my feet here in this realm, and kept me alive.

I know who I am.

We’ve been stuck in the hell holds of Patriarchy (a system that hasn’t served any of us) for so long we’ve forgotten who we are. We’ve been easily tricked into believing that we are innately evil and in need of a vengeful god and societal norms to set us straight and then (and only then) do we get to live forever in glory. But you are ALREADY worthy of glory and goodness and love. It is where you come from, ingrained into the fabric of your being. 

The power and the mystery and the beauty of the universe lives above us, among us, and inside of us. Pulsating energy from beyond every single day. And it is with that thought I ask, 

Who are you?