Megan's Summer of Self Discovery/Self Awareness, Part 2: Spirituality
So here's the deal: I've set goals for my summer. I want to in better touch with myself, more aware of myself, and take care of myself. To do this, I am going to be spending a lot of time thinking and writing my way through lots of self-realizations about all the aspects that make me, well, me: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, relationships, career. After an unexpected day and some observations while in a cute shop, I've decided the next topic to explore is going to be where I stand and what my feelings are about religion/spirituality.
In order to explain where I stand today on this topic, I have to start back at the beginning...sorry...
From the time I was born, I was raised in the Catholic Church. The church in my hometown was built by Irish immigrants in the early 1900s, a church which my family had been a part of since...you guessed it, they immigrated from Ireland. I was baptized and received my first communion in that church. I remember seeing cousins and uncles/aunts getting married in this church. I first served as an alter server in this church. It was like a family reunion every Sunday at this church. Lots of my friends from school also attended St. Mary's...it was one of the larger churches in town.
I remember asking my mother sometimes on Sundays as she got my brothers and I out the door why my dad didn't go to mass with us. She'd always mention how he wasn't Catholic, but either was my Uncle John and he went (and later ended up going through the process to receive the sacraments and join the Church as an adult). She'd mention that he "didn't grow up going to church," though I never understood that either since I could literally not remember a Sunday that wasn't spent at mass...unless we went on Saturday evening instead. What was never mentioned, though, was that perhaps my father just wasn't religious. Maybe he just didn't believe. I never asked, and I probably never will. (That's another post on its own as to why not, though.)
I did, however, go through my own season of questioning. Middle school was a rough time for me, and also around the time that I was preparing for Confirmation, the last of the three Holy Sacraments. I remember telling my mother that I didn't want to go through Confirmation. I remember telling the couple who was assigned to the Confirmation group that year that I didn't want to do it. Nobody would listen to my reasoning, but here it is: When you are Confirmed, this means that you accept responsibility for your faith and destiny. What I was being told, and what I was reading, was that Confirmation is the most important of the Sacraments because YOU are the one choosing and YOU are committing yourself to the Church because YOU believe in the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and the teachings of the Church...but I didn't. At a time where I was questioning everything in my life, there was no way I could honestly say these things. I questioned the existence of God because of the horrible things that had happened in my life recently at that time. I questioned the teachings of the Church because I was beginning to really study and understand some of the ideals and principles of the Catholic teachings. I questioned what would happen to me if I went through this process but was not being honest and true. I questioned why at a time where everyone else in this group, students the same age as me, seemed to have no struggles...why was my heart so torn and questioning? So I tried to fight in my own ways, with no success. I first tried to select Mary Magdalene as my patron saint because of her story, her background, her past: I was told no, I couldn't do that, why don't I just pick Saint Cecilia since she's the patroness of music. I then tried to answer some of our homeworks by sharing all of my questioning, but that wasn't received well by anyone. The final moment where I tried to fight was with my letter to the Bishop. We were told to write a letter to the bishop about our upcoming Confirmation and why we were prepared, blah, blah, blah. If you've read this far, then you read (as best I can remember) what I wrote about all of the questioning. I said that I felt that all of this questioning was a sign that I should not be going through with this and if the bishop really believed in anything, he would not confirm me as I would be a fraud. I can't remember everything that I wrote, but I can remember trying to not let my mother read it and the fight that broke out after she did...the letter was thrown away and I had to start over. I can't remember a single thing that I actually wrote in that letter, but I know for a fact it was all a lie. So I was Confirmed. After that, they had a high school group that met after mass on Sundays and it was led by an older man (probably in his 60s at the time) who was very devout, very old school, and pretty much the reason I stopped going to church. I got in trouble constantly in that group: he'd ask for our opinions as we looked at various aspects of the Church and mine didn't mesh. I got quite good at twisting his words, twisting verses of the Bible...I think that's what made it the worst.
Now I avoid the topic of religion with almost everyone in the world, which is pretty perfect because my husband does the same. The only thing my girls know about churches is what they generally look like and where some are located in Murfreesboro. We've never read them Bible verses or prayed with them. We've not yet brought up the topic of God in our house in front of the children, though we have discussed how that will happen when the time is right.
Before you (if anyone is even reading at this point) go thinking that we're just the worst people and are going to burn in Hell, please let me explain what I truly in my heart of hearts believe. I don't expect you to agree, but I do ask that if you love me at all and are reading this, that you actually read this and understand. And if after you read you'd like to talk to me about it personally, I'd love to have that conversation with you.
1) I believe in God, though I also believe that he allows us the freedom of life and gives us lots of choice. I believe in fate, I believe that there are things in this world that cannot be explained by science. I believe we are all made uniquely and that our lives are like a "pick a path" book: there's about 25 possible endings and it's up to us to make the choices that ultimately get us to the end. I also believe, however, that sometimes we get a little "divine intervention." (Example, some people that I plan to later feature in another post that I think will be called "Friendship is Magic," like the My Little Pony series...)
2) I believe that something happens to us when we die, but I don't know that I buy into the romanticized notion of Heaven & Hell. I think the beauty in life is that we just have to live it and not worry about what happens at the end. I also believe in some form of reincarnation. The Catholic Church teaches that there's actually 3 options for your soul when your body dies: Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. I like to think that the idea of Purgatory is basically the same as the idea of reincarnation. So, essentially, I think there's levels of enlightenment and good: if you haven't earned the way to Heaven (maybe you took a wrong turn in your early 20s?), you just get to go back and try again. Purgatory is essentially a "waiting place" for your soul to be ready for Heaven, and reincarnation is essentially a way for you to become more enlightened/improve your status. Same thing? Same thing. I got in a lot of trouble for telling people this when I was in high school...
3) I believe that prayer and meditation essentially serve the same purpose and that purpose is strictly for the person performing them. I don't think that God does much or "work miracles" that you ask for because that's just you being selfish. I think, though, that these actions help people calm the fuck down, help them see what it really is they need to help them, and allows them the ability to do that. But maybe this is just because I decided that prayer didn't really work in middle school/high school when I was asking to be saved...although maybe since I still alive to write all this it actually did work...hmmmm...
4) I believe the best way we can spread spirituality/religion/"The Lord Baby Jesus" in this world is through how we live our lives. We can show kindness, compassion, give everything to each other, love, spread joy. I'm horrible at all of this, but I try. I really truly try. I hope that if I teach my girls nothing else, I teach them this and help them see it daily. I don't want to list what I do because I don't want to brag about how good of a person I am...because I'm not. But each day I try to be a better person than I was the day before and can only hope before I die that I do this enough that more people feel like doing the same.
5) I believe that EVERYTHING happens for a reason, but that reason may not always be God. Because if I believed that, then I'd have to believe that all of the horrible in the world was something God could predict and change...and I just can't accept that.
6) I believe that my beliefs are constantly evolving and the best way for us to become better people is by sharing what we believe in a calm, casual way.
Thanks for reading. That was a lot of stuff to hack through and if you lasted this long, bonus points.
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