(Odd Broad Disclaimer: This marathon post took me six hours to write. Therefore it may take you six hours to read. Also, it discusses two things my mother always warned me to avoid talking about in public- religion and politics. I usually hesitate talking about God because I don't want to ostracize anyone, therefore this post may fall under the category of "too much info." But there you have it. You have been lovingly warned...read at your own risk! But do read, if you like, because as I said it took me six hours! xoxo)
+++
Part One: Serial dreamer
I have been certain of so very few things. The rest has been a collective free fall of faith. (Of this, I am certain.)
When I was a very little girl I was certain I wanted to be a writer. I practiced all the time, at my roll top desk; holding my old timey fountain pen, my brow furrowed as I dipped the tip into the little bottle that held the ink. I wrote letters to Louisa May Alcott and stuck them under my pillow, hoping for some supernatural advice on how to get published. She never did write back.
When I was twelve I knew very strongly I wanted to go to New York to be a working actress. Basically everything I did up until the time I was seventeen was a push to make this happen. My focus was laser sharp, and I knew what I wanted. I'd give anything to have the discipline I had back then coupled with what I know now. There is a certain comfort to knowing who you are, and what you want, and where you are going.
I was always certain I never wanted to be apart from Hubby, even when we were nineteen. I was so sure that I could never tire of him, that my feelings for him came from a well so bottomless it would never dry up. It was eternally hopeful, this belief, as hopeful as any of my innermost dreams have been.
My love for Hubby continues to bloom and expand with each passing year. But I have all but abandoned my creative dreams; have neglected them, forgotten to nurture them, have left New York. Yet still I'll wake up at 3 am in a panic that I'll never sing again. It's too late, too much time has elapsed, and it's this time lapse especially that makes the loss all the more scary. So many times I forget I'm thirty-one, and what that specifically means in terms of my creative dreams. I never played Anne Frank, or Juliet, or Ophelia, and now I never will...
It's not a regret I feel daily, or monthly, even; but it's there all the same, hiding out in a deep pocket of my heart that I usually don't allow myself to reach into.
Dreams are a blessing. Dreams are a curse. In all honesty, my opinion changes with the weather. (Set the scene: Am I pms-ing?)
+++
Part One and a half: Secret Dreams
I have other, newer dreams, of course. I think about becoming (or not becoming) a mother just about every day, and have been meditating on it for some time now. Years, even. People who know me well are usually shocked to hear this. My own sister didn't even realize, but there you have it. It's not that my heart isn't willing, or longing, it's the HOW I'm concerned with. As in, how will it work when there are so many factors currently standing in the way?
I was on my lunch break the other day and saw the following words written on a sign in front of a church:
"Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase." - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tears stung my eyes when I saw those words. Of course I don't know how it will work. I never know how anything is going to work, after all, do I? And don't I still always believe things will turn out fine? Don't I always know this somehow, deep down? Isn't it one of the very few things I am certain of?
Like it says on the little placard Nanny bought me (but that Auntie Kim actually picked out), the one that plays "The Wind Beneath my Wings":
When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and you are about to step off into the darkness, faith is believing one of two things will happen...there will be something solid to stand on...or you will learn to fly.
I often say the only choice I've committed to in this life is Hubby. I am bound to him, and unknowingly tethered one half of my heart to him all those years ago. Loving Hubby has been a natural free fall, one that I'd always make.
The only other thing I know, in my heart of hearts, concerns my very personal relationship with God. I've been pondering this an awful lot this week. Specifically because I've been questioning my Catholic faith.
+ + +
Part Two: Are you there God? It's me, Odd
Now, I've been talked to about God ever since I can remember. My father's mother taught me all my prayers and would tell me about the Baby Jesus. I prayed to the Baby Jesus for a long time, even, before I realized he grew up to be a man. He was easier to relate to as a baby, I suppose, when I was very young. In her bedroom, Grandma had a picture of Baby Jesus with a halo around his head; an angelic, beautiful little cherub, and it was Him I would pray to when I was terrified in the middle of the night.
Every Sunday we got dressed and headed over to the little white church for Sunday Mass. My parents had both been raised Catholic, but didn't go to church as adults until my older sister was born. It was then they decided they'd need some type of celestial reinforcement.
Going to Sunday mass meant an abrupt interruption of watching Hanna-Barbera to head upstairs and get changed out of my pajamas. We went every Sunday, not just on Holidays, and usually we were very well behaved. My father says it's rare that my sister and I acted up, although I distinctly remember being separated, or receiving a pinch to my arm followed by a warning glare. The mass was long; 45 minutes, and the pews smelt funny. I'd pass the time by singing verses in my head of "I'm Henry the eighth, I am, Henry the eight I am, I am..." Ma told me when she was a little girl she'd think of funny things in church. "Like what?" I'd ask, "What did you used to think of?" She told me she used to stare at the backs of the people's heads in front of her and picture silly things, like the men would have two pigtails and stuff. From then on, I'd think of this, too, and would be forced to stifle many an irresistible giggle.
There were a number of priests that came and went. The soft spoken Father Sweeney, Father Power, who made everybody sing and handed out wooden crosses to the high school students, but only the males. (I found this irritating, naturally, and it merely reinforced my already growing disenchantment with the patriarchal system. My dad eventually asked Fr. Power for one of those cross necklaces and gave it to Sissy, who was in high school at the time. Go Dad!)
The prayers, those words softly mumbled under my breath over the years, became embedded in my psyche, and it would be years later that I'd realize I didn't need the missal to recite them, that I could recite them in my sleep. Years before they would stop being disconnected words and became a message that I'd never heard before, despite all that monotoned repetition. I knew them all, even that long Apostle's Creed. One day Father Kiley omitted one small but irksome word that had always bothered me greatly: "For us MEN and for our salvation," and he changed it to, "For us AND for our salvation..."
This edit certainly wasn't lost on me, and I inwardly cheered Father Kiley for this small but respectful nod to my gender.
I was raised to be feminist, socially liberal, and lived in a lovely glass bubble until I left home at seventeen. The people who didn't believe in equality for everyone were hateful caricatures on The Jerry Springer Show, larger than life villains who could be easily spotted. Or so I believed.
+++
Part Three: The Racist Girl Scout
I was a Brownie in elementary school but I didn't earn many badges. I might have been in second or third grade, and was on the way to a Brownie field trip. I was riding through Lowell in the back seat of a fellow Brownie member's car, when her older sister, just a girl herself, made a racist remark about a black man crossing the street. I think she may have said something to the effect of, "Look at that black bastard." I stopped breathing for a second and my eyes grew wide. I had never witnessed anyone making a racial slur before, and the little bigot immediately got a scolding from her mother. I told my parents as soon as I got home, but I didn't need them to tell me it was wrong and idiotic to refer to someone as a black bastard. I already knew it was. I judged that Brownie, and I judged her family.
It wouldn't be until I was a senior in high school when I'd hear someone make another racial slur. A good friend, in fact. The remark was unexpected, caught me off guard, was casually spoken and shook me to the core. Was she for real? I will never forget that day, probably, because it was the first time I realized that anyone could be racist, and it wasn't as easy to spot hatefulness as I had thought. ie: It wasn't just the wackos on Ricky Lake.
It was all so gray. Although, it became very easy to spot the openly homophobic kids at my high school, and I hated them, longed to be away from them, pitied them, even, for their backward ignorance.
Whether they realized it or not, my parents had reared me to be an idealistic little dreamer, and my heart was ripe for the breaking.
My heart broke into a million bits the day the letter came from NYU saying they'd rejected me. Even still, I knew The Boston Conservatory was where I was meant to be. It was the environment I'd always dreamed of: tolerant, flamboyant, constantly creative; it was heaven. Heaven with jazz hands.
+++
Part Four: Miss Understood
When I first met my college roommate (now one of my oldest, dearest friends), she balked when I told her I was Catholic: "You are? So your family hates gay people and stuff?"
She could have stuck her pointy finger up my nose and I couldn't have been any more shocked. "No, of course not!"
It turned out her friend from high school was gay, and his strict Catholic mother didn't approve. This was a real wake up call for me, the first time I realized my telling people I was Catholic came with a specific list of ugly implications. (As I said before, I had been in a groovy little bubble up until then.) The custom fit, tailor made, cut and paste Catholic blanket my parents had wrapped around me didn't involve anti-gay sentiment of any kind. No siree, Barbara.
I was a Catholic, after all, but that certainly didn't mean I believed in every little thing the church told me to! On the contrary, I disagreed with most of it! Didn't a lot of us?
It wasn't like I was unaware of what the church did and didn't officially approve of; and it wasn't as if those things didn't infuriate me, and it wasn't like my parents and I didn't have open discussions about them, it was just...our parish priests never spoke of these issues. EVER. The most controversial I ever remember one of them getting was one Sunday when he spoke out about the issue of being pro-life. Suddenly there were a lot of people clearing their throats, and I could feel a tension growing in the pews, hanging uncomfortably in the air. Not that Father Kiley was spitting at the pulpit or anything; I distinctly remember his description of pre-marital sex as the act of "loving someone a little too much, a little too soon." Hardly a scathing sermon. We never got scathing sermons, it seemed. This was the first, and it wasn't even very scathing. It was more of a plea, to consider other options.
I guess what I'm getting at here is the church had its beliefs, and my family had ours. The truth is, I had ZERO idea that when I said "I'm Catholic" it would mean I hated gays, was in support of pedophile priests, didn't believe in birth control or safe sex, didn't support a woman's right to choose, and didn't believe women were equal to men. I didn't realize this, of course, because that wasn't what I believed in! And as I said, none of it was ever mentioned in that little white church of mine, save for the occasional pro-life talk, which seemed to make the parishioners rather uncomfortable anyways.
Then again, I was raised in Massachusetts, and I'm not sure how the other churches were during the 1980's and early 90's. I was also raised by fair-minded parents. And somehow I knew, have always known, in my heart of hearts, that God himself wouldn't, couldn't be nearly as intolerant as the church would have me believe. Man was intolerant, not God. Mad had hidden agendas, not God. It wasn't God's fault His message has been twisted and misinterpreted a thousand time over! And not just by my own religion, but by a good many of them! I never
believed God had anything to do with a lot of the church's uglier man-made
doctrines. In my idealized little teenaged heart, man's missteps had very little to
do with what I felt God believed. I suppose I assumed this sentiment would translate.
It may seem naive, but there you are.
+++
Part Five: Getting personal
Somehow, some way, my parents brought Sissy and I up in the Catholic church and we were able to take all of the good and none of the bad out of it. My father-in-law once summed this up as "eating the meat and spitting out the bones." I couldn't have put it better myself, because that's exactly what we were doing. Sissy and I both emerged with a deep love and respect for God, and Mary, the mother of God, and we have personalized our religious beliefs in a way that makes sense to us.
I don't talk about it much, I realize, because it's kind of a touchy subject. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I have placed every important decision in my adult life in the hands of God. (Not the church's hands, mind you; God's hands.)
There. I said it. I don't make a move without Him. When I have been at my most pathetic, at the lowest of my low, terrified and alone, I have literally said, "God, I place this situation in Your hands. I'm done trying to fix things on my own. Take this situation, this mess, and do with it whatever You feel is best."
I will tell you that at these times there has been a tangible force, a strength other than my own, that has swept in and saved the day. Every time. All I have to do is ask.
Most of the time I forget to ask, of course, until things go pear shaped. And then I'll remember, like waking up from a dream, and everything becomes clear. I usually opt to do things the hard way, when I know the easy way is to place my choices, my very life, into a power higher than myself. And that pretty much sums up my beliefs. The God I love certainly doesn't hate gay people, He created gay people for crying out loud, and He wants them to be happy, and accepted, and safe; He wants them to be able to get married. The God I believe in doesn't condemn; and from a place deep inside me I know, I just know, I know this to be true.
This is what works for me. I don't attend Mass, but I wouldn't call myself a non spiritual person, and I don't believe it makes me love God any less. I've attended other churches: Non-denominational, Episcopalian, Baptist, United Church of Christ, but honestly I don't get the same connection I feel as when I enter a Catholic church. With all the mess, and the lies, and the infuriating, outdated, often hateful beliefs that emerge from the Vatican, I can still find comfort kneeling in those pews. No other church regards Mary, the mother of God, in the way I've become accustomed to. I love so many things about Catholicism- the ritual, the mysticism, and yet...
+++
Part Six: The Next Generation
Hubby and I talk about what religion we'll bring up our child, when we have children. He was raised non-denominational Christian, but is not religious. He's always told me we could raise our child Catholic, if that's what I wanted. And up until now, theoretically that's what I wanted.
Because in theory, it always seemed like a good plan. After all, my parents did it, and even though we didn't agree with a large percentage of the church's outdated doctrines, my sister and I still emerged with a deep love and respect for God. It works for us. We didn't turn out to be conservative radicals. Couldn't it work again?
It dawned on me that it's an awful lot to hope for. Wouldn't it be lovely if I could just find a religion that lined up perfectly with my own strong beliefs? Do I really want to have to keep spitting out the bones? I'm a vegetarian now, after all!
More importantly, would I want my child to have to do this? What if she is a girl? How will I tell her she can never become a priest, because she is female? How could I explain to her that this is simply the way it is, because it's always been done this way? What will be her response, when someone at school asks if she hates gay people?
+++
Part Seven: In Defense
Hubby and I were married in the Catholic church. We didn't take communion, since Hubby isn't Catholic and the priest suggested it may alienate my new family if half of us took communion and the rest didn't.
The priest never asked, "Who gives this woman away?" Now, I had been gearing up to tell him those words would not be welcome at our wedding, but it turns out I didn't have to. He wasn't planning on saying it, anyways.
Oh.
Hubby and I both asked we not be announced as "Mr. and Mrs. (insert Hubby's full name)," and the priest merely shrugged and complied.
I've attended many a wedding, and have also seen a few non-religious wedding ceremonies (one that was even officiated outside by a radio dj) and one common thread is that the woman has always been "given away" to her husband. (Gag me with an effing pitchfork.) But not at my wedding, and come to think of it, not at my sister's wedding, either.
The church did right by me that day, and I was glad. For all the shit I've taken over the years for being Catholic - and believe me there is no other religion, I don't believe, which the majority at large feels they have a free pass to bash, even to a Catholic's face, (especially to a Catholic's face?) - I loved everything about my wedding.
+++
Part Eight: The Beef
However. I feel very strongly in support of gay marriage. As an American, I am ashamed and sickened
that this hateful lack of civil rights still exists for the gay
community. But that's another post. (Another long, angry post.) Do I want to attend a church that
would ban gay marriage? Not to be so naive as to say the Catholic church is the only church who opposes this, because I know that isn't true. But this may just be the deal breaker.
I told my mother I'm having doubts about Catholicism and initially she asked, "Hasn't God been good to you?" Of course He has, but I didn't say I was doubting God, I said I was doubting the church! I don't think one has anything to do with the other. My whole life I have always spit out the bones. But what about my children?
God has been so, so good to me, and I want to pass that love along. It's what I know, it's what comforts me. Mary the Blessed Mother has been a comfort to me. The saints have been a comfort to me. The repetition of the prayers has been a comfort to me.
One of my dearest friends is Jamie, whom I've known and loved since I was seventeen, when we met in the basement of our dorm freshman year of college. Jamie was raised Catholic, and is gay, and although it's a bit of a contradiction, he can still find some comfort in church. I can, too. Is it because it's all we know? Dysfunctional though it my be, do we return to it because it's what we know?
It's complicated. I don't think God or God's love is complicated, I think the rest of it is.
+++
The future
Sadly, I don't think the church is going to change any time soon, or within my lifetime, even. Therefore, when I tell someone I am Catholic they may always assume I'm a radical religious zealot. But if I'm not any of those things, is that their problem, or is it mine?
They most likely will never be able to delve into my heart and know what I know. And I do know. My beliefs concerning God are long held and unwavering and strong and deep and real. And I don't feel safe talking about them with most people, especially "religious" people, because in my experience, talking about my strongest and deepest beliefs is an open invitation for me to get my heart trampled upon.
The Catholic church is what I was born into, and the very thought of leaving fills me with a certain amount of anxiety and sadness. I'm no quitter, and yet...can I keep on spitting out these bones?
Is the church concerned about losing people like me? Will they ever be willing to bend, to evolve with the times? I don't think so. Not one bit.
Morally and ethically I want to do the right thing by God, myself, and my future children. Maybe I'll never, ever find a spiritual cookie cutter to cram my personal beliefs into. Maybe a lot of people don't. Maybe for now, spitting out the bones will have to be enough. The rest may have to be another free fall. (And hopefully not a free fall into Hades. I don't care much for barbecue.)
