looking for heaven

There's a about being human that I need to talk about here for for once. Something has been deeply intrenched in society as a whole that hasn't been fixed, despite us being here in 2026.

Since my baby has been alive, I can often feel pretty insecure about my mothering capabilitues as a single woman. But then I asked myself........what does it mean to be a good mom? 

My own mom was fierce and intelligent, and boy, I have some big boots to fill.

I am a millenial. My parents raised me on absolutely amazing books, TV shows and movies. The other kids also grew up on Disney and Neopets and Pokemon just like me so really, it wasn't the cartoons and picture books that gave me this knowledge.

What knowledge? Religious knowledge. 

I was raised agnostic. My mum had said that she was a 'humanist' and wanted me to just know morals, whatever that was. My dad considered himself an aethiest till this very day, but I can presume that when we lost my mum, I think it challenged him.

Despite my athiestic upbringing, I remember certain Religious-themed animated movies. Dreamwork's The Prince of Egypt and Joseph King of Dreams as well as Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame completely blew my mind as a kid! This is funny in that I was never exposed to any Religous thinking whatosever as a kid. No church, no bible-sunday-whatevers, it wasn't in my culture, I thought. Really. Only the Dreamworks Old Testament stories managed to stick in my head all these decades later. 

I've gravitated towards Religious thinking here in my 30s, but what's so refreshing about it, is to be able to see it from all angles.

I understand why my parents hated 'Religon', because the misunderstanding of 'Religion' as a whole, has been so skewed out of shape. The word 'God' means nothing to people because they don't get that God is love it inself. When you love, do love Him.

Only a few generations back on the Australian side of my family, I've been told my ancestors were Lutherans from Prittag in Prussia. Apparently, Lutherans were persecuted. I am supposedly descended from one guy that made the long journey over to South Australia from Prussia. 

But, I have honestly no clue about Lutheran actually looks like in practice? As I try to read up on wikipedia, but much of the terminilogy surrounding religion are just words. These words fly over my head. It's not love. It's not the feeling you get. That's God. 

In short, I have never known the differences between most Christian denominations. But God was still there. Sitting around, waiting for someone to get it.

But as someone that was only fed Dreamworks movies to make sense of abrahamic Religion, it's funny that I've decided that I'm Jewish.

So, all this mysterious ancestry from Prussia - this history of Lutheranism -  and weirdly - I know I'm not a Lutheran, because I'm not a Christian. I don't beleive in any Jesus in the past. 

Jesus has yet to wake up everyone.

Dreamworks fed me the truth, it let me feel like the bible was a story meant for me as well. Not just other demoniations, other groups, other people. But not me. But why did so much other media seem to discard the magic and tell me that life was horror and cruel and violent and nasty and empty?

But no, movie don't really do that. They all craft meaning, which therefore proves the desire for meaning even in really wacky films that seem to defy meaning! It's a paradox.

So you see, God was in all the movies. In the Rugrats movie, the Wild Thornberries movie and in the Pokemon Movies. Because those are all stories about love!!!!!!!!! Fun and God and Good is in everything. (Most things......just not in true crime podcasts. Sorry.)

What do I mean by that? God is in every story that is told for love and goodness. Not stories told to make you feel afraid. It isn't fear.

So in short, God has always been in all the Hamtaro and Neopets and Pokemon. In the love of everything. If you love anything, it is Him. End of story.

So I was raised on animated films that sometimes seemed to merge fantasy with biblical, and knowing me, I became skeptical that Religion was really a fairytale in my early childhood.

Something had to change though. I lost my mum to cancer in my mid-to-late twenties. 

In the minutes before my mum passed away, I suddenly felt a firery pang surge through me. Like a spark of empathy I hadn't felt before.

I just call it love. But I felt like I woke up. I also felt enraged with myself that I hadn't been there for her as she was dying of cancer. But I knew I was atleast there for her then. I knew I wasn't a bad daughter, but my concept of being a 'bad' daughter, would haunt my mind for the next few years.

 Weirdly, this spiritual experience of a pang of fire in my heart, taught me that God was real.

The next few years, I experienced other spiritual epiphanies. Soft warm loving possession, and glorious visions. I saw sculptures in the clouds, things in the leaves, in the shadows and in the light. All of reality seemed to bend toward showing me a fairytale. It was God. Showing me, all the wonderous things he could do.

I was raised on all sorts of weird wacky stories, but nothing is quite as wonderful as the things I've seen and felt. Really. I'm sure the bible comes close, but seeing has been beleiving. 

Feeling it in my body proved it to me.

And above all else, my family didn't force this on me. God did.

And for her being a so-called Humanist, my mother did one thing very right. 

She praised me for my spirit.  

She knew there was something inside that was the real beauty.

Unfortunately, too many people raise their daughters on the superficial. I'm talking about something sick.

It's the idea that you are simply a flesh-sack. That there is no deeper soul....

Is truly sickening. 

Not only that, but it's a lie.  And lying is sin. Don't fucking lie.

It needs to be screamed and shouted and shrieked out that it's an absolute lie.

Exisiting in 2026 is sad and bewildering and even vicariously delightful in a sickening way, because I can see how foolish so many other people in my life are. They seem like pathetic monkeys to me. That sucks, because I want to love the people around me, but all I see is such a massive discrepancy between the Godly truth I know to be real, and what society tells me 2026-life is like.

Flat. Boring. Go shop. Go on Instagram. You die. You disappear.

It's sick and utterly sad and unfair!

Because I know my ageing family are hurting, because of the hold that existential nihilistic, agnostic and utterly bullshit feelings have on them.  They have no access to this truth.

For the longest time, being young in the 21st century has felt like floundering in a revolting sea of nihilism. I was nearly denied the beautiful vision of what I know dreams to be made of. Heaven? The promised land?

I wanted to know what it was like to be a mother, because I knew that love is the only real thing in this life. I knew that my mum was right. 

I knew I had a fire. 

So I became a Solo mum myself to a baby girl.

And guess what? I still hate homemaking and cooking, I take nearly no delight in it, b I know there is a deeper spirit in everything. And with that, I'll get by.

I'm not afriad of dying so much as I'm afriad of the living. Really. Just navigating this shit. 

When it comes to life, it's not what clothes you buy, or how many followers on Instagram,

It's not the money, stats or whether you have a sparkling house.

It's in knowing that you're not alone in this. 

God really is here for you. But other people should be to. 

There is an afterlife, but it could be this good while you're still alive.
You want this. 

Trust me.