A little more about me ~ warning some of what I've said may "offend"

        

For those of you who don't read my journal often ~ maybe there's a few things you don't know about me.

 

1) I love to cook, I love to bake... if I had more time I'd do it constantly, if I had more money I'd buy kitchen gadgets galore along with spices, herbs - hunt down very different ingredients and recipes that most people in this part of the U.S. don't have or couldn't even imagine.  I'd redo my kitchen to be the most efficient, warm, comfortable place imaginable. 

I don't care for people to be in the kitchen with me when I am cooking - it's something I enjoy doing by myself; at times it's just the therapy of it that fulfills me.  I'm very critical of my own cooking and rarely do I eat what I cook or bake beyond the first couple of bites ~ yet I'm always anxious to find out other people's thoughts, how it tastes to them etc.  I enjoy finding recipes and discovering things from other cultures also, India, Portugal, Spanish, Hungarian, Cuban, African (NOT the "white" African, but the "True" African), Soul Food (Southern Food in America), English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Korean, Thailand, Chinese, Japanese, Russian even Native American!  The only one's I have NO interest in are Mexican, German.

 

2) I adore reading.  I have been a avid reader since a very early age.  I can remember coming home from the school library with as many books as I was allowed to check out.  When I went to the public library I would bring home bags of them (books) and read, read and read.  Since my childhood wasn't very happy and I was more often alone (never really had friends) I'd read and go to the other world's and realities that they allowed me to visit, sometimes I never wanted to leave those worlds.  There is one book I remember from a young age that I have read over and over again, it was called "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew"  it was kind of like "Little Women", "Little Men" ~ you know, the Louisa May Alcott books... it was a world where sisters and brothers loved each other, where times were hard but they always made it, their mothers/fathers were respected and loved their children, kept them safe.  It wasn't something I had in my own life so I found it in those books. I lost that book somewhere along the years and about 5 or 6 years ago I found a copy again, so I have it in my book collection.  I remember when I was a early teen and the book and the movie "The Exorcist"  first came out ~ there was such a ruckus raised about it, protect your family! it was evil etc. etc. etc.  even then I didn't put much hmmm what's the word? heck ~ I just didn't believe them ~ things like that only have power over one if you let them and I didn't.  I was never afraid or intimidated by things of that nature; so me, being the rebel I was snuck the book from my mother (it was ok for her to read but not for me? made it an even more tempting target lol) I read that book over and over again and it never, ever bothered me ~ I just couldn't understand the hulaballoo about this book.  It was fantasy, even at that age I didn't believe in the Christian devil, still don't ~ same thing with the book "The Omen" that never bothered me either  lol  I even dug out my mothers bible and followed along in Revelations and thought oh jeez.  Of course I didn't read JUST books of that genre' ~ I read autobiographies, biographies, anything I could get my hands on about anthropology, archeology esp. Egyptology...history ~ European and American, even some Asian. All things about the Native Americans etc.  so, yes ~ I read a lot.

 

3) (warning, this part may offend some people but it is how I see things and what I believe and NO, I don't feel like this about every Christian, but the majority of them I do)

I've always been a rebel as far as my Spirituality ~ my mother went through every branch (denomination) of Christianity that you can think of almost in her own search for whatever it was she was searching for ~ so in the course of my life I've seen a lot about the religion that I had no respect for, there were very few Christians that I had/have met over the years that epitomized what being a "true Christian" , or behaved, thought, lived in a fashion that the Christian Jesus would have wanted them to.  I found that the religion was taught in a lot of cases through fear, threats, brow beating, hate, ignorance etc. etc. frankly? to me ~ any religion that teaches that the only way the Higher Power, The Creator, God, Jesus will love you is from appealing to your sense of the unknown, your sense of " I will go to hell if I don't DO this", the fire, the brimstone, the absolute control and patriarchal belief that women are a lesser being or someone that should "cleave" to their spouse no matter what, that the man is the BETTER of the whole? is bullshit.  I want NO part whatsoever of a religion that espouses the leaning of faith through fear and intimidation.  Of something that will take advantage of a person's being down and out in order to control or "up" their membership by "saving your soul" ~ Not to mention the hypocrisy that is so much a part of every belief out there, not just Christianity.  Nope, to me FAITH is what is in the heart, what is there without having to see physically ~ it is just there.  You don't need a building to be a church or a place of worship.  You could stand in the middle of a dung hill and it be a "church" ~ just so you know, I've read the Bible front to back quite a few times.... and frankly if Jesus is seeing how the majority of his "followers" behave? he's crying his heart out in sorrow.

One of the people out there who I truly respect as far as their faith is Marie ~ from "Marie's Muses" ~ I don't believe as she does? but she respects my choice to believe as I do and she is truly a kind, warm person.

I'm getting  off of this subject because I get too angry with it.

No matter WHAT  your belief system is? the fact is we ALL need/do have FAITH in something...mine is just different than the majority of yours.

 

Okay, enough for now.  I've shared too much as it is. Hugz*