So I went to Mass today (for the second time in about seven years).

And I experienced a conversion of sorts.

I thought this would be a good place to talk about it.

I was raised in a Christmas-and-Easter Methodist/Southern Baptist family, and grew up to be somewhat of an iconoclast. I knew I didn't believe what my Fellowship of Christian Athlete, Bible Club, flagpole-praying classmates believed in high school. I was drawn more to the Eastern experience, particularly Hinduism, and briefly fantasized about running away with the Hare Krishnas (this coincided, of course, with my discovery of the Beatles).

When I went to college, I decided to convert to Catholicism. Well, I say convert... I had never been baptized, put off by the whole "come down tot he front", "born-again" thing. The Protestantism of my peers and family... well, it creeped me out. But I was drawn to a spiritual awareness, fascinated by Church history, the rich artistic tradition, the ritual of it all. I wanted a cultural niche. Growing up, all my heroines were Catholic. I felt I was missing out on something.

It went well for a year. I even joined and became an elected officer in a Catholic sorority.

Then, through the course of my studies, I came to read even more of the "Western Canon". I read the whole Bible, all the Apocrypha, the Church Fathers, the ancient philosophers, the medieval philosophers, all the Greatist Hits. Augustine's misogyny particularly turned me off. I was also becoming increasingly uncomfortable with my sisters' public, too-evangelical (to me) faith, and felt confined and hypocritical and stifled. Then I read all of Thomas Paine. And that did it. I still remember the day I fully admitted to myself that I didn't really believe, or even feel the need to believe, and knew I could no longer pretend to believe. I remember walking outside, into the bright spring sunshine, and feeling an ecstatic sense of freedom.

I've been through a lot sense then. I was nineteen. Now I'm about to turn 27.

I lived in England for four years, in an emotionally abusive relationship, isolated, confused, unhappy, desperate. I would go into the local Catholic cathedral fairly often, never during a service, just in the afternoons, and sit in the Lady Chapel. Sometimes I would look at the Sacred Heart of Jesus stained glass and feel comforted, sometimes I would searchingly reach out, crying for help, whether from God or from within I wasn't sure. Then last spring I went in, feeling I had exhausted all my energy for saving my relationship, and feeling a sudden mix of confidence and resignation that made things seem... okay. And, despite not really "believing" in the usual (supernatural) sense, I surrendered everything to the universe, to God, to fate, whatever. I had done all I could, so I tried to let it go. The mix tilted toward confidence.

Two weeks later, my partner of four years came home from work one day and announced that he needed some space and that I needed to go back to the US for a "break" while we sorted out what we both wanted. Despite every fibre of my being telling me it was the wrong thing to do (I never wanted to leave the UK, my home, which I loved), I let him convince me to get a leave from work from my boss, and headed off the next weekend, back to my parents'. Two days later he called and told me it would be a good idea if I started looking for a job in Texas. A week later all my worldly belongings arrived by courier in nine boxes.

That was a year ago last week. I've spent the last twelve months recovering, changing the trajectory of my life, surrounded by old friends and refound abandoned dreams, getting happy. I went to Mass the first weekend I moved in, at the church a few blocks away, where I used to go sometimes in college, and where one of my best friends got married a few years back (I missed the wedding because I was in the UK and the immigration authorities were holding my passport for a year and a half while processing my visa application!). It was more out of nostalgia, happiness to be back in a familiar city I loved, a longing for famliarity. I felt comfortable there, but the liturgy rang mostly hollow. That was a few months ago.

I decided to go again today. I'm not sure why. I went to the 5pm Mass, which I'd never before attended. There was just a piano for music, rather than the morning choir and pipe organ, which was lovely. I felt very glad to be there, very right. I've felt for a long time, for several years, that I was still Catholic. I know a lot of other former Catholics, troubled Catholics, "recovering" Catholics, etc. also experience this. You just can't shake it. Not completely. Even if you were a late convert and bailed after only about a year. I missed the rythms of the year, the stories, the prayers, the saints. I didn't miss the literal belief in the resurrection, or the inhospitable atmosphere for homosexuals and unwed mothers, or the constant stories of pedophile priests.

The whole time I was "Christian" (I put that in quotes because I felt - and feel - that I never really was a Christian in my heart, though I tried my damnedest to be one in my head), I never "got" it. I never felt a "personal relationship with God", I never wept for the sorrowful mysteries, I never bought into the truly twisted concept of original sin, I never understood the thirst so many other people seem to have for supernatural explanation. I prefered Carl Sagan and the Buddha. I still prefer them to most so-called Christian leaders. I have learned a lot from both Buddhism and Taoism, especially about the fallacy that things "should be" a certain way.

But something clicked today. I really thought about, and understood, and felt, and prayed the prayers. The homily spoke to me, personally, and to what I had been going through the past five years. It was the story of Jesus calming the storm. The priest spoke about the cult of the victim, about self-pity, and about how Jesus, how faith, wasn't a promise, an "umbrella" to make the unfair, bad things in life bounce off and disappear. Rather, faith came from within, from our own convictions, and allowed us to survive what happens to us. He quoted the mother of a housekeeper he had in Memphis, a woman whose grandmother was a slave. Her maxim was "We are not here to get our way, or to be perfect; we are here to live."

My spiritual and intellectual and emotional thoughtstreams seemed to converge today during Mass. I was thinking about how the Dalai Lama encourages people to work from within their own faith traditions. I do feel at home in the Catholic Church, despite my disagreeing with a lot of its doctrine and my inability to believe, or even want to believe, in the literal resurrection, or original sin, or so many other things. But these ideas represent eternal human truths, and will occur to all people, and manifest themselves in all religions and philosophies. I also thought about Martin Luther King, Jr. I read his autobiography during a particularly rough time in the UK; it was a challenge. I had the same reaction to "The Passion of the Christ" when I went to see it with a friend. To me, the whole point, the whole point, is to Do the Right Thing. God is love, and that's it. God is not an old man in the sky, or the vengeful maniac of the Old Testament. God is the highest possibility of humanity, our better natures (as has been said of angels). So, to me, faith is the intersection of hope and action.

I guess I kind of feel like Anne Lamott. haha I know I will strike some of you as a "cafeteria Catholic", to be despised. To some I will be pitiable, someone who will come 'round and feel the love of Jeeeesus. And some will understand where I'm coming from. Today, sitting in church, taking it all in, I felt that everything had synthesized. I do have a tradition. A framework. The stories are meaningful in my life. And it all comes down to being in a group of people who want peace, who have good intentions, who strive to make their lives about more than just themselves, and who have hope.

My idea of "God" is probably not exactly what the Catechism would like; and yet I feel there is a place for me. We are all on individual, inviolate paths, either within cultural traditions or out on our own, or, in my case, a bit of both. But I no longer feel propelled away from the Church. I feel like it's home. I want to be a part of this tradition. And I don't feel like I can, in good conscience, call myself an atheist any longer.

I also saw a bumper sticker on my way home that said, "If you've been waiting for a sign, this is it - consider the priesthood." hahahaha Excellent.

Thank you, if you got this far.

First, I teach Catechism to High School Juniors (I was promoted this year from teaching 8th grade). I think your idea of "God" is not far from many of theirs. I feel many of them will want to be good "Christians" but don't need someone to preach the fire and brimstone version of Jesus that many RW "Christians" fantasize about.

Finally, I just gotta say I love the stories and want to be more like the saints who started off with a less than saintly attitude about life (drinking, sex, drugs, hating god, killing christians) and then turned their lives around.

If I have a catechism teacher's approval, I guess I'm okay. :hi:

just to let you know my mindset. at the end of the school year we were having a discussion of the bible, and this was one of the questions..
"so, do you think it is quite possible that the bible was written by some drunk old man named bob?"

my answer..."yeah it is quite possible."

As I told my third grade class, Catholic means here comes everybody! It's a big tent that has something for just about every expression of faith there is. (That's why I get irritated at those who insist that the Vatican or the Council of Trent have all the answers on a "proper" liturgy! Where did Jesus say we are to behave in Church as if we were in a Renaissance Court?)

By the way, Pirate looks at 50, has anyone figured out who is teaching the next generation? AS near as I can tell, it's not the people who worship every word from the Vatican!

are involved in working with fetuses only. Once you pass from the uterus they have nothing to do with you.

That's true of fundamentalists of all stripes.

Faith is indeed more complicated than people think -- much more complicated than Santa Claus, a comparison that often shows up here on DU!

You might be interested in my take on original sin. I've always thought of it as the base nature inherent in man -- the fact that we are all capable of the worst under the right circumstances. I remember a Catholic criminal defense attorney told me, "We all have our breaking point, and we all have our price." (He oughta know.)

Unfortunately, original sin got all tied up in the unbaptised baby business . . .

Very true, and I beleive all evil on earth is derived from our selfishness and self centerness which is inherent to all humans

It's not that, literally, the baby is EEEEEVIL and the spawn of Satan, until you renounce him and his dark works on behalf of said demon seed... it's that we are all capable of evil. That is so true. Think about the Nazis and their enablers.