The Church Once Again...

DISCLAIMER:
PLEASE NOTE: I AM VERY UPSET ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED. YOU MAY NOT LIKE ME AFTER THIS.

The last month has been quite a journey for me, spiritually. I may sound like I know exactly what I'm talking about, but I move like the tides. Clarity washes ashore only to pull away again leaving me to gaze down at what is left.

Last month my Father passed away. I knew it was coming even tho I really didn't want to bring myself, wholey and completely, into that acceptance. Over a thousand miles separated myself and my Mom and Dad after I had met my Love in Rhode Island, and from then on out it was a long distance pickup of the parent/child relationship. Honestly, I completely agreed with the phrase, "Abscence makes the heart grow fonder." With the time and distance separating my folks and myself, I came to love them deeper and appreciate them even more.

When my Dad had passed, I was blindsided. Mom, who's a strong woman in her own eccentric right, couldn't do this alone. My Husband urged me to get to her as fast as possible. Options, you'd think at this time, would have presented themselves, but airflights out was impossibly expensive, even on berevement. Opting for a rental car instead (which was the best way), we drove crosss country to get to her.

I can't begin to tell you what a whirlwind of chaos that insued. We had only 4ish days to take care of everything. I slept little, even if I wanted to. Paperwork kept me busy from allowing myself to grieve proper. I couldn't bring myself to sit in his rocking chair, knowing full well that was the last place he was when the heart attack took him.

Dealing with the Catholic church, just like I had done when my Aunt had passed and had helped as much as I could to arrange her funeral, when it was time to arrange for Dad's, it had remained unchanged. I should have known better than to think that somehow they had embraced loved instead of guilt and money.

Do all Chicago priests have the same scripted bullshit?
"When was the last time he went to church?"
I had to take a moment and reign in my vehemence. This wasn't the first time I heard this question being asked to me when I called to request someone to come to the funeral to say a few last words for the wake.
"He was sick, he didn't get out much, but he prayed every day." I said through gritting teeth.
"Oh, so he was a lapse Catholic then."
I bit my tongue. I guess living a life that was "Catholic" and praying daily and keeping a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary on his dresser and a Cross of the Holy Cruxifiction in the house but not going to church regularly made you a "lapse" Catholic, made you far from the standard the CHURCH sets out for itself.
"When was the last time he donated to the church?"
That question was asked about my Aunt, who had passed away in a nursing home, the last 6 months of her life she was bed ridden and 'not there' physically, emotionally, or mentally. Now, the same question was inquiring about my Dad.
"I don't know." I wanted to yell, "Would you like me send you his bank statements so that way you can verify he donated to the church recently?!"

My Husband and his family were appauled when I told them this.

It was nothing to what happened at the internment of my Father's body at the cemetery. The priest that I had hired was paid after the services and we stood chatting for a while. My cousin walked up to me and began telling me how sorry he was for the death of my Dad and that he always thought so much about his daughter, that I was always talked about and loved. At that point I had been pretty much a rock throughout all of this, with occasional silent tears shedding. When a tear broke from my eye I was SHOCKED at what the Catholic priest said out loud,

"Oh no, you've done it now. There she goes."

The steel entered my veins. One single drop fell and I reigned in the rest.

I'm done with you Catholic church. I find you an evil, hypocritical institution with the guise of doing the Lord's work. You have priests shuffled from parish to parish who are child molesters and you do nothing to repremand them. You are a power and money hungry center who preaches hate and loathing of your fellow human being who does not believe in what you do. I find you to be an elitist club, and I want nothing to do with you. You are quick to denounce what is 'evil' but yet, you yourself are irreproachable because you hold YOURSELF on high and above it all.

Oh, by the way, I am not a Bible thumper, I never committed passages of a book that has been revised and revised and has multiple versions. I don't find comfort in doing it, so I don't. I mention this because I've seen what people have done in spiritual arguments and using Bible quotes is like the end all to the argument- I prefer thinking instead of slinging quotes in replacement of human intelligence and thought processes.  

I know these could just be isolated experiences with the Chicago churches. Maybe not. But these are the experiences I moved through and I am not going to continue down a spiritual relationship with people who have so little love in their heart. To me that is not enlightenment. To me that is just a dysfunctional relationship and certainly unhealthy.

On the other hand, as my Husband had sagely said, "It's the people, not the religion, that are making it bad." I think he hopes that I won't dismiss the religion completely (which I don't). I just can't bring myself to sit in a church anymore to listen to clergy power tripping all over the place about guilt (that's a popular seller), sinners (runner up) and going to hell (the selling point) and redemption (wow, what a gray and sad world they paint, don't they). Sorry, but that kind of representation I get very little out of.

I have moved away from the Catholic church over the years, and those phone conversations are what pushed me over the edge to abandonment. Let me remind you, I dislike what the church represents, not the teachings. The priests just like to have certain focal points in their lectures, and after a while it's like, "Okay, I get it, I get it already, we're all damned and are going to hell. Sinners, evil, okay okay, I get it."
The church is about power, money and the continuation of the institution by means of bullying, guilt-tripping and strong holding spiritual beliefs. I want no part of it. Even when I was a youngster in Catholic school, I felt the first twinges of dissent and looked around me and thought, doesn't anyone else see how wrong all of this is? All they are preaching is hate. (My high school religion teacher, Sister - - -, found me quite annoying when I would point out the contridictions from the Old and New Testament.)

This spiritual babbling was brought out mostly by the passing of my Father. I kind of new all along that I was moving away from the church, but I guess I just needed another example to push me even further (and I'm sure my Dad would find all this very upsetting because he never liked it when I bad mouthed the church- how ironic, don't you think, especially how they conversed about his passing in the conversations?)

I don't know how much solice he got from his faith. I think it kept him going, but that is all personal aspects of one's faith, it differs from one person to the next. I just hope it was a comfort to him. I know when I say the rosary or pray for those in my life who could use a prayer said for them, I find it comforting to me.

The thought of death tho, is a big one.

Mom would break down and say she asked Dad a few times about death and what she would need to know if he passed away, and he dismissed her. I get the psychology of this man, and he feared death.

He feared death.
He told me this two days before his passing.
Sobbing, he said he felt like he was dying.
I told him the cookie cutter reply, "Every day is a gift, one day at a time. You have much to live for Dad, just keep moving forward. You've come so far, you've accomplished so much!" (he had 2 silent strokes before, and over a year ago he had one big stroke that just broke his world).

He was sickly. Not crippled but he fought for every ounce of his independence. Fought every day to walk, every day to climb a staircase, and fought to do the normal things we take for granted. How would I feel if it took me well over an hour to wash myself in the morning? To brush my teeth, to go to the bathroom, and if I was a man, to shave? With all of this, I can only imagine.

Even now I can almost feel the energy of him saying, "Don't dwell on what I fought to do when I was sick. I was better than that. I was more than the last years when I was alive. I was ever so much more..."

And I know this. I covet his pictures, of every stage of his life. I greedily want everything that reminds me of him. I want to hold onto these things and tell my Son about his Grandfather who loved him more than he would ever know. I can only tell the stories that I can tell of my childhood, but I hope to preserve some of my Dad's stories about his life so that way he will never be forgotten.

I can't apologize tho, for how I feel about the religion our family stems from. Maybe I'll find my way somewhat back again, but at this point in time, NO. Every part of me as a Woman and Mother says I am better off without it. But I still respect those who do good in life and I have no ill will against the religion or any religion for that matter. If you give love, you will get love in return. Preach hate, and hate will return unto you. BTW, love is best, you know.

So, there you have it. This is what got me to this point. Maybe I had to move through this to learn. Isn't that always the case?

Walking the Path

I've been feeling the calling for quite a while now. Spirit seems to be pulling me more as of late, and I have never shied away.

Have you ever felt something stirring inside of you and it just felt natural? Something magickal, something profound, something mysterious but yet part of you?

That's what it's like for me.

I won't get hung up on names, titles, about different sects of religons that abound in the world. I guess you can say I draw upon the positive, the good, the things that move me from one direction to the next. Ecclectic? some might say. I guess that would be a good term used to describe me, even if I do not like titles myself.

Ever since Catholic High School, and for that matter, even before that, I had been questioning the faith that I was born into. My first test (that I failed) was Confirmation in seventh grade. Many of times as I sat in class discussing what it was to be Catholic. I embraced the goodness, the spirit of what Jesus' teachings projected. But when I was told that those who did not believe in Jesus would rot in eternal damnation, my blind following of the religion (not the teachings that were written down, mind you) stopped. I questioned everything, and to the dismay of priests, nuns and teachers alike, in frustation of not being able to answer my nagging questions of Bible contradictions would fling out this end all answer to me of my hand being raised, "It's faith. JUST BELIEVE."

I held my voice in check, as being twelve years old and standing with my classmates in the ceremony that would ultimately 'confirm' me as a Catholic... I held myself in check. I wanted to say "No."

I looked at my Parents who had spent so much money to send me to a 'good school'. I looked at my Cousin who was my sponsor for the ceremony, and I even donned the name of my Sister who passed away in honor of her memory as my Confirmation name. And I felt the weighty responsibility if I would have said "No" to the questions that were placed before me before being confirmed. 

So, in the end, I bowed my head and mumbled, "Yes, I do." to whatever question they asked of me. I felt in my soul that I could not hold up to that promise. I did this for the pleasure of my family, not for myself. The rest of the night I feigned smiles as people congratulated me. I did not feel connected to it.

In high school I waned even more from my religion and found others that were calling me. The first was the shamanistic appeal of the Native American tradition. I read many books from Lynn Andrews, something I had found in the high school library, and found something deep within them, embracing me.

As I exited high school and made my way to adulthood, I found Judaica finding a place among my heart. I started learning Hebrew so that I could understand the original prayer texts and made a whole hearted attempt to practice some holidays that were on the Jewish calendar.

For the briefest stint of time (the span of a week or two in the summer of 1998), I tried to embrace my Mother's Baptist side -she had converted to Catholicism in order to marry my Father- but I found that it wasn't right for me (lovely people tho, very open and warm!)

Through all of my exploration, I did behind closed doors. I would broach spiritual subjects ever so tentatively around my parents. Over the years I have found that my Mother was the more leniant of the two. She most likely thought my interests, well, interesting. My Father on the other hand, took high offense quite easily, even tho he was a non-practising Catholic ever since I was a child (we would have to twist his arm to go to Sunday mass, and I don't think he attended more than 5 in my lifetime of Catholic school).

To each their own. Now married and with a four year old son, I find myself, once again, on a spiritual path.

I welcome it. I embrace it. I am pleased to find myself awakening again to something spiritual (being sick that last few years with health ailments can really pound on that door of spirituality, that's for sure). I've come to a healthy understanding about life and death. Cycles. Seasons. And love.

To those who find that they themselves have a bitter pill against all religions except their own and want to angrily and hatefully bring attention to themselves and the person they question- it is intollerable. I embrace many facets and appreciate many venues of spirituality.  Why someone else cannot respect another's decision about spirit, is beyond me.  Being upset about someone's choice is like trying to describe the air we breathe. To one person it may represent one thing, to another something different. If we can learn to live with one another, side by side, with an ounce of tolerance, then peace can be achieved.

This is a journey I would like to share not only for myself to reflect upon but perhaps for others who may be going down a spiritual path as well.

Moving through peace and light.
Blessed Be.