What Is Real? Who Is Real? Be Real.

I finally went to church. Now, what I saw was an experience that I never had witnessed before. However, let's start with why I went to church in the first place. I like a girl. Yes, I like the girl who goes to that church. So, I figured, she and I always talk about God and The Bible. My belief system is heavily influenced by Jehovah Witnesses, Performance Art Education from California University of Long Beach, Soviet Education, and a weird life experience that keeps throwing me all around the world. And I wanted to understand better her way of connecting to God. Now, her current church is located in the very poor neighborhood of Philadelphia where you can park anywhere and get no ticket. That should give you a good idea of how poor the neighborhood really is. However, once I got into the church, I was quite surprised by their sound system that probably costs a lot of money. I can't really complain about it because I really enjoyed the music they played. Although, I kept wondering why most of the songs we sang were about our hardships rather than God's glory. Although, we did sing a couple of songs about Jesus too. The people that came were extremely tired. I could see on their faces and bodies the burden of daily routine. Young and old people tired of doing things without going anywhere. Well, I can't blame them. One young woman experienced an emotional outbreak and collapsed on the floor. Her child was taken away from her for safety reasons. She screamed and cried her soul out. I mean if I did not know about the trans state that people fall into in some culture during the rituals, I would think she needed some serious help. However, in five minutes she was back on her feet gently holding her little daughter in her arms. There was a young guy laying flat on his stomach right in front of the room with his palms up and his face stuck into the dirty carpet while crying and kicking his legs during the song about forgiveness and ability to get back to normal life. There was a nice guy sitting by my side with a very nerdy look. His whole body kept going through short convulsions every time a chorus was being played. Then at some point he stood up, walked into the back of the hall, collapsed on the ground, and just laid there for ten minutes before getting back to his seat. There was a young girl executing cheer-leading type of dance the whole time right in front of the stage with a stick that had a purple piece of material on it. She had a lot of moves too.

As a man who gets distracted by visual effects easily, I had a hard time to focus on my own spiritual experience. All I can say that I realized that all of these people highly enjoyed expressing themselves and releasing their emotions freely by sharing their deepest experiences with God that they came to worship. I, on the other hand, kept being mad at myself for being so interested in observing others rather than finding my own groove. Well, when the singing part was over and their guest preacher started delivering a powerful motivational content supported by his life stories and quotes from the Bible, I had a hard time concentrating as well. He apparently got arrested at an airport in Italy for caring a souvenir in his bag. For three long days and nights they kept him, an American citizen, in jail of high security where one of the guards spoke perfect English and helped him to stay safe. On the third day, he somehow got released. I am sorry for the vague quality of this story but we were never given more details on his miraculous escape. All I know is that he is doing great and keeps inspiring people with his ROARING VOICE and CONTAGIOUS ENERGY to KEEP ON BELIEVING. He even prophesied that in near future I will be telling people what to do because I have some special talent of engaging people. Now, that's impressive. He never saw me. How does he know I can engage people in doing things?

So people sang, dance, cried, laughed, and clapped. No, we did not read the Bible if that's what you were waiting for. But people did use their cellphones to record things they thought they would need to look at or listen to during the week in order to stay optimistic and motivated. I just decided to use my writing skills and memory to share with you what I saw. And all I saw is that poverty in America is the most miserable poverty in the world because we have no excuse for having a system that literally lost a human face. Now, whatever your take on it is solely up to you. All I know is that I still like the girl and we now feel way more comfortable to talk about things that matter to us. I am not sure if I go back to that church but I know that I will keep fighting for creating opportunities to express myself. After all, we are all real; and we all have real things to express; and we all need real love to share. Be real.