In the churches of the 1980's, the zeitgeist (spirit) of the age was RAPTURE. At any time we could be caught up to go meet our Lord in the air. The Evangelist proclaimed, "A Wave is moving through Spirit filled churches, if you want to be saved you must leave those dead churches that resisted the Holy Spirit and unite with a church body that is filled with the Spirit of God and speak in tongues. Jesus is coming, NOW!" At the age of 21, I was caught up in the spirit of it all. At a Kenneth Copeland Crusade I came to the Lord. Tony, my best friend at the time, heard about the crusade coming to the Charlotte Coliseum and we had every intention to go. Tony and I had been close friends for a number of years and loved doing everything together. He wore thick coke bottle glasses that he hated; yet he was an excellent dancer, actor, and a man with a heart of gold. He grew up as an altar boy in the Catholic Church and left the Church in search of more spirit truths he hadn't found there. We met at Central Piedmont Community College and took to each other right away. The two of us started reading the Bible together and became more spiritually aware of our own shortcomings as young men, though we were both barely out of out teens.

In the 1980's, Heritage USA was at its peek of popularity and we loved visiting to see Tammy Faye. During those days (when she was still Tammy Faye Bakker) Tony and I would see fleeting sightings of her in the Malls and every once and awhile get a *PTL "I love you" smile. Also at Heritage you could see Be Be and Ce Ce Winans for free, that's when they were still part of the PTL singers, they were only singers that really benefited from being apart of PTL. We always kept up with the TV evangelist and teachers and discussed and debated how close they were to the Bible's teaching. Ken Copeland and Marilyn Hickey were the ones we discussed most. When we arrived at the crusade, Kenneth Copeland was already preaching the coming of the Lord and of course the Rapture, "A day is coming when men will stop you on the street and ask, 'what must I do to be saves.'" Tony and I could not leave until we received the Holy Ghost and be prepared for that day when men shall fall at our feet seeking God. We made our way to the front of the crusade's prayer line. After receiving the lying on of hands, Tony and I, both newly filled with the Spirit, not being able to see groped our way back to find our seats. I blinded from tears of emotion pouring from my eyes, and Tony's refusal to put on his thick lensed glasses believing he was instantly healed. Tony believed that the prayers and lying on of hands from Copeland's prayer team would heal his eyes and give him 20/20 vision, right then. He trusted me to guide him back to our seats and I trusted him. We both somehow ended up in the hallway. Several years after, Tony was still wearing his thick lenses, now replaced with contacts

We were both aspiring performers, and in truth we were good. Singing, dancing and acting came natural, so naturally as new Christians when we heard of a Christian Theater group called Drama with Direction (DWD) we jumped at the chance to be a part something so wholesome. Don and Cherri was the model Christians full of smiles and words of encouragement. For nearly two years I worked with DWD and never once did they invite me to their home. During one rehearsal session, I got hungry and wanted to get something to eat. Unfortunately I didn't have a car at the time and was at the mercy of Don and Cherri who were my ride. I asked many, many times if they could take me to get a burger, and bag of chips, anything just to curve my hunger. Their reply was, "Maybe the Lord put you on a fast." As my hunger increased so did my impatience. After a while of hearing my complaints the other actors formed a group circle around me and began praying for me with the laying on of hands to cast out the spirit of hunger and to give thanks to God for my fast. My good friend Tony stood back, he knew me well enough not to touch me when I'm really pissed. Dissipate the prayers I remained hungry and could care less for the rehearsal. I wanted to get as far away from those people as possible. That marked the end of DWD and me.

Some years later, Tony and I both thought back to that moment of the exorcism, of casting out the spirit of hunger from me, and laughed about the silliness of the whole event. There was another time when we went to McEwing Funeral Home to see the remains of a close friend of Tony's that had died unexpectedly. His friend's body was lying in state along with three others in the some room. We both walked in; I a bit nervously, Funeral Homes were not something I ever looked forward to visiting. While inside we viewed the body and Tony talked about their friendship. The moment was very solemn. Then Tony decided to pray over the body and we bowed our heads. While in the prayer he decided to raise his friend from the dead. I at once backed up and told him, "I'm not ready for this." I went out of the closes exit and lift Tony alone inside. Seconds later he followed suit and we briskly walked to the nearest bus stop and went home. I guest he decided that raising the dead was not such a good thing to do, especially by himself in the funeral home.

As years usually do, Tony and I eventually drifted apart. He settled down under the teachings of a former mental health patient, and self-proclaimed prophetess by the name of E. Pinnyston. For some reason he began to feed off every word that came from her lips. True to the spirit of the 80's, Pinnyston always gave ambiguous end-time prophecies that could be applied to just about any disaster that commonly happens on the planet. On the rare occasion when she goes out on a limb and prophesy something specific, somehow this event never has a timetable and can happen anytime between now or a thousand years from now. I told Tony my concerns about her prophetic powers but that only seemed to strengthen his faith in her the more. He soon became consumed with seeing the unseen. This longing to see the spiritual realm filled his imagination and Prophetess Pinnyston only fueled this passion by telling of her testimonials of doing battle with demons. Tony began talking about spirits coming to see him at night in his room, they took the form of children, and specters made of shadows or balls of light hovering in a corner of his room. He started recounting to me his spiritual battles of when he's attacked in his bed by demons, and saw the look of skepticism in my eyes. I interpreted his encounters back to him as a result of a possible over active imagination, hallucinations, or just vivid nightmares. I told him I saw nothing supernatural in his encounters. That only widened the rift that was forming in our relationship. I saw the Prophetess as a threat to my friend's mental health and Tony refused to hear any criticize about her, so we parted ways. He settled firmly down under the teachings of his spiritual guru and I, on the other hand, continued to seek after deeper spiritual and worldly understandings that lead me ultimately into the arms of a cult.

In the 1990's, the spirit of the decade was, "Change", and I took that spirit to heart. In 1991, I had a brief but life changing experience with a truly charismatic cult by the name of Metropolitan Church of Christ. This was God's Kingdom on earth. I and everyone that was seduced to go to one of their loving 'Bible Talks', were suppose to accept that Kingdom as fact. I hate to admit it but Metro was fun, they had all social activities planned out and group dates were a great way to meet people. Every Wednesday night was a worship meeting that included singing, prayer and meeting new disciples. The down side to the worship service was that it was mandatory. Metro insisted that everyone in the kingdom be paired with a roommate, they feared that if the male members were left alone they couldn't resist the temptation to masturbate. No man was to stay in the bathroom for too long a time without being questioned.

Since I lived alone there was no one to monitor my sins. I had my own apartment and Lae Tyor paired me with Keyon Hess. Keyon was a young man in his early twenties who like most in Metro was seduced by the love of the disciples. By the way, the members of Metro did not call themselves Christians but Disciples. Now I had a roommate, I didn't mind having Keyon there; I saved money by having my expenses shared. Like a lot a people I enjoyed a cold beer every once an awhile. One night at a bible talk Lea Tyor gave a talk about disciples doing secret sins of drinking and acting ungodly in front of their fellow disciples. He said we were to pull strength from one another and be good examples. I just sat there speechless. After the meeting Keyon and I returned to the apartment. Now alone, I turned to Keyon and told him straight to his face, "this is my apartment and what I do in my apartment is my business. Nobody else's. If I ever hear what I do in my apartment coming out of Lea Tyor's mouth again you need to get your shit and get the hell out. Do you understand me!" Keyon looked at me wide eyed. I went to the frig and got me a beer. A few minutes later Keyon went and got one too. Problem solved.

But Metro had other problems that were apart of its makeup. You needed permission (advice) from your Bible Talk leader, in my case Lae Tyor, to be excused from a service. My mother had gotten ill and I went to stay with her at the hospital. She was there for several days. I was with her every chance I got and that meant not making it to some Bible Talk meets and missing the Wednesday services. I informed Lae, my Bible Talk leader of the emergency, but I made the mistake of not seeking his Advice. When my mother got home I resumed my church meetings but soon discovered that my loving Christian family didn't give a rats ass about the crisis in my own family, their only concern was that I acted alone without seeking Advise on seeing my own mother in the hospital. I was told how cold my heart was, that I was continuing to crucify Christ over and over again because I would not submit myself fully to the Kingdom. Then I was told that my mother was not a Christian and outside the Kingdom and that I should "let the dead bury the dead." When I was told that I needed their permission to visit my own mother in the hospital and that they, the true Disciples of Christ, had condemned my mother to hell. I in turn told them all to go to hell, and that they can keep their Kingdom and burn in hell with it. I was quickly excommunicated and was put on their blacklist of members to avoid.

A friend of mine of the church named Virgal exited the church shortly after I did. While he was there he convinced his girl friend and mother of his son to join the church so they can be united in the kingdom. I really don't know why he left but after leaving he was warned not to have any contact with anyone in the church and they told him he could no longer see his son. Virgal called me a told me all that was going on. I calmed him down so he wouldn't go over to the church house and kill someone. I told him that his girlfriend might not have known what happened and that he should wait till he talked to her. They did talk later that next day after she disobeyed 'Advice' to have no contact with him. After talking to him she excommunicated herself from Metro that same day. Later that year 60 Minutes did an expose' on the Metropolitan Church of Christ and showed it for the cult it was.

Today, as of the publishing of this essay, Metro has gone underground. Over time I have run across a few ex-members I knew during that time and they had informed me that the church had changed its name. I don't know what name it's known by now but be sure, it still exists. Metro Church sent me into a spiritual depression; their psychological gospel took time to shake off. As I thought about Christianity I was no longer so gong-woe and narrow-minded as I once was when I first started my quest for God. I decided that God was much too big for one religion alone so I began to look for God in Islam.

I embraced Islam February 24, 1993, one day before Ramadan. The thought of fasting for a month, following a religion I had just embraced, was a culture shock. But I was patient and learned the religion. Islam is not an easy religion to follow; there are demands on the worshippers that must be fulfilled. I must admit that I was not a good Muslim in practice. My Islamic life was never an easy one. I seem to connect with people that didn't understand me. As a poet I felt my writings were a God given talent that needed to be expressed but the brothers that I was with said the Qur'an was the only true poetry, one brother, Ali Abdus-Subur, implied that as a poet, I was in competition with the Qur'an.

Later my religious and philosophy studies became an issue when another brother Abdur-Rahman informed me that there were no philosophers in Islam, which I knew was not true. Plato and all the Greek classical philosophers were preserved intact my Muslims while in Europe all Christian copies were Christianized and corupted far from their original ideas. Islam re-taught Europe and the world the Humanities of philosophy. I tried to correct him but he shunned me as one that had been corrupted by western education. Another brother whom I shared some of my Biblical knowledge ridiculed me before other Muslims claiming falsely that I had said I preferred the Bible to the Qur'an and told me in front of his group of Muslims brothers that I should go back to the church. I could not believed he did that in front of my face, it took everything in me to keep from beating the hell out of him. But maybe he was right. I went back to church for a good while, about 3 years. I brought in the new century in church as I went to services every Sunday, participated in Bible studies and sang in the choir but I was still Muslim.

The spirit of the turn of the century was new beginnings, and 2000 seemed to be the start of good thing ahead. I tried the Mosque again. As much is as believed in the tenets of Islam I could never feel at home with any group of worshippers. I always felt like the man outside. Yes, I worshipped with them, knew their names and even hung out sometimes with them but there was this feeling that they always looked at me as a plant from the FBI. After 9-11 the spirit of the age changed from new beginnings to fear and uncertainty. Muslims in Charlotte, NC had become a paranoid group very distrustful since 9-11. I returned back to Church for another stint of time hoping to become Christian again. During this time I went and finished my studies at Central Piedmont Community College where I received my Associates in Arts Degree in 2002 and later finished the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where I received my Bachelor's of Arts in Religious Studies in 2004. I then became a student of theology at Hood Theological Seminary; my seminary experience lasted less than a semester. I have never believed in the Trinity or Jesus being God, maybe that's why I made a 'somewhat' good Muslim. My last day in seminary came when I informed the teacher (who by the way was teaching systematic theology, his lesson was on the 'Truth' of the Trinity) that he was talking a bunch of garbage. I did not mean for my words to came out so harsh but that's the way it flowed out of my mouth.

The experience told me I was still Muslim at heart and even though I had been gone from the Mosque for a few years I was longing to return. I soon heard that a new Mosque had started up in my absences Al-Qur'an and Sunna. Early '05 I started attending and found I really liked it there and felt like I belonged. But in February 06 one brother nearly spoiled it for me when I hired him to cut some trees on my property. He came out, saw the work that needed to be done and accepted the price for payment. In the middle of the work he just stopped and said he wanted more money. My yard was wrecked with large limbs and branches. I asked when would he come out and clean. He said soon. He never came back. I haven't been back to Al-Qur'an and Sunna since. Right now I'm in a wasteland of thought. Every time I return to church it don't stick because I truly don't believe the theology and in time I invariably return to the Mosque.

But every time I go back to the Mosque something happens that ruins it. My good friend Benjamin Combs gave me some good advice, not the Metro kind of 'Advice', to "pay them people no attention and go back to the Mosque for the sake of Allah." Benjamin was a Muslim brother I met in July '05 when I worked at the Charlotte Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison. He's right and I know in time I'll go back to Al-Qur'an and Sunna but right now I need to be alone. Yes. I have visited Church recently, but only visited. I am a Muslim. I guest my quest for God has formed me to be the man I am, a teacher, thinker, believer and lover of God. My friend Tony, whom I talked about before, told me something about myself I never noticed. He observed that I have always had a spirit that resists religion. I really don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing, but I must admit it is true. I don't know the answers to seeking God I barely can form the questions. But God is God and if you want to know him you have to make the quest for yourself. Through my quest I have found my personal creed, "Say: He is God the One. God, the eternal and absolute; He does not give birth nor has He ever been born, and there is nothing that can compare to Him." Qur'an 112. In the end, I think my quest for God is a never-ending journey and I will just let God be what he will be, the I AM.