“The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your image when he or she hates all the same people you do.” – Anne LaMott

I cannot tell you how many times I said to my sisters, “you have created God in your own image,” but they didn’t get it. I had never heard of Anne LaMott at the time. It just seemed obvious to me. They would yell and scream at me – as if perhaps that would convince me – that God hates fags. And blacks? A lesser race. Forget indigenous people. They were savages. My sister told me once that if she had her way all Muslims would be wiped off the face of the planet. To this day I am shocked how such different people could come from the same two parents. I don’t get it. I’ll never get it. That’s how I knew they’d been brainwashed into a cult. We were not raised that way. Quite the opposite; we were raised to be kind to all creatures, and treat every person with the same respect.

In my 20’s I started a tradition of taking my Mother to a summer concert, just us two. It was a manipulative way to get her all to myself for an evening. I would pack us a picnic and we would often sit in our car enjoying it after the concert, waiting for the parking lot to clear out. I’d given up buying the less expensive lawn tickets after being caught in a downpour. But I didn’t want to abandon the picnic part of our date.

Mom was a country music fan and over the years we saw some great concerts I never would have experienced on my own. Neil Diamond…Anne Murray…and when Willy Nelson came to Pine Knob I purchased tickets. But I just couldn’t bring myself…so I asked my sister to take her. They brought me a pink handkerchief as a souvenir. I had it framed and gave it back to my Mother, where it hung in her hallway for many years.

In 1993 we had both moved north from the Detroit suburbs, so I chose from the summer concert series at Interlochen. And I chose to get us tickets to see K.D. Lang…because, well, who wouldn’t want to see that icon live?! My sisters got wind of my Mother’s plans and had a hissy fit. How dare I take my Mother to see a lesbian?! My reply was, “well…we weren’t going to sleep with her…we were just going to listen to her sing.” That infuriated them. As usual, I didn’t get it. Thick as I am. But Mom and I had a great time. I hope she didn’t carry any guilt about going.

My siblings and I have very different gods. Mine doesn’t care what you call her. Theirs is definitively a him. And he cares very much how he is named in prayer. Sometimes I envy them their certainty that they know God. My God is magnificently mysterious and unfathomable. Big as all creation and yet personal, loving and kind. So is my faith.

“Maybe a great magnet pulls all souls towards truth, or maybe it is life itself feeds wisdom to it’s youth…” – K.D. LANG