My family has had a tumultuous relationship with religion.
Both of my parents were raised Roman Catholic. My
grandfather on my dad’s side was also Catholic, but his wife had been raised Baptist.
She, in fact, was the daughter of a Baptist minister. She married the son of an
Italian immigrant, a Roman Catholic, with olive skin. But from what I
understand of my family lore, she didn't miss the Baptist church she grew up
in. When she was a teenager, she witnessed a community member proclaim to the
congregation that he had been living in sin, sleeping with another woman,
disgracing his wife. Nana wasn't one for public proclamations, and her sense of
empathy for the wife, who now was thrust into the community spotlight, made her
enraged at this sort of outburst.
My mother’s parents were both raised Catholic, but divorced
when my mother was a teenager. My mother recalls going to Catholic school and
being able to tell which nuns were fooling around with which priests. She
remembers asking questions, big questions, about life and science, with only “God’s
plan,” as an answer. Her inquisitive mind could never quite accept that.
Granted, my family’s experiences aren’t meant to be
representative of society’s. I’m sure many people have had wonderful and fulfilling
experiences within their own churches and their own faiths. I tell you this to
explain my parent’s choice, the choice to raise me without Religion.
No crosses hung in my house. No Sunday school, no mass, no baptism, no
confirmation. When I asked about God growing up, my parents would always
preface any explanation with, “Some people believe…” And that was fine. They
never hindered me from exploring my own faith, from discovering what it was I
might believe in.
When my friends went to summer camp at the Christian
Conference Center in town, I asked to try it out. My mother frowned, but
allowed it. Everything there was fun and fine until the kids started singing
songs I didn't know the words to. I didn't go back.
I read a book of Bible stories that my Grandmother (on my
mother’s side) had purchased me. Highlighted, made notes. It all seemed so
fascinating.
I asked to go to Mass at St. Joan of Arc Cathedral and my
mother obliged. I was eager. I romanticized the idea of church. I drilled into
my head the protocol before attending: the holy water, the cross you made on
your chest, the kneeling. But forty-five minutes in and my butt hurt on the wooden
pews. I had lost what the priest was saying. I felt bored.
After that, I read The
Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama. I studied Buddhism (as much as any
eleven-year-old can). I researched Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Wicca. I dabbled
in them, taking the parts I understood and applying them to my middle-school
life, and then to adolescence. I meditated, I prayed, I read, I talked with
practitioners.
I began to have a vague understanding of my own beliefs. I
knew I believed in something, but I
didn’t dare name it.
My parents raised me without religion. But even without the
Bible, the Torah, the Koran, or any other religious doctrine, they still raised
me with compassion. They raised me with love and tolerance. They raised me to
empathize with others, to participate within a community, to add to the fabric
of society. And they raised me to learn.
Because of this upbringing, I had an amazing spiritual journey
that stretched from my youth to my adulthood. I asked questions, and sometimes
even found answers. And now, as an adult, I feel the strength in my own beliefs
because I have tested them.
