Paths to
Peace Finding inner peace through window of hope
By PATRICE GAINES
By the time I reached the door of the monastery in Berryville,
Va., it had been years since I had spent a summer in jail for possession of
heroin. I had survived three rapes and one abortion. I had become a good mother
to my daughter, an author and a Washington Post reporter. Instead of
shooting dope to cope with life, I prayed, meditated and read the inspirational
words of others.
Yet on that wintry Saturday morning in 1990, I was having
difficulty sustaining my peace. What haunted me was what always drove away
peace. I was doubting my worth. Who am I? I asked. Am I so bad that God is
punishing me?
In 11 months, seven people I loved had died. My father died on the
same day that a good friend died of AIDS. The next month, an old friend died
from an overdose of heroin. Two days before Christmas my childhood best friend
died after a liver transplant. A week later the tenant who rented my house
while I was away in school died of AIDS. Then before the anniversary of my
fathers death, two young men I loved dearly, men who were like brothers
to me, also died of AIDS.
Overwhelmed by grief
I was overwhelmed by grief. My insides quivered. I was one
heartbeat away from insanity.
I knew I would never turn to drugs. What stopped me was everything
I learned in my journey toward peace. At the root of my problems had been
self-hatred. I hated myself because I was black and female and because I
thought my father did not love me.
In my early 20s, I rejected any belief in a Supreme Being. This
was because the world seemed to say to me: God is white. As a
victim of the racist attitudes that prevailed at the time, I concluded that I,
a young black woman, could not possibly be loved by a white God. I handled my
fear that this could be true by rejecting God.
And yet there came a day when I realized I needed to believe in
something. I was pregnant by a man who raped me and rejected by another man I
thought loved me. I was unemployed and ashamed. I chose abortion as a way out,
and this compounded my shame. In this condition, believing I was unlovable and
that life on earth was a horrible existence, I decided I either had to commit
suicide or believe there was a purpose for my life, and a Supreme Being who
loved me despite anything I did.
I chose to live and in doing so, I also chose to reject the God of
my upbringing, the one who seemed white and believed in vengeance. I fashioned
my own definition of God, one that gave me a deep, inner sense of quiet. God
was neither white nor black nor of any race. God was neither female nor male, I
concluded.
Perhaps this one decision gave me more peace than any other
Ive made in my life. My shift in perspective or consciousness changed
everything.
Besides this wrestling with God, another major step toward peace
was choosing to enter therapy. A simple incident sent me to the
therapists office. I found out a guy I was dating was also dating a woman
who worked with me. While many things in my life had changed, my abusive
relationships with men had not.
My family and many of the black people I knew considered therapy
white peoples medicine, but by now I had seen the magnificent
benefits of self-exploration. So I went to a therapist for two years.
I had been carrying around a ton of guilt, I discovered. Guilt
because I had not always been a good mother or a good daughter. Guilt for
having an abortion, for stealing and doing drugs. I learned to forgive myself
and realized I had to. Most important, I discovered there were reasons I made
the poor decisions I did -- and it had nothing to do with my being an innately
bad person.
I began to redefine myself, to be more patient and loving toward
me. You cannot live in peace when you think you are a bad person. It is as
simple and as difficult as that.
Blessed, not cursed
I had forgotten all this on the day I went to the monastery. I
needed to be in a place filled with prayer, a place where no one expected
anything of me. I wanted to talk to a priest, someone who spent hours in
silence and prayer, someone I considered not fully of my world.
I asked the young priest if God was punishing me because I had so
many gay friends. Or was punishing them because they were gay.
We are blessed to be alive now, at a time when the world is
struggling with questions such as whether or not homosexuality is a sin,
he said.
Blessed? I had not seen the blessing in my suffering.
I am blessed, not cursed, I said over and over in my
head as I drove away.
The priests words reminded me that I had found peace by
looking at lifes circumstances through a window of hope. Hadnt I
found a multitude of blessings and peace in a life that had experienced rape,
abortion, drugs and prison? The trick is to keep the window clean, and when
things are too cloudy and you cant quite see your way, my goodness, ask
someone else to wipe the window for you.
Patrice Gaines is the author of Laughing in the Dark and
Moments of Grace.
Peace in history
- 1955: Rosa Parks is arrested after refusing to give up her seat
and move to the back of the bus. The black community launches the Montgomery
bus boycott, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After a hear of hardship the
boycott succeeds.
- 1971: At the age of 90, Jeannette Rankin leads an 8,000-woman
march on the Pentagon against the Vietnam War.
National Catholic Reporter, April 26,
2002
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