Resisted The Calling To Be A Religious Minister.













I am not a preacher nor a holy roller. Also not wild or reckless. 

 I'm turned off by most organized religion because they're organized to quell calls for realizing my/our divinity, dignity, safety and autonomy. 

 Where other advocates dismiss the spiritual as a means to keep people asleep, and I was perilously close to this conclusion, my understanding of spirit is that it's the power we in the grassroots need to awaken our community. 

Spirit can't be rationed by bureaucracy nor priced out of our reach by carnivorous capitalists. 

 Spirit keeps us going when being beaten down by external degradation and internal depression. 

I've always felt spirituality is a private matter but nonetheless that spiritual people can collectively change reality. 

After years of hiding spirit as free safety creation (protecting God given dignity), giving out food or drink to the homeless and almost homeless working poor (feeding God given bodies), I've concluded that mobilizing grassroots spiritual people is as valid as my mobilizing folks to create safety against violent traitors and indifferent police officers in our community. 

However, when God told me (no, I'm not crazy, lol) to become a 'prayerful panther' drawing on grassroots spirituality and the Black Panther legacy, I had to reply, "I'm not a preacher." 

A long standing joke of mine, and truth, is I can't be a religious minister because my temper is too bad. 

I didn't think it would look good for folks to see a religious minister version of me arguing with disrespectful members of the community. 

But as a secular minister, spiritually guided but not figuratively wearing holy robes, I'd have the latitude to address negativity *ahem* bluntly. 

I've resisted the call of religious ministry for a lifetime but am a secular one, a 'prayerful panther' mobilizing other grassroots spiritual strivers to address earthly needs and injustice. 

Spirit demands it. 

Cap Black.

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