Musings on My Religion
Apr. 9th, 2003 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredericksI never considered myself a religious individual, even though I was raised in the Catholic church all my life, attended a Lutheran school (the irony) from the ages of 8 to 14, went to Sunday school for 6 years, and actively participated in Mass as a lay serviceman (an usher) for 5 years. Not going to church was never an option for me when I was younger, and I suppose that was all right to a point. My parents went and therefore I went. My parents refrained from eating meat on Fridays and therefore I did the same.
But my dad stopped going to church after a while. I don't really know why. Maybe he became more serious about the church-going experience after his aneurysm. A near-death experience would put the fear of God in anyone I suppose. But after a while it just got tiresome and he gave it up. Mom puttered out and stopped going after a while as well. But not us kids. Every Sunday I'd get woken up at 9AM and either be dropped off in front of or walk the three-quarters of a mile or so to St. Gerald Majella in my ill-fitting skirt and blouse with the shiny patent leather shoes, accompanied by Darwent when he was old enough.
It's not like I enjoyed going to church. I don't think so. Waking up and going to church never stirred the emotions in me that, say, waking up on my birthday did. But I tolerated it. It was something I couldn't get out of unless I was on death's door and unable to get out of bed so why even bother protesting to my parents.
Sunday school (mandatory in the Roman Catholic St. Gerard in order to receive the sacraments of Communion, Reconciliation, and Confirmation...the latter most likely not even being a sacrament) was a chore. I mean, we had homework! It was like I was in school 6 days a week. Right after that was church, which was only interesting if the "funny pastor" (pastor being a carry-over from Lutheran school...no one I knew at St. Gerard used the term "pastor" consciously but instead used "father") was giving the homily. I enjoyed acting as an usher mainly because it made me feel important. We had pins, cool little usher pins, we collected the offering, we sat people, and we would occasionally carry the items to the altar before the eucharistic part of the ceremony (heh, the exact name eludes me).
But all of that is a long-winded tangential way of saying I never went to church with God in mind. You're told "this is God's house" but that still wasn't on the forefront of my mind. I just sort of believed in God...because. It was just a norm. I never questioned it, even after learning about the Earth being millions and millions of years old and the "Big Bang" (which was never taught to me at the Lutheran school) and the Age of the Dinosaurs. There just had to be a God because every Sunday I went to his house and every night I prayed to him and, hells, they even mention him in the Pledge of the Allegiance.
I stopped going to church not because I started questioning what I had been taught and was wondering if there really was a purpose to it all, but because I just loathed being forced to go out of the house early Sunday mornings when the folks got to stay in (although, to be fair, my mom started attending church fairly regularly about 4 or so years ago). Once I got to college and was no longer under my parent's command I dropped the church-going habit like a hot potato. If I'm on campus during the High Holy Days I'll usually make it my business to attend, but as of late even that bit of devotion has left me.
Is there a God? I don't know. Sometimes I think about a set-up sort of like in C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy, in where mass faith can cause the birth of a deity. One of the ideas in that book. man shaping their environment, is one of the reasons why I'm fond of the series.
But I digress. I think it's Voltaire who basically said it's more beneficial to believe in God than to not believe in God due to the whole "total damnation to non-believers" clause of Christianity. And that was part of the logic that drove me to attend church and say prayers and the like. But even that fragile bit of false faith is lost to me now. I used to go to St. Stephen's church on campus every blue moon because it was beautiful and it smelled so wonderfully of slowly burning sandalwood that it put my soul at ease. But I never went there to *feel God*. I went there to take in the architecture and the peaceful surroundings. Was that a sin? Was that God, the feeling of peace and quiet I perceived in St. Stephens? If so, why did I not get that feeling in any other church I've visited?
Maybe I've gotten the idea of faith so horribly intertwined with organized religion that my neglect of the latter makes the neglect of the former obligatory. It's all so complicated and I feel like I'll only have answers when I'm dead. But, by then, it might be too late.
But my dad stopped going to church after a while. I don't really know why. Maybe he became more serious about the church-going experience after his aneurysm. A near-death experience would put the fear of God in anyone I suppose. But after a while it just got tiresome and he gave it up. Mom puttered out and stopped going after a while as well. But not us kids. Every Sunday I'd get woken up at 9AM and either be dropped off in front of or walk the three-quarters of a mile or so to St. Gerald Majella in my ill-fitting skirt and blouse with the shiny patent leather shoes, accompanied by Darwent when he was old enough.
It's not like I enjoyed going to church. I don't think so. Waking up and going to church never stirred the emotions in me that, say, waking up on my birthday did. But I tolerated it. It was something I couldn't get out of unless I was on death's door and unable to get out of bed so why even bother protesting to my parents.
Sunday school (mandatory in the Roman Catholic St. Gerard in order to receive the sacraments of Communion, Reconciliation, and Confirmation...the latter most likely not even being a sacrament) was a chore. I mean, we had homework! It was like I was in school 6 days a week. Right after that was church, which was only interesting if the "funny pastor" (pastor being a carry-over from Lutheran school...no one I knew at St. Gerard used the term "pastor" consciously but instead used "father") was giving the homily. I enjoyed acting as an usher mainly because it made me feel important. We had pins, cool little usher pins, we collected the offering, we sat people, and we would occasionally carry the items to the altar before the eucharistic part of the ceremony (heh, the exact name eludes me).
But all of that is a long-winded tangential way of saying I never went to church with God in mind. You're told "this is God's house" but that still wasn't on the forefront of my mind. I just sort of believed in God...because. It was just a norm. I never questioned it, even after learning about the Earth being millions and millions of years old and the "Big Bang" (which was never taught to me at the Lutheran school) and the Age of the Dinosaurs. There just had to be a God because every Sunday I went to his house and every night I prayed to him and, hells, they even mention him in the Pledge of the Allegiance.
I stopped going to church not because I started questioning what I had been taught and was wondering if there really was a purpose to it all, but because I just loathed being forced to go out of the house early Sunday mornings when the folks got to stay in (although, to be fair, my mom started attending church fairly regularly about 4 or so years ago). Once I got to college and was no longer under my parent's command I dropped the church-going habit like a hot potato. If I'm on campus during the High Holy Days I'll usually make it my business to attend, but as of late even that bit of devotion has left me.
Is there a God? I don't know. Sometimes I think about a set-up sort of like in C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy, in where mass faith can cause the birth of a deity. One of the ideas in that book. man shaping their environment, is one of the reasons why I'm fond of the series.
But I digress. I think it's Voltaire who basically said it's more beneficial to believe in God than to not believe in God due to the whole "total damnation to non-believers" clause of Christianity. And that was part of the logic that drove me to attend church and say prayers and the like. But even that fragile bit of false faith is lost to me now. I used to go to St. Stephen's church on campus every blue moon because it was beautiful and it smelled so wonderfully of slowly burning sandalwood that it put my soul at ease. But I never went there to *feel God*. I went there to take in the architecture and the peaceful surroundings. Was that a sin? Was that God, the feeling of peace and quiet I perceived in St. Stephens? If so, why did I not get that feeling in any other church I've visited?
Maybe I've gotten the idea of faith so horribly intertwined with organized religion that my neglect of the latter makes the neglect of the former obligatory. It's all so complicated and I feel like I'll only have answers when I'm dead. But, by then, it might be too late.
