Faith and focus

I have this overdue submission for a class. It's supposed to be funny. Now if you told me to write about my dead grandmother I could tell funny stories, make snide comments and genuinely be unable to be serious for long. Tell me to be funny and suddenly I am the incarnation of a third grade jokester or an overly serious nun.

I think about where I get my inspiration from in my writing. The style, the content, the voice. There are many sources, but the biggest (and strangest) always guides me through what I am saying. My greatest writing inspiration isn't Eugene O'Neill or Gloria Steinem, it's the Baptist preachers I listened to as a child.

Now, in the 'hood, church and Sunday school are very popular. It's nice to believe in something when the table's empty. That's true. And belief in God and faith carries people through. That's true too. But here's the harsh truth, folks: in the hood the church is some free babysitting. Period. There, I said it. Now I have officially reserved my place in hell.

I sat in the pews as my parents slept in and my cousins fell asleep, listening to the sermon and being absorbed by it. It was rather intoxicating. The preacher would take a current event and make it universally apply to everyone's life, bring it through the Bible and leave people with something to think about. Unfortunately, few were away by the end except for the old ladies fearing The End and me – a weird kid.

It took a lot of heart and thought to do what those preachers did every week and an ability to critically look at life's events and ask what greater lies in simple daily things. It's something I found really lacking in the Catholic church and something that always made me respect the aim and thought of the Baptist faith, even if that faith didn't work for me and the metal detectors at the door got my voodoo dolls confiscated every damn time.

I try to do what those preachers did, both for myself and to give my writing focus and meaning. Only difference is that I try to keep people awake for it. Oh, and that whole god thing.