Religion and spirituality has
been a cornerstone of my life. I look back over my life and
I  clearly
recognize the workings of God. I didn't always appreciate that.
Christine (my foster mother) use to make us go to church because "God was
helping us" to bootleg and run a "whorehouse" soured me on church
for a long time. I remember how I became Catholic. Every Sunday morning
on the way to church, my siblings and I noticed that the catholics only
stayed in church 1 hour. While we were in the Southern Baptist church all
morning. We realize that Christine didn't really care where we went to
church. So we conspired to become catholics. I remember saying to my Brother
and Sister, "Let's become catholic. . . then we'll only have to stay in
church an hour." True enough, Christine didn't even blink an eyelid when
we told her that we wanted to become catholics. So that is how I was catholic
for 5 years.
Over the course of time, I have professed to be an athetist.. a quaker. . a methodist. While I am still in spiritual development, I realize that God has played an active role in my life. . It is hard for me to imagine a reality in which there is no supreme being. However, belief in God doesn't mean that I accept every aspect of Anglo Christianity as the only truth about God. I believe that God has given us all the capacity to discern her presence and to interpret her truth. That God allows us to experience her through our own cultural and sexual perspective. God has been an important presence
in my life even when I didn't always appreciate her role. The importance
of God in my life as an African American woman is illustrated beautifully
in The Negro National Anthem. Growing up in the segregated south we did
three things everyday in school - say the Lord's Prayer, Sing the National
Athem and Sing Lift Every Voice and Sing (the Negro National Athem):
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