CRIME IN T&T

VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION

I was wondering this morning why it was the country I live in is becoming so unfriendly and uncaring. The people at work are so unhappy and unkind to each other and the customers are so aggressive and rude you would wonder if they were taught manners and values. In fact I wonder if they were all dragged up. But what struck me, and down right primitive, was the scene I witnessed at the Gas Station last night.

I was waiting for the cashier to take my money for a coca cola I was buying when I heard 3 loud thuds, when I looked up the security guard was holding the head of an old man and slamming it into the glass windows of the Quick Shop. People started to react and some ran out to intervene, others began a conversation that the man did not deserve that and how could anyone do that to a old man.

I shook my head and wondered, but I recognized that a lot of people have no brotherly love in them, they are reactionary and creatures of emotions. From work to this Gas Station people no longer care about others, survival of the fittest sets in. I bought my coke and left and when I reached home I related my ordeal to my wife. I looked at my family and I wanted to protect them to shield them from the horrors outside the walls of our home.

The thing is only God can keep us safe and I don't need to protect them as God is doing everything, that does not mean I am going to be careless but trusting God and having faith takes all the fear away. S what I experienced yesterday is just one more stage in the degradation of society and the world, its interesting that the more we become civilized the more primitive we become.

For the last week I have been speaking my mind, in the past I would bottle things up and never make a comment but I have been really bold of late. Now God's wonderful hand is in everything and I thank him for making me brave and bold. Today while every thing was crazy I was making myself happy and laughing, which made my day much better. I really believe that laughter is the best medicine.

RELIGION

MY CATHOLIC UPBRINGING
In a past post I spoke about being born into a very staunch Catholic family and how this really messed up my life. Here I want to talk a little about my perceptions and experiences in the Catholic Church. I will probably be condemned for what I write but I really don't care what people think, it's what God thinks that matters.

I was always a very curious child and I was very much interested in furthering my understanding about the Catholic Church. As I grew older I began to question a lot of things which I did not understand and when people could not answer they usually noted that "God made things to be a Mystery" and that "we should not question God or the church". I still wondered why this was so and if God was so loving why could we not ask our Daddy to explain things to us.

I loved to read and my great-grandmother had a huge family Bible that had some really great pictures, this I picked up every time I visited and read all the great stories and the life of Jesus Christ. It was my reading "God Word" that made me feel that my relationship with the Catholic Church was in conflict. I, of course, went into denial; I was being a bad Christian to dare question the religion I grew up in.

So I decided to dive right into my faith and study it. As I grew into my teens I joined a number of Catholic Youth Groups and even became a lay minister reading on the pulpit every Sunday, but something in me said that this was all wrong and I needed to look deeper. I did not have to look far since my observations were certainly showing me that there were glaring black dots on the church I belonged to. I recognized from reading the Bible that God made it quite clear that praying to others including the dead was a waste of time since the only mediator between us and God is Jesus Christ. Of course I was told that we did not pray to dead people but we "asked the dead to intercede on our behalf". Also we did not pray to idol statues they were just representations of the people. But things got more contradictory since no where in the Bible did God say there was a purgatory, since even Jesus in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus noted two major things, one, that there was a gulf separating heaven and hell and that no one was able to intercede or communicate with the dead and the living.

This really showed me that something was really wrong and when I approached the priest in my area I got one hell of a chastisement and yet I still did not get a proper explanation. I just put it down to misunderstanding and I even began thinking when I had reached the age of 19 to become a priest. I began to be counseled by a priest in North Trinidad and I was truly interested and wanted to further my life in service to God. However, I was being pulled in another direction since I wanted to have a family.

So I decided to go to University and it was here that I began to read more about the history of the church and what I learned was a church bent on world domination and intolerant of anyone and anything. They certainly did not represent Christ on Earth. The murders, rapes, perversion and wars were bad enough but the conspiracies, the inquisitions and political intrigue was to much. But closer to home what I observed was certainly not the church Jesus spoke about.

First off there is no where in the Bible that God tells his people to confess their sins to the priests of the land and I wondered why it was we should. The usual answer was that the priest interceded and prayed for us. I wondered if God was deaf or was he so far off that he could not hear us directly. I knew that God was all around us and that confessing our sins to him was far better and more comforting than to a priest. I hated Confession especially telling a mere mortal my dark secrets that only God knew and should be told,even putting aside the fact that, many times, I went to confession the priest would fall asleep or just dispense with a set of penance which usually meant a set of hail Mary's and one Our Father. On a few occasions, the priest told me he committed the same sins and not to worry about it, this included masturbation and having homosexual thoughts.

The priests I grew up with were certainly not models of piety or representative of Jesus Christ. Many I knew seriously talked about people behind their backs, smoke, drank and lied. I also knew a few that repeated people's confessions and laughed at them. There was many a mass where the priest would fall asleep or forget what he was going to say, certainly not divinely inspired, especially when he put the whole congregation to sleep.

When I began to truly be aware of the many wrongs, and I know now that God was calling me out of that corrupt system, I tried for a time to see if I could make a difference from within. However this was a mistake since priests and brothers in the church felt I was mad, possessed and troubled.

I have no regrets about leaving; in fact, when I look at the priest that works with me, I am determined more than ever never to turn back and turn into a pillar of salt. This individual who represents God on earth lies about so many things that he spins the most beautiful webs. He also borrows things without asking and is so racist that he openly declares his dislike for certain races. Many Catholics on staff know about him and still confess their sins to him and he in turn spills all as well as speaks about them in the worst way.

Yesterday, I heard the most interesting thing from a Catholic worker, he noted that people like me who left the church were weak and that we allowed every and anything to pull us away from the true church. I must say I am glad that I got pulled away from that religion, which is certainly man made. I also still hear the promise made by people that "once a Catholic always a Catholic, that I will one day be back", well all I can say to that is they have an eternity to wait.