Easterisms

I am going to church today. To my lady of lebanon downtown. I have not stepped into a church for 5 years. During that period, I have been vehemently blasphomous.

Disclaimer: this does not mean I am Christian. I am merely using the church for my purposes, which would make me a christian accoring to this definition, lol, but im still disclaiming that I am not. Being a catholic christian entails accepting that jesus, the son of god, died on the cross and rose from the dead to forgive our sin. For me it is not a matter of believing that story or another, but instead it is the issue of not caring to care for either or for the consequences imagined for either. I would rather focus on other material and political issues that surround religion, as an institution. I am a social scientist and obsessed with noting the trajectories of power.

But, being human, I ask, what is it about returning to old songs (ان شاء الله القمحة الي انزرعت بقلوبنا) or old smells (بخور) that makes it ok for dem 'social "Scientists" ' to participate in crazy rituals?

Why did it take me so long to admit in public that I am an Arab with Christian family? What is so shameful about liking christian songs (which I thought up to now that I didn't)?

I think I have been obsessed by changing my own politics and convincing my family and friends that I am totally dedicated to an anti-imperialist socialist project that it became important to represent myself as an emotionally awake but religiously amnesiac person. This sucks! and now that I am dedicated to a no-bullshit project (more on that later), I am interested in the truth as I see it now and the truth is that I still cry to some christian songs that remind me of my childhood and that it is fucking ok to go to church and that this does not have to be a secret mission. It has never been cool to be a christian arab, which is how i was read as i grew up in jordan. I will not accept disclaiming all my life to preserve those sanctified images of an activist or social thinker.

Disclaimers aside, no shame, I am going to church. Wish me luck