On Our Knees…
I’ve been reading all kinds of shit lately because my state of mind hasn’t consistently been in one particular place. This used to only happen around the time of my birthday and holidays. Another month has been added to this but it won’t surface for a few months to come. As holiday season resonates all around me, of course I’m reminded of this big, dark essence called family. This darkness is only in relation to my blood relatives. I’m not perturbed by the friends who have become family…and since I get to choose who those people are, if they ever start to become part of the same big, dark blood related cloud, I take it as a sign that something needs to change immediately.
One of the random things I’ve been reading is about John Henrik Clarke. He was a historian, professor, and writer best known for devoting his time and attention to African history. I was reading about his contribution to the Black Power Movement and something he said jolted some childhood memories awake. It was his statement concerning oppression and how can a slave and their master serve the same God.
That simple ass statement made me think about all the nights I prayed on my knees for a way out of my childhood. It made me remember some of the ways I plotted to end my life at a young age to escape the tyranny of my father and the stagnation of my mother. It reminded me of all the books I read to experience a reality totally different than my own and some I read to feel like someone out there could relate, even if it was just from their vivid imagination. It made me think about how everything that I emotionally suppressed as a child was perfectly contained until I had a child of my own and was forced to face it all in order to be a better mother to my daughter than mine was to me.
Amid all of these annoying ass swirling thoughts, the one that kept surfacing with the loudest of energy was the praying to God. My father made a big deal out of praying. There was a specific way to do it and if you didn’t do it his way and a certain amount of times, there wasn’t a guarantee that God was going to listen or receive what you had to say. So on our knees, became the default. The position could change based on your circumstances but I remember being taught that this was the position for personal prayer in your home.
I prayed every chance I got though and in any form I was in at the time the need for prayer hit me. Laying down, while being beat mercilessly, standing up, while people were talking, sitting in the car, riding the bus, using the bathroom, washing dishes, while doing my chores…you name it, I was praying while doing it. The entire time, I was praying to the same God of my oppressor. There were many days and nights I asked this God to save me and my sister but I never heard anything back in relation to “of course I will save you.”
It didn’t matter that damn near half my day would be me asking for help. Those beatings never stopped. I even asked for God to make my mom help him to stop. That wasn’t answered either. I asked for God to put it in other people’s spirit to help him stop. No one rescued us. For a time I even reasoned with myself that maybe I was asking too much for me AND my sister to be saved. Maybe I needed to just focus on myself and THEN work on saving her. That shit didn’t work either.
I eventually stopped praying on my knees as a small act of defiance against what my father had taught me. The prayers weren’t working anyway so fuck it and I felt better doing it my way, while still trying to figure out what the best prayer would be to liberate me from this hell on earth. It wasn’t until I was 14 years old that I decided God was more interested in whatever my father was praying about because even though the beating wasn’t anywhere as close to the frequency as when I was younger, there was still the looming presence that it still could happen at any moment.
It was during a conversation we were having and I guess my eye contact was too intense and it earned me a backhand to the face. While I’m not intimidated or scared of my father now, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t back then…he was almost 6 feet and 5 inches…he was a garbage man, with arms that looked like they could choke horses and massive hands that looked like they could bend iron. Friendly [looking] was never a word I’d ever apply to him…not even now. So imagine being hit in the face by someone of this stature…and this was a first for me. He’d usually only hit me with leather belts and wooden cutting boards made into Boards of Education.
As I felt my face heat up and something warm run out of my nose, it was like a light bulb had been turned on. God was NEVER saving me. I’d have to save myself. I don’t know what stopped my dad at that point because he was never one to hit us once and that be that. It was always excessive amounts of force and repetition so we didn’t forget who was in control and had the power. I do remember him saying, “don’t ever challenge me again”, and walking away. I was confused because how did direct eye contact become me challenging him? I was listening to what he was saying and didn’t want to break eye contact out of fear that he would continue to belabor the conversation or punish me for not paying attention. I couldn’t win for losing.
So God stopped being real to me and became this abstract thing that I now believe we make up to anchor ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there are sentient, celestial creatures out there that are far more intelligent and advanced than humans…but I’m not sure if they see themselves as entities that require our allegiance and prayers. I think we tell ourselves that because it’s easier than figuring shit out ourselves and being 100% accountable for our lives. That’s an entirely different subject though…
At 14, I decided religion was no longer for me because there was no way in hell I’d ever compete for the attention and help of an all-powerful being at the same time someone who worshiped the same God, prayed for whatever was allowing them all of that power over me. I took my life into my own hands and spent the next two years plotting to either end my dad’s life, end mine, or what I eventually ended up doing, leaving what was considered my home.
The two years between 14 and 16 are kind of blurry when it comes to my interaction with him. I stayed as far away from him as possible but still maintained enough respect for him to keep his antagonizing to a minimum. I did pretty good until I started coming home late from school because the bus was breaking down. Anyone who rode AC Transit in the 90s, especially from Skyline High School is well aware of the frequency of breakdowns. He said if I came home late one more time, he was going to beat me. My bus broke down and I knew that was the day I was never going back home…and I didn’t. I knew in my heart, one of us wasn’t getting out of that house alive that day and I had already accepted the fate that would come from ending his life.
So when I think about getting on my knees to pray, it’s attached to an unholy thing. I don’t even pray like I used to. I don’t even look at it the same. In fact, I don’t even like to use the word, especially not in regards to others. I don’t know where these prayers go or end up. There’s no way of any of us truly know…we rely on our belief to solve that answer for us. I talk to the universe because that’s a real thing to me. It’s tangible. I don’t ever assume that it’s always listening or will give me what I want just because I request it. I do look for signs and I do think it’s my responsibility to work for what I want manifested. When things align, I say thank you to myself and any unseen forces that contributed. But it will never be on my knees that I ask or beg for my freedom or anything else. Not ever again in this lifetime.



