Prerogative of Spiritual Woman - Part I

Ladies, I was baptized in a small Baptist church in Memphis, Tennessee, and truly wanted to connect with God. When there was no connection anywhere, I started practicing agnosticism and atheism out of frustration with organized religion.  

About 20 years ago, while giving a speech presentation about a fellow college classmate who was a man of God, something strange started rumbling inside me which immediately affected my ability to think or speak at times. That strange feeling troubled me from the moment I returned to my desk until the moment I fell asleep on my large living room couch. During the moon's morning hours, a force awakened me. I rose, pointed my closed eyes toward the ceiling, stretched my arms wide and upward,  and cried out with joy, "Yes, I believe!" I fell back into slumber. Hours later I awakened to the sun's dawn and felt God's Son inside me. That day I denounced atheism and started my long journey to connect with God without the influence of organized religion because I wanted to walk in faith step-by-step in isolated peace.  That's my prerogative as a spiritual woman. Yes, indeed!

Faith - where does it come from? This question inspires me to learn about how other women practice their faith. I yearn to know their prerogative as a spiritual woman whether they adhere to a traditional strict religious tenet or not.  I asked three women - Barbara Cusack, Ana Marie Lowry and Sonia Parris -  to share their personal stories of God, faith and religion with me and you.

Sonia

 

Barbara

Ana Marie

The ladies were asked the same questions in separate interviews.  Although I had no prior knowledge of their religious beliefs, I expected to hear "religious woman" from any two of them when I asked, "Are you a religious woman or a spiritual woman?"   Suffice it to say, I was quite shocked and grew even more curious about their explorations when they all answered, "spiritual woman."  It's interesting that their stories are both different and similar. What I love most about their stories is the simplicity of their relationship with God despite the complexities of adversity. 

My initial plan was to combine their stories in this October edition. Instead, each woman is featured in separate S.E.E.K. & SHINE editions.  The October edition (Prerogative of Spiritual Woman - Part I) features Sonia, and the November and December editions (POSW Part II and POSW Part III) will feature Barbara and Ana Marie, respectively.  I hope ya'll walk away inspired by their spiritual walks of faith.

Enjoy!                                                                                                                     -demetrice


21st Century Woman Spotlight

Sonia's Surrealistic Spiritual Climb

Trees speak volumes to this spiritual woman, and these wonderful natural creations transport her away to Psalms 23 where she finds inner peace whenever discord disrupts her spiritual groove during times of uncertainty. 

"I like climbing trees. I'm always climbing somebody's tree. When I'm walking in the morning, I will literally stop at a tree and put my body close to it where the two of us are immersed as one and I feel the energy imparting from that tree into me.  It empowers me.  It really, really does.  I remember as a kid, I was always up in some fruit tree eating a mango, an apple or something.  Trees - they just nurture me."

...she and a white ibis cross paths near a water-lily laced pond.

Her mantra: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..."

It’s one surrealistic pleasure taking spiritual walks through her beautiful South Orlando, Florida neighborhood connecting with God’s greatest perennial plant that grows various delectable fruits while her inner child reminisces of the days when she climbed trees to pick and eat ripened apples in the neighborhoods of her Caribbean homeland - the island of Jamaica.

 It’s quite another surrealistic pleasure walking on blind faith down the streets of glory hand-in-hand with the greatest Loves of them all - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - when her weakened spirit seeks strength, stability and peace by connecting intellectually, emotionally and spiritually with three branches of the bountiful tree of life.:  faith, hope and charity.

Sonia Parris clings tightly to her strong faith in God because, "He picked me," she says in her beautifully well-blended Jamaica, West Indies and Jamaica, New York accent that speaks articulately, calmly, matter-of-factly and cheerfully. Unsuspecting laughter breaks free from her occasionally as she engages excitedly in this serious conversation about spirituality and religion.  Yet you better believe that it's no laughing matter when she softly says, "faith is funny and you cannot get by without it."

The former internal auditor and 20-year employee at Orlando Utilities Commission respectfully shuns organized religion; however, this spiritual woman, who is married to a Muslim and attends church, studies the Koran, the Tanakh, the Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, Confucius, Plato, the Egyptian Book of the Dead and, of course, the Holy Bible for spiritual understanding and growth. "I read a lot of religious books. You cannot convince me that they are all not saying the same thing. When you read these books you see that we are all one.  We really came from the same source," says Sonia, who then recalls a miraculous moment that sealed her faith in God. 

Forty years ago, a younger brother was diagnosed with cancer of the jawbone. Sonia's prayerful mother objected to the surgical removal of his jawbone and prayed for God to heal her son. After undergoing about three years of chemotherapy and radiation treatment at a New York City hospital, one faith-ful day the x-rays revealed that her brother was cancer-free and had a new jawbone of a baby. Medical staff called him the 'miracle boy.' That's when a teen-age girl's faith in God took hold and has continued to strengthen during the most heart-rendering moments in adult her life. 

One particular day in August 1982, a "funny and weird force" pulled Sonia, then a young wife and mother of two children, inside a gift store where she purchased a Holy Bible, which she read from cover to cover in three months. She didn't realize that God was preparing her for personal adversities to come -  the stillbirth of her daughter Erica in March 1983, a divorce from her first husband and the death of her brother who had defied jawbone cancer yet succumbed to an aneurysm 20 years later in 1993 at 34.  The deaths of a daughter, brother and marriage never prompted her to shout toward heaven and ask the lamentable question, "Why me, Lord?"  Instead, unquestionable faith made her stand tall in God's glory and say to herself, "Why not me?"

"Those were the roughest times of my life, and those were the times when I became stronger because I had to reach deep down inside where God lives, where Christ is my hope and glory. Had I not had that faith, I don't know what I would have done," says the compassionate 55-year-old who serves as a volunteer for the Red Cross Dial-a-Friend program that administers services to senior citizens. Sonia makes frequent calls to her sick and shut-in 'friends' to boost their spirits.

And when her spirit sinks low, oftentimes she calls on inspiring poets like Maya Angelou and D.H. Groberg to revive her spiritual groove by reciting their respective poems Still I Rise and The Race.  Ultimately, she regains inner peace by reciting scriptures from the books of Psalms, Hebrews and Corinthians, then prays a simple prayer, "God, please let it work out well for me."  At the appointed time, she smiles graciously and proclaims, "I made it through this one. Thank you."

Sonia knows precisely who she believes herself to be. "I am a child of God, and the thought of God," she declares.  "When I think that, I can overcome any obstacle and withstand any opposition.  I can just be plain happy all the time regardless of all the crazy stuff that's going on. I can be at peace. My prerogative as a spiritual woman is exactly that - it's my prerogative.  It's my right to do what I know God is telling me even though it does not line up with what someone else or the religious body is telling me." 

Amen, sister!!

"Please God, don't let that prayer take hold."
-Sonia Parris' humorous plea when a church member vowed to pray for her after he failed to impose his religious beliefs upon her.  

Sonia lives with her husband, Abedellatif, parents Clarence and Etta, and son Shaun. Her daughters Shante and Erica live in Florida and heaven, respectively.   -demetrice




What's Coming in November and December

Prerogative of Spiritual Woman - Part II


Barbara Cusack has built a stronger relationship with Jesus Christ.

"I had to surrender. Surrendering was hard because I wanted to do things my way and be in control.  

I had to surrender. My way of being religious was not working. The light bulb came on, and I was ready."






Prerogative of Spiritual Woman - Part III

Ana Marie Lowry says she is a daughter of God and sister of Christ.

"I know that my existence has a greater purpose than what it appears to be. My purpose in life is to go and make disciples and share with people the beauty of having a personal relation-ship with the Lord..."