Rants to Revelations

First Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Ogun R. Holder. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from Unity Books, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews or in newsletters and lesson plans of licensed Unity teachers and ministers. For information, write to Unity Books, 1901 NW Blue Parkway, Unity Village, MO 64065-0001.

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Cover design: Design, Tom Truman; Photo, Terry Newell

Interior design: The Covington Group, Kansas City, Missouri

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012947660

ISBN: 978-0-87159-363-4

ISBN: 9780871597793

Canada BN 13252 0933 RT

For Jennifer and Joy, who love me in spite of myself.

ACKOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful for the family, friends, ministers and spiritual communities who have supported me in countless ways on my life’s journey. Special thanks to Rev. Eileen Goor (my first Unity minister, mentor, cheerleader, friend), Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd (whose class assignment birthed this project), Alice Osborn (friend and editor, in that order), and my wife and daughter for exemplifying patience during this longer-than-I-promised process.

CONTENTS

Intro

1 - DJ JC

2 - It’s Me, Isn’t It?

3 - God Wants Me to Do What?

4 - What Century Is This Anyway?

5 - Poor Parenting in Progress

6 - Jesus, Santa and the Flying Spaghetti Monster

7 - Loving and Letting Go

8 - I Survived Lent and All I Got Was This Lousy Enlightenment

9 - I Am Awesome!

10 - Find Your Passion, Find Your Peace

11 - You Got This!

12 - We Should Repeal the Law of Attraction

13 - Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is

14 - Better Me, Better Us

15 - Bah, Humbug!

16 - Zombies Need Love Too

17 - This Sucks!

18 - The Church Is Dead! Long Live the Church!

Outro

Endnotes

About the Author

INTRO

Hi.

My name is Ogun.

I’m a minister.

I like to write.

This is a book about me.

This is also a book about God.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t figured out either one yet.

That was probably not what you expected a minister to say. Most ministers who write books are pretty sure about what they are saying about themselves and God. The only thing I’m sure about is that I’m not absolutely sure about anything. That’s not to say I don’t believe in anything—I believe in plenty. But to hold on to a belief for no reason other than I’ve always believed it isn’t healthy on many levels. To throw out a belief at every passing fad is just as detrimental. I reside somewhere in the middle. I believe we should always examine our beliefs, refine them; hone them. Questions are good for that. I like to ask a lot of questions, especially about the things I think I’m sure about. My questions either lead me to a deeper conviction or shake my foundations to the point that I am forever changed. I live in the question.

I’m also a chronic oversharer (just follow my tweets @ogunholder if you think I’m exaggerating). Despite my fondness for volunteering unsolicited life updates, when people asked me what I was doing, I hesitated to tell them I was writing a book. Their response was usually in two parts. First, there was “Really!?” I was never sure if it was a question or an exclamation, or both. Depending on the look on their faces, it was either excitement about the prospect or incredulity that I could possibly have anything to write about. Invariably, the second part of the response was, “What’s the book about?” Here things got a little dicey. At first I used to say “A memoir,” but then I got the “you’re-too-young-to-be-writing-a-memoir” look, which was a thought I’d had myself about a thousand times. Then I started saying, “I’m writing a spiritual memoir,” to which their mouths would say, “Oh, that sounds interesting,” but their faces would say, “What does that even mean? And aren’t you too young to be writing a memoir?”

Sometimes I’d say I was working on a “humorous collection of spiritual anecdotes and insights.” Again, the look. Plus that meant I had to be funny, which, besides assuming too much of myself, is no laughing matter (See what I mean about the assuming?). So then I started saying I was taking some of my blog posts and expanding on them, to which I’d often get, “Oh, you have a blog? What’s that about?” And we’d start the routine all over again. Finally, a good friend asked me, “Do you even know what you’re writing about?” My face said, “Pshaw! Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I know what I’m writing about! How dare you ask?! What kind of friend are you?” Meanwhile, my mouth said nothing.

Wait … aren’t introductions supposed to inspire the reader to delve further into the book? Not sure I’m doing a good job so far, but it’s my first book, so give me some leeway, please. The truth is I’m telling the only story I have the full authority and qualifications to tell: my own. It’s not such a fantastic story. I don’t see a made-for-TV or direct-to-DVD version anytime soon … or ever (although if that were to happen, Taye Diggs is my first choice to play me; the resemblance is uncanny). I think my life is quite mundane compared to other people I know. But it’s the only story I have, and it has its moments. In a word, it’s a story of transformation. In more than a word, it’s a story of how spirituality continues to transform my life into something I look forward to seeing more of tomorrow. Some of those moments of transformation came easily, some not so much, but all are valuable beyond measure.

Spirituality is one of those loaded words. It’s maybe not as loaded as religion; it’s definitely not as loaded as God. When I say spirituality, I’m talking about the presence and practice of God in my life. Yes, I believe we have to practice God since we’re not all that great at it. When I say God, I mean … well, that’s a whole book unto itself, and it so happens I’m writing one! Like every other thought someone has had about God, everything you are going to read is unequivocally and indisputably correct. And it’s also totally wrong. God is one of those things we can only figure out for ourselves, and the closer we think we get, the further we discover we have to go.

I have not been alive long enough to write tomes of life experiences (Volumes II and III, perhaps?), but I have come to a few realizations. For starters, my life is a perpetually unfolding expression of my spirit. My spirit is a perpetually unfolding expression of what I believe about God. What I believe about God … well, that’s the story of my life—a life that began on the tiny Caribbean island of Barbados but would outgrow it soon enough. I mentioned the “practice of God.” I believe that’s what life is: putting God into practice. It doesn’t matter how much we believe in God; everyone believes something about God, and their life is informed by it. You’re about to find out how much my incessantly evolving understanding of God has informed many aspects of my life. My hope is that it inspires you to contemplate the same for yours.

So let’s get this party started …

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

I have no doubt this prayer has been frightening children of all ages since its 18th-century origins. It certainly caused me many an anxious night as I tried to fall asleep without imagining my probable death a few hours later. As I fidgeted in bed, the questions would arise: I could die in my sleep? Why would I die in my sleep? Why would God not keep my soul in my body? Did God have control here? Where was he taking it after I died? Since I’m praying for him to take it, is there a chance he might not? Why might he not take it? What will happen to it if he doesn’t? How do I make sure he does? Who else might be dying in their sleep?

As you can see, I struggled with theological issues at an early age. Thanks to this prayer, the thought that I was at the mercy of God’s whim became embedded at a very formative age. I learned that to stay on the good side of God’s whim, I needed to pray. So I prayed—a lot. I prayed when I woke up, when I went to bed, before every meal, before exams, before traveling, when I was sick, when I was healthy, when I needed something, when I got something, when I lost something, when I found something, when I forgot something, when I remembered something. I prayed for people I loved, people I didn’t like, even people I didn’t know. I prayed when there wasn’t anything in particular to pray about. I prayed especially hard right after I did something that was “sinful in God’s eyes” that the ground wouldn’t open up and swallow me whole (Yes, I actually believed it would!). In my underdeveloped mind’s eye, the prayers were working—life was pretty good, not to mention I kept waking up every morning.

Then I became a teenager, and the whole system started to fall apart. Like any teen, I became increasingly distracted by friends, especially friends of the female persuasion. My time-allocation faculties and event-prioritizing abilities became severely affected by the sudden and abundant influx of hormones coursing through my veins. Since I decided to spend more time talking to girls, or at least coming up with elaborate schemes to get to a point where I could talk to girls (okay, yes, that was how most of the time was spent), something else had to give.

That something was schoolwork, and my grades started to slide. Slide might be an understatement. Perhaps plummet would be more accurate. You would think I’d be smart enough to see the connection, but apparently my common-sense barometer was also malfunctioning. My solution? Pray harder. In the past, I had prayed for academic success and received it, so now that the work was becoming more difficult, I just needed to pray about it more earnestly, and more often. Right? We all know how this ends: I would quickly discover that all the praying in the world wasn’t going to make up for my lack of studying, to the point that I flunked and had to repeat a year of school. Not my finest moment.

It was becoming abundantly clear that there was more of a connection between my efforts and a desired outcome than prayer. So at the risk of putting myself on God’s naughty list, I experimented with not praying. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be for a couple reasons. I was trying to rid myself of an ingrained habit based on an embedded theological perspective. I had a new appreciation for how difficult it must have been to turn the Titanic away from the iceberg.

I was also spending a lot of time in church. It was the center of both my spiritual and social lives. At that time I was allowed to go to three places: home, school and church. I had one home, one school, but I wasn’t limited to one church. I began hanging out with friends at their churches. I began playing keyboards for another youth choir in addition to being a regular musician at my own church. On any given Saturday night, there was a church somewhere having a choir concert with no less than a dozen choirs from other churches. The next week, it might be a different venue, with many of the same choirs. Barbados is an extremely small island, and there weren’t many choirs to go around. So between rehearsals, performances and anywhere from one to three Sunday services, there wasn’t a whole lot of time I wasn’t in church.

It was a highly evangelical experience. Lots of out loud (emphasis on the loud) praying and praising and worshiping and waving and singing and swaying. There were also lots of eyes watching to see if I was doing all the praying and praising and worshiping and waving and singing and swaying that I was evidently required to do, or there would be questions later. So I learned to “pray” without praying. One part of my brain went into autopilot to lead my body through the motions, while the other half was completely focused on something else. If it had been my schoolwork, I would’ve stood half a chance, but alas, it was girls.

It was a highly schizophrenic time. I felt very conflicted. I very briefly entertained the thought of not going to church—maybe for a nanosecond. I knew if I decided to leave the church, it wasn’t the wrath of God I would have to worry about. Hell hath no fury like three generations of strong, loud Christian women who believed it was God’s way or no way, and their son/nephew/grandson was going to church! So my experiment continued. I put on a good show in public and ceased praying in private. As far as I could tell, not praying made no difference. I still woke up every morning. I still had mostly good days. I still clashed with my parents. I still lost things. I still found things. I still traveled safely. I still got sick. I still got better. Both wonderful and heartbreaking things happened to the people I loved and the people I didn’t like. Did I lose my faith? Maybe not entirely, but I know I was losing my faith in prayer. By the time I moved to the United States for college, it was pretty much gone.

For the first couple years, I still put on a good show as a believer, holding strong to his faith. It was all I knew how to do, and I did it well. I was “that guy”—you know, the guy walking around campus wearing the Top-10-Reasons-God-Is-Like-Coca-Cola T-shirt who sang in the gospel choir and was a member of the student Bible study group. By the way, what is the No. 1 reason God is like Coke? He’s the “Real Thing.” Yes, I was a walking propaganda board. Here’s the thing about propaganda: You can only push a message you don’t believe in for so long.

Two pivotal events happened at about the same time that let me finally give myself permission to drop the charade. The family members I was living with moved away, and for the first time in my life, I was truly on my own. Only after they moved did I admit to myself that I was also keeping up appearances for them, and although they didn’t care one way or the other, they were reporting back home. I was also enrolled in an elective course called “The Life of Jesus.” Did I neglect to mention I was attending a Methodist college? This class exposed me to some of the realities of the Bible for the first time, such as the fact that none of the authors of the Gospels were alive during the time of Jesus; that some of those same authors put words into Jesus’ mouth; that some of Paul’s letters weren’t written by Paul; that much was lost in translation and misunderstood outside the context of a first-century occupied nation; that politics played a large part of the construction of the Bible. It was the final straw. I was done with God. It was a textbook crisis of faith. I saw it, however, as freedom. For the next two years, I lost myself in the fullness of the college experience. And that’s all I’ll say about that—no need to share the gory details.

Seven is a particularly mystical number. It’s a number of perfection. There are seven days in the week, seven colors of the rainbow, seven notes in a musical scale, seven wonders of the ancient world, seven original liberal arts, seven continents, seven days of Kwanzaa, Seven Valleys of the Baha’i Faith, Seven S’s of the Nowruz (Iranian New Year), Seven Fruits (Afghanistan New Year), seven deadly sins, seven stars in the Big Dipper, seven pieces in a Tangram puzzle, and let’s not forget the Seven Dwarfs. Therefore, it might not have been by accident that I encountered Unity and its principles seven years into my “experiment.” What an encounter it was!

During my last few months of college, I was beginning to tire of life without a spiritual anchor, and then I met a girl. Not just any girl—the girl. The one who I thought was returning a sense of meaning to my life when, in fact, she was bringing it for the first time. She introduced me to Unity, and while my first thoughts were wondering what bizarre cult I had walked into, my second and third thoughts were, How could I walk fast enough into it to win over this girl? Win her over I did—we got married two years later.

I was also won over, and not just by her. I was enthralled by a new way of experiencing God. It wasn’t an easy transition though. There was a plethora of embedded beliefs that needed to be dug up and disposed of, or at least, addressed. For the first time, I began to see myself as an expression of Divine Blessing—not Original Sin. The concept of being created in the image and likeness of God now made sense. I began to gain a deeper understanding of what it meant to have a relationship with God—it was an inward journey of deepening my understanding of myself. Prayer also began to make sense for the first time. By reading the works of great spiritual thinkers, such as Eric Butterworth, I learned that I was to pray from God, not to God. I learned that my prayers were to be acknowledgments and affirmations of my inherently divine nature, not platitudes to a fickle deity; that my thoughts and words carried the creative power of the universe, no wishful thinking nor soliciting for external intervention.

I started to see that prayers weren’t just words. Any action that expressed my divine nature was, in effect, a prayer. When I was in service to others, I was being a prayer. When I was immersed in any experience that let me touch the depth and vastness of what lay beyond what I could perceive with my senses or imagine with my mind, I was in prayer. When I would sit at the piano and let my fingers effortlessly play notes that transported me deep within myself, I was praying.

Music has always had a certain transcendent ability to express what words cannot. The great composers (and artists of all genres) knew this and have always been able to bring the intangibly sacred to the level of perception. One night I glimpsed a deeper understanding of Divine Love as I listened to Al Green’s¹ 1971 smash hit “Let’s Stay Together.”² I used to hear the opening lines as a pathetic co-dependent plea, one I once lived from—“I am so in love with you, whatever you want to do, is all right with me.” Now I heard those words as a declaration: Together we are standing in relationship from a place of Divine Love, so much so that regardless of your actions, I see the truth of who you are, and I love you anyway, and I love myself enough to know I will be whole. Such an affirmation of relationship has to be a prayer.

What would the world be like, I wonder, if we all lived from such a place? Was this what Jesus meant by “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”? What would he have to say about prayer today? It’s anybody’s guess, but I suspect he would have little to say and much to show. I imagine he would be devoted to creating experiences for himself and others to experience the absolute boundless Presence of God. Being partial to the creative and expressive power of music, I could see Jesus being a musician, weaving perfectly sublime yet primordial melodies that allow us to eclipse space and time and touch the infinite. Or perhaps a DJ, spinning tracks and dropping grooves that let our minds, bodies and souls become a seamless whole as we coalesce into an elemental Oneness. That would be the ultimate prayer.

It was obvious as the plane took off that this guy was not a city slicker, and he was expressing more childhood amazement than any boy ever could. He gripped the seat handles tightly, exclaiming, “Oh, boy … Woo-hoo!” as we took to the air. It was about a two-hour flight, and after 15 minutes of looking out the window then quickly leafing through everything he could read in the seat pocket, he quickly realized what we all know: Unless we bring our own entertainment, commercial flying is just plain boring. He eventually fidgeted himself to sleep after a trip to the bathroom, which he announced was the skinniest he’d ever seen.

By far the most priceless moment was upon landing. As the plane descended, we could see both his excitement and anxiety levels rise. With about a minute to touchdown, he asked, “Are we fixin’ to land?” Upon hearing that we were, he pulled out his cellphone, called a friend, and narrated the entire bumpy landing! It went something like this: “Okay, we’re gonna land … here we go … Oh, Holy Sh**! … pardon my language (to the mom and little girl seated next to him) … Hooweee, that hurt … I’ll call you back.” We were cracking up across the aisle. I doubt the flight attendants would have been laughing since he was bending the rules by using his cell before landing, but they were buckled in and missed the entire episode. It wasn’t my finest moment, and I maintain we weren’t laughing at him but sharing the childlike joy and excitement of first-time travel he was experiencing. Okay … we were laughing at him, but it was a truly humorous sight to behold. Again, I’m not proud of my behavior.