MY GOD IS A GANGSTER

His Glory is for all to believe in their potential to be formidable, and to bear with life until becoming so

By Tone Stone

My earliest memories in life are of me kneeling in the middle of the living room floor, in front of the television, trying to focus on a program, and being unavoidably concerned with the sound of my mother screaming with all her might from the bedroom, at the hands of my father. I could not have been any more than 3 years old. I was strong-arm robbed for the first (and only) time by three seemingly grown perpetrators when I was only a 6th grader. When I was fifteen I witnessed my brother be shot in the face by some racist white thug because we had the misfortune of ending up side-by-side at a red light. The closest friend that I might ever have from this life was killed, needlessly, when he was only 19 years old. I was jumped on and beaten mercilessly by what witnesses reported as a gang of probably 15. I experienced all of this, and so much more, before I turned 23. Despite all this, anybody who knows me should be willing to say that I'm a fairly good guy.

And I say all of that to say this - at some point during my young adulthood I began philosophizing that God, the God that I do believe in, intended for life to be so hard for me because he wants me, as he does for all of us, to be as strong as I can imagine. That is the power of his love. He loves us so much that he wants us to be as mighty as him, or any of the many personifications of deities that people worship around the world.

- The meek shall inherit the earth, because the mighty will claim the heavens. -

In this sense, my Lord is like a gangster. Gangsters, real gangsters, prefer to have only the toughest kind of people around them. They want the guys who are going to be able to make the tough decisions and live with them. In the gangster lifestyle you must be willing to commit to, and go through with, the gutsiest acts. True gangsters are the guys who are not intimidated about doing some time, or the probability of death. And, as it should be, respect is rewarded to those who gracefully accept the consequences of their acts. In other words, the hierarchy of the criminal underworld wants its subordinates, its successors, to be as tough as hell. And to the victors go the spoils, or, for the mighty kings there is heaven on earth.

The same can be said about any government or military entity. They want the best, the strongest - physically, mentally, and emotionally. But the difference between a gangster and any general or politician is that the gangster's agenda is clear, though be it by dishonest or illicit means. At least the gangster is honest about his motives.

And God's motives could not be any clearer to me. Jesus Christ, the Son, walked the earth as a man among humans and suffered a crucifixion, only to be praised for the rest of eternity. The God in people's religious books allows sacrifice. He wipes out whole populations at will. He smites people with his holy powers. And he banishes people to hell. Doesn't sound like the peaceful God that so many followers proclaim. Instead it sounds like a gangsterous God.

Gangsters make certain difficult sacrifices to attain what we consider prosperity in this life. And we are all aware of the brutality and violence associated with the genuine gangster lifestyle. As for hell, quite possibly the majority of our lives are hell on earth, and gangsters are those willing to do whatever they can to get out. And only a gangsterous God would reward them rightfully so.

Only the strong survive. And that's because either only the strong endure long enough to succeed on this earth or, only the memory of the strong survives the times.

To say that my God is a gangster does not mean that he favors the common thugs, the degenerates, the hoodlums, or the scumbags. Because those are no gangsters by my definition. Rather, in my opinion, gangsters are capitalists, opportunists, sometimes of the harshest nature, with beginnings from the roughest circumstances. They recruit from the slums. And the God that I pray to has chosen to herd his flock through hell on earth.

" Behave like Allah behaves."

Copyright 2012 Antonio "Tone" Stone A.M.H