Cocoa Butter & Reefer
Religion was the large designer church hats, the sweet delightful smell of cocoa butter and wild flowers mixed with the deep rooted whiff of reefer, henny, and Newport shorts every Sunday morning. She could remember, sticking to Mrs. Karen's side like glue, keeping a bundle of the woman's skirt tightly into her fist. It was always warm 'hello's and 'how are you's, 'how are the babies' and 'where you going for lunch'?
Everyone was always so upbeat, welcoming, loving no matter the color of your skin or the sin you may have committed. Cheers of 'hallelujah', 'amen', and 'thank you Jesus' ringing in sing-song tone or pleas. The preacher, so involved in his movements that he often tore off his suit jacket as his excitement grew. Beautiful, full singing and praising of the Lord and Savior. It was an every Sunday type obligation for Juniper for five long years. Always excited, always dressed her Sunday best and ready to see her real family.
For those five years, she grew praising and believing in God. If Mrs. Karen believed, Juniper believed with all her might. Karen had always taught her to 'keep her faith no matter the bumps in the road she faced.' That 'no matter how the Soleil's treated her, no matter how she felt on the inside, God was always there.' Juniper believed that too, for a while. But once Karen died and she was thrown to the wolves of the East Oregon State Asylum, that viewpoint changed drastically.
How could the all loving God take away the only mother that cared for her? How could that God that's supposed to be there, turn his back on her when she needed him most?
As Dr. Leadman took advantage of her, took her youth from her until she was in her teens, she believed in no God.
How could he let that happen? How could he possibly exist and create a man so foul?
It was a constant whirlwind of questions she thought she'd never find answers to. And those questions never ceased throughout her years in Sloane and New York. So many deaths, so many murders. She always questioned how.
How could a God let such a thing happen?
And as she grew, her sexuality came to light another set of questions.
Would he really condemn her to hell for loving someone of the same sex? Was it really a sin?
But all her questions lead to a bigger and more important spotlight.
Did she really believe in this almighty God?
Now, she knows a few answers. Juniper knows that whatever she's put through, it's not something she can't handle. That what she went through prior, she could use to reach out and help people. That loving someone can't be a sin. She began to believe that there might be a God, but it might not necessarily be a man and the Bible may have just been stories with some truth, but not all. She doesn't believe in a set religion, but she's open to the concept of their being a higher power of some kind.
Juniper believes in the practices of crystal healing and meditation. She is, also, no stranger to the thought of a human body being a collection of stars. That every atom in your body came from a star older than time, that exploded. And that the atoms from your right hand could be from a different star than your left, that we are all made of stardust. Juniper's beliefs are all over the spectrum. It's just who she grew to be.
