How do I defend my religion? I don’t. I shine the light on the atrocities that Christians in the name of God and Jesus have violently converted brown, black, Asian, Native people. I do not defend Christians’ rights to do so. I do not like evangelizing because of this. I do not want to perform violence on oppressed bodies. Evangelism has been used to excuse violence. I continue to repeat “violence” because I need present [current] Christians to confront what some of our ancestors have done to others’ ancestors within our own faith. Christian sibling, will you support others who follow the same Higher Being? We need to support our Muslim siblings. We cannot persecute them ourselves. You may use God’s teachings as an excuse to protect them, but you must find some reason to protect them.
The person I do not know how to defend is the God I pray to. The non-binary, color of water God I pray to. How do I defend thee? How do I explain why you let the violence happen? Why did you let it happen? Diosita, my love for you knew no bounds as a child, and I am trying to return to that state. I find myself turning to history, turning to my old, old blood. I turn to your own evolution n human eye, Diosita. The ealrist I know of is Tonantzin, in Nahuatl culture. Then you evolved to Coatlicue in Mexica/Aztec culture. Then the Christians came with more blood sacrifices than we knew was healthy, and you became la Virgen de Guadalupe. Juan Diego’s indigenous identity was erased, just as your was. Tonantzin, Coatlicue, Virgen Guadalupe. Your evolution has inspired my type of evangelism. The actual history of your son as a brown man has inspired me. To know that he also would not be safe in this country grants me a strange/weird comfort.
Anger should not be my fuel, how to I convert to love? My anger at racism is because of my love for people of color.
How do I confront the pain under my skin, flowing through my arteries? It is wise to turn anger to love?