I WANT A RELIGION

   I want a religion that doesn’t forbid me, but that teaches me; that doesn’t incriminate me, but offers me solutions; that doesn’t repress me, but that teaches me to find better means of expression; that doesn’t condemn me, but that offers me an adequate sense of justice; that doesn’t abash me, but that puts me close to the Creator of Life. I want a religion that let me smile on Sunday mornings, allowing my prayer to be the look for nature. I want a religion that, on the darkest day of my living, from it I don’t remember when feeling afraid and, on it, don’t shelter myself like a child in infant consolations. I want a religion that motivates me to offer roses to the sick and to bring happiness to burials, and to cry only when knowing the pain was understood and that the dead is alive and well. I want a religion that guides me to revere innocence and applaud standing those that respect the wisdom of the elderly. I want a religion that I can find with whomever I am, wherever I go, even in the heart of those who hurt and scream, imagining they’re right. I want a religion that shelters those who take the risk of living and bless those who are lost in the dark labyrinths of their own ignorance. I want a religion that can be felt in compassion, be it with the abundance of the thriftless or with the misery of the seemly incapable, not lacking me the needed solidarity. I want a religion that makes me feel like brother to those who displeases or takes my hope away, also to those who revere me, innocently. I want a religion that takes away the veil of my blindness without taking away my whole ignorance, teaching me to the continuity of learning. I want a religion that doesn’t exclude or stigmatize any creature, nor creates castes of elected or saved by the adoption of logical principles. I want a religion in which chants and liturgy include the voice of the soul and the pulse of hearts, for one day, when I don’t need anything else, I find myself.

Translation and picture choice by Flau Fontenelle.