The Book of Sandra

Chapter 1.

I was in Italy doing a study abroad program when I first decided to read the bible from cover to cover. I was miserable there for the first few months. During the 9 hour flight across the ocean I remember thinking that when I arrived in this new place no one would know me so I can be anyone I wanted to be. I thought of all the ways that I would clean up my act. I was going to be a "good" girl whatever that meant. I wouldn't be so sexual, everybody perceived me that way. I'd be sophisticated, worldly and philosophically deep like I'd longed to be, but nobody accepted me as. I was going to recreate me.

For the first few months I was miserable, I felt like an outcast. I was living in a villa with other students that I had little in common with and didn't want to find any commonality. They were far from sophisticated. So I moved out and in with an Italian law student Francesco who didn't speak a word of English. We'd met one day while I was walking down the street with one of the two American women I'd befriended while I was there. They were both older that I and I enjoyed their company.

I had taken quite a few books but their predictable story line sickened me after a while. I sat in bars or cafés after classes socializing and talking politics with other students from all over the world. But late in the evening when I went in for the evening there was nothing to do and many weekends I stayed close to the village where I lived. So I took on the project of reading the bible.

I'd been raised Southern Baptist. Really I don't know why I say "southern" I'm Black and it was a Baptist church. The distinction I want to make is that our church rocked every Sunday. My friends would jokingly say that the whole building pulsated with the choir singing to the top of their lungs. People would stand up clapping, doing the holy dance and getting the spirit. The older ladies would shout, as we called it, spirit would over take them and they'd lose their minds for about 10 minutes or so. Arms waving. Body convulsing. Wigs flying. I'd seen grown men jump off a 6 foot rise and run full speed down the aisle. The only way anyone ever got hurt was in trying to restrain those that had been overcome by spirit. This was a normal Sunday.

The minister started off each sermon reading a passage from the bible and then would expound upon the story. The normal course would be for us to feel conviction, as if he had somehow known our thoughts. Next was the guilt trip about how bad it was that we had ever thought those thoughts. We couldn't hide the all knowing, ever present God knew what was in our hearts and it wasn't good or acceptable so repent now. Lastly was the hope that we could put away our evil ways if we just surrender our will to God and live our lives as directed by Him through His word. Or more simply; be born again through the blood of Jesus. Same storyline every week only the scripture would change.

Now I had no problem with this, this was what I heard from the time I was a baby sitting on my parents lap in church. I had been baptized and born again. I'd always been told what to think and even when I got to college I wore my religion like armor, I would not be changed. They warned me, especially since I'd chosen Philosophy as a major that my beliefs would be attacked. I was a warrior in the army of God.

Fast forward to me being a student in a foreign land who now wanted to further her transformation into the 'good' girl by reading the bible. That was a good thing right? My bible was a rich blue leather bible that had a gold zipper that zipped all the way around. My named had been monogrammed on the front in gold letters my father had given it to me one Christmas. It was the King James Version and the teaching s of Jesus was set apart in read letters. Over the years I'd highlighted, underlined, bookmarked, dog eared and pressed flowers into those pages. Now finally I was going to actually read them all. In the middle column of each page was a reference section to point to other passages and some of the words were italicized to show that there was a discrepancy in direct translation.

In Italy you can't just walk into a bookstore and expect to find English books, not where I was. I decided that if I prayed for meaning it would be revealed, that was what I was taught. So I set out to accomplish the task at hand on my own.

I read "Let us create man in our own image." I was stumped. Who the hell was He talking to? Then the rhetorical question if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears does it make a sound. Why was God talking if nobody was there to listen? I'd been bamboozled! This was a report, I thought, not the word of God unless whoever He was talking to wrote this stuff. If that was the case there wasn't just one God. I did continue to read but what I came away with was much different than the theology I'd been taught. It was surmised from much prayer and meditation.

I don't report this to claim that I know the truth, it is my truth and not expounded upon here to convince you of anything. These are my writing to share my ideas. If they resonate with you great, if they don't great I'm just sharing because that is what every person in the bible did, shared their insight on God. Call this the book of Sandra. Thanks for reading.

I'm A Tree

We were in Seattle for a family reunion and I wanted to go to the famous market to see the salmon toss. My father said to his sister “Sandy doesn’t eat fresh salmon.” I was totally taken aback. I know it’s weird a memory to have but it had me thinking about exposure.



My father made an assumption about my culinary exposure. As a child I lived in a controlled enviroment. Our house, our yard had a fence around it, there was no internet or cable television back then. Up until a certain point in my life my father could say without equivocation what I had and had not been exposed to.



As we mature the things we are exposed increases. I live in Cleveland, Ohio which is part of the United States of America by accident of birth. Being an American holds no significant degree of pride for me. I love it because it is the home that I know. The same can be said for anyone’s home in any country in this world – we are all born where we are born by accident of birth and grow to love that place as home regardless of the culture until we choose differently.




I have traveled to different countries and have learned to appreciate them for how they are different. No thoughts of superiority or inferiority just different. I’ve walked on Egyptian sand it feels the same between my toes as Mexican sand and the United State's sand too. Air is air, sunshine is sunshine all over the world. There are some places I’ve been that if I could just stretch a little bit more I could grab a star, they seem closer. I’ve eaten live mussels in Italy, and swam nude in the Mediterranean Sea with friends I didn’t share a common language with. What we understood was laughter, good food and fun. We found commonality in spite of our geographical origins.



Today we are exposed more than ever to people that don't look, talk or think like us. It seems as if the world is shrinking as avenues of communicating expands. Basically we find that we are still just people, trying to live out what they’ve been told is the truth. We all want desperately to be right. To live in the right/best place, to have the right or chosen religion, to go to the right schools, to marry the right person and do the right thing.



From that gated yard to world citizen I know that my options are limitless. In college I was exposed to the idea of having “universal maxims,” ideas that I apply universally not what is politically expedient, popular or what I can get away with. My ideas or values remain consistent and are deeply rooted and remain unchanged. The basics:

• Everyone is good but they might not make good choices all the time.


• Everything is sacred and deserves respect.


• We’re all God’s children, even when we don’t know it or believe it.

We are each challenged to decide who we are and what we believe and live that consistently. As a nation we decided on a President and many have abdicated the philosophically grappling to him. Others have disengaged as I had during the Bush years unable to reconcile my values with our nation’s practices.

Under this new administration the question of torture arose and President Obama rightly stated that “that is not who we are as a nation,” it does not speak to the values upon which we were founded. Its an age old question: does the end justify the means? If the end is: we get the information, does it matter how we go about getting it? I say yes. If the end is: we get to feed hungry people, does it matter if the food was stolen from others to make it happen? Absolutely. A desirous ending is not justified by unjust means and therefore cannot be used as provocation. Ignoring either personal or collective values repeatedly is spiritually corrosive. America was choking from its own character crisis. We can not escape the consquences of our actions and inactions.

In A Course in Miracles the golden rule stated differently “as you see me you shall see yourself, as you treat me you shall treat yourself” . . .Never forget this because in me (your brother) you will find yourself or lose yourself. That so-called terrorist is your brother, who was doing what he thought was right based on the information he was given. That is not to condone anyone's actions I'm simply trying to point out human faces beyond our exposure.

What do you believe? Introspection:

• What are your core values or beliefs? (list top 5)


• What informs your choices? (religion, politics, books)


• What values do you apply universally and which arbitrarily?


• We are always teaching others who we are, what are you demonstrating?

I vow to be like a tree bowed maybe, but unbroken by the winds of change. If you ever find that the winds of your life start to blow and threaten to blow you off balance off center just reach out there are trees everywhere. Be one.