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toosutoIt's something that's bothered me for some time in that I could recognize the hole that was there but just wasn't sure what fit in it. Some background:
I was raised Catholic without a lot of the hang-ups that I see even with post Vatican II Catholicism. I think this can be attributed to the fact that my mother was the born Catholic while my father converted (about the time he married my mother I would assume.) When I was still in elementary school (grades 5-6) my mother got her M. Div from Gonzaga and went on to the pastoral associate for a couple of different Catholic parishes in town. Her longest stint (she retired last summer) was at our own parish: St. Ann's, a church kind of cut loose from normal rules of dogma etc. since it had been run by the Franciscans who pulled all their priests in the early 90s. St. Ann's never got a full time priest and instead relied on my mother and part time volunteers (teachers at GU or priests on sabbatical there) to cover all the sacraments. Needless to say it was a progressive and very liberal church. St. Ann's was one of the first parishes in the nation to host refugees from El Salvador in the mid 80s, in the late 90s the Vatican sent a letter to our local bishop because some jackass (who attended the cathedral) came to St. Ann's and saw that we were breaking canon law (because there was no full time priest laity took over the preaching duties--primarily my mother--currently the church has approximately 14 people that can, and do, deliver homilies) by have the laity give the homily. He went over the bishop's head and wrote directly to the Vatican. The sent a letter to the bishop saying that this had better stop or else.
Suffice to say I was brought up to think for myself and question anything anyone tried to tell me was True. When I was in high school I was part of a citywide youth group (geared for teens who wanted to do more out of a church youth group than to play Jesus themed ice breakers.) I was placed in a small group with the two most inflexible and conservative group leaders. Within a month they stopped volunteering since we gave them nothing but trouble since they simple could not quote bible verses at us and have us swoon at their apparent piety and logic. We were critical thinkers who demand real answers not pat bible sound clips. Looking back I think that we were assigned to that couple purposefully because we were a) the least likely to go along with anything they said, minimizing their ultra-conservative impact on young minds and b) were the most likely make them not want to volunteer (eliminating the threat all together.) Since m mother was very active in the interfaith community I had many friends who were Protestant and then, from my catholic school upbringing, even more friends who were protestant. This is where I think I became disenchanted with christianity. I spent my entire high school (at a Jesuit prep school no less) with friends who attempted to convert me to christianity. (Pure comedy gold!) They were from an evangelical fundamentalist church close to my house (for years when they'd knock on our door and ask if we had been saved I would calmly reply "Yes Satan had indeed saved us from the wretched belief in a weak savior but thanks for stopping by but we really must finish sacrificing the goat." I was in jr. high what do you expect, plus they always looked so truly frightened of me!)
I went to their youth program once and was horrified. They would spend an hour or so singing at top volume and then once they were all good and euphoric from oxygen deprivation they would 'testify' which generally was pabulum about how they were saved from the fiery fires of hell and thank Jesus they were no longer sinners! Needless to say they were very nice in the "oh, the poor sinner is going straight to hell, we should at least be polite to him" sort of way. Critical discussing their faith was a big no-no as was even entertaining the thought of the bible as a historical document, at the same time as I was evaluating their church, faith and dogma I was really coming into conflict with all the hypocrisy of my own. I was very involved and at one point applied to a part of the youth council that coordinated the local catholic youth congress. I was rejected because I was honest about my opinions and where I differed from the church's official stance (pretty much everything to do with sex and partially on reproductive rights) while other teens I knew went in and blatantly lied in their interviews and then were selected and held up as model catholic youth. It ultimately came down to this (especially in the early 90s) I was far out of line with every christian churches teaching regarding almost everything (or so it seemed at the time.) All these churches supposedly were based on the sacrifice of a man who had one message that he never veered from: "Be kind to one another, help each other out, I mean it: don't be dick" but that somehow in 2000 years we'd ended up with these bloated organizations that were more concerned with his divinity and laws from the old covenant that was supposedly null and void with acceptance of the new testament than with encouraging people to actually do what he said. And to a certain extant I still feel that way.
The thing that I am most uncomfortable with in christianity (at a base level, dogmatic views on women, queers etc. not withstanding) now is the concept of grace, that we as fallible human beings simply cannot possess it by ourselves. I cannot believe that any god would find us unacceptable simply because we don't worship his son or engage in ritual cannibalism or whatever. I must believe that god (whatever, whoever he/she/it is) would find us acceptable as we are. I think feel that it is pretty clear that god does not meddle with the universe. I believe in miracles and mysticism but I believe these fit within the mechanics of the universe as it came into being. Why should an omnipotent being pay attention to the dogmatic squabbles of a statistically infinitesimal section of creation?
I think I'm pushing these issues for myself because I now have someone that I am responsible for. I am going to have to explain the question why to some degree to her because we all need the answer to that question. That's the reason we have religion we need answers to questions that cannot be found in science, or logic or sometimes even common sense. I need a filter to see my place in creation and to be able to find my purpose. As a parent I need some sort of larger framework to point to and say, "This is how things hang together, the things I am telling you gain their authority from some sort of common consensus (that you should by all means question) that has been reached.” I guess I am looking into these because I realize what a large part religion, christianity and my interaction with those entities worked together to form who I am and I want to be able to a) give Rona the same, or better, tools to work with them as I had, b) the benefit of that interaction c) possibly the same OCD complex I have with lists.
Damn, when I write about religion I write a lot.
I was raised Catholic without a lot of the hang-ups that I see even with post Vatican II Catholicism. I think this can be attributed to the fact that my mother was the born Catholic while my father converted (about the time he married my mother I would assume.) When I was still in elementary school (grades 5-6) my mother got her M. Div from Gonzaga and went on to the pastoral associate for a couple of different Catholic parishes in town. Her longest stint (she retired last summer) was at our own parish: St. Ann's, a church kind of cut loose from normal rules of dogma etc. since it had been run by the Franciscans who pulled all their priests in the early 90s. St. Ann's never got a full time priest and instead relied on my mother and part time volunteers (teachers at GU or priests on sabbatical there) to cover all the sacraments. Needless to say it was a progressive and very liberal church. St. Ann's was one of the first parishes in the nation to host refugees from El Salvador in the mid 80s, in the late 90s the Vatican sent a letter to our local bishop because some jackass (who attended the cathedral) came to St. Ann's and saw that we were breaking canon law (because there was no full time priest laity took over the preaching duties--primarily my mother--currently the church has approximately 14 people that can, and do, deliver homilies) by have the laity give the homily. He went over the bishop's head and wrote directly to the Vatican. The sent a letter to the bishop saying that this had better stop or else.
Suffice to say I was brought up to think for myself and question anything anyone tried to tell me was True. When I was in high school I was part of a citywide youth group (geared for teens who wanted to do more out of a church youth group than to play Jesus themed ice breakers.) I was placed in a small group with the two most inflexible and conservative group leaders. Within a month they stopped volunteering since we gave them nothing but trouble since they simple could not quote bible verses at us and have us swoon at their apparent piety and logic. We were critical thinkers who demand real answers not pat bible sound clips. Looking back I think that we were assigned to that couple purposefully because we were a) the least likely to go along with anything they said, minimizing their ultra-conservative impact on young minds and b) were the most likely make them not want to volunteer (eliminating the threat all together.) Since m mother was very active in the interfaith community I had many friends who were Protestant and then, from my catholic school upbringing, even more friends who were protestant. This is where I think I became disenchanted with christianity. I spent my entire high school (at a Jesuit prep school no less) with friends who attempted to convert me to christianity. (Pure comedy gold!) They were from an evangelical fundamentalist church close to my house (for years when they'd knock on our door and ask if we had been saved I would calmly reply "Yes Satan had indeed saved us from the wretched belief in a weak savior but thanks for stopping by but we really must finish sacrificing the goat." I was in jr. high what do you expect, plus they always looked so truly frightened of me!)
I went to their youth program once and was horrified. They would spend an hour or so singing at top volume and then once they were all good and euphoric from oxygen deprivation they would 'testify' which generally was pabulum about how they were saved from the fiery fires of hell and thank Jesus they were no longer sinners! Needless to say they were very nice in the "oh, the poor sinner is going straight to hell, we should at least be polite to him" sort of way. Critical discussing their faith was a big no-no as was even entertaining the thought of the bible as a historical document, at the same time as I was evaluating their church, faith and dogma I was really coming into conflict with all the hypocrisy of my own. I was very involved and at one point applied to a part of the youth council that coordinated the local catholic youth congress. I was rejected because I was honest about my opinions and where I differed from the church's official stance (pretty much everything to do with sex and partially on reproductive rights) while other teens I knew went in and blatantly lied in their interviews and then were selected and held up as model catholic youth. It ultimately came down to this (especially in the early 90s) I was far out of line with every christian churches teaching regarding almost everything (or so it seemed at the time.) All these churches supposedly were based on the sacrifice of a man who had one message that he never veered from: "Be kind to one another, help each other out, I mean it: don't be dick" but that somehow in 2000 years we'd ended up with these bloated organizations that were more concerned with his divinity and laws from the old covenant that was supposedly null and void with acceptance of the new testament than with encouraging people to actually do what he said. And to a certain extant I still feel that way.
The thing that I am most uncomfortable with in christianity (at a base level, dogmatic views on women, queers etc. not withstanding) now is the concept of grace, that we as fallible human beings simply cannot possess it by ourselves. I cannot believe that any god would find us unacceptable simply because we don't worship his son or engage in ritual cannibalism or whatever. I must believe that god (whatever, whoever he/she/it is) would find us acceptable as we are. I think feel that it is pretty clear that god does not meddle with the universe. I believe in miracles and mysticism but I believe these fit within the mechanics of the universe as it came into being. Why should an omnipotent being pay attention to the dogmatic squabbles of a statistically infinitesimal section of creation?
I think I'm pushing these issues for myself because I now have someone that I am responsible for. I am going to have to explain the question why to some degree to her because we all need the answer to that question. That's the reason we have religion we need answers to questions that cannot be found in science, or logic or sometimes even common sense. I need a filter to see my place in creation and to be able to find my purpose. As a parent I need some sort of larger framework to point to and say, "This is how things hang together, the things I am telling you gain their authority from some sort of common consensus (that you should by all means question) that has been reached.” I guess I am looking into these because I realize what a large part religion, christianity and my interaction with those entities worked together to form who I am and I want to be able to a) give Rona the same, or better, tools to work with them as I had, b) the benefit of that interaction c) possibly the same OCD complex I have with lists.
Damn, when I write about religion I write a lot.
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Curious...
Date: 30 Sep 2004 05:14 (UTC)It seems as though you are looking for a framework of morality or ethics by which to raise your daughter, a framework that you question and that you want her to question as well. Being that she is your spawn, I have no doubt she will take just as much pleasure in letting the phrase "sacrificial goat" chase the evangelicals away from your porch. However (and correct me if I'm wrong here) but it sounds like you want to give her this framework not out of honesty but because you know that it has problems and you want her to see them, too. It makes sense, if I didn't grow up Catholic I might have some strange mystical fascination with the Church. As it stands, I became an atheist as a benefit of a rigorous Jesuit education.
So my question is this: Are you looking for a church because you want her to have a point of reference for a morality you agree with, or are you trying to give her something to rebel against or to fuel fodder for discussion later?
Re: Curious...
Date: 30 Sep 2004 18:14 (UTC)If Rona finds herself completely happy seeing the universe through the meta-view that the church provides I won't be dissapointed or wail and gnash my teeth. I will be dissapointed (in myself if nothing else) if she is unable to see the validity in the meta-viewpoints of others (myself included). So I am going to St. Marks because I support Sara and think it will be good for Rona, we've selected St. Mark's because 1) Sara is comfortable there and 2) I am comfortable there. Sara could have just as easily gone straight back to the Church of God (what that she was raised in) but I am so uncomfortable on so many levels that I would never ever go with her. I think that it is important to Sara (and for Rona) that even if Sara and I have different meta-viewpoints that we be able to demosntrate how reconcileable they really are. My investigation of Zen (since that has been the only suggestion so far) is completely honest in that I hope that I may find what other people find in christianity, a method within which I can relate to the universe at large and keep it in perspective. Something that will help to combat all the social, mental and mystical toxins that pervade our everyday lives.
So I guess my answer is two fold: we are looking at churches because Sara and Rona will be attending one (and I will as well even though I am not as invested in for the same reasons as Sara is), I am trying to discover alternatives to the only belief system I have real knowledge of because ultimately the structures that have arisen from it I find ultimately lacking. I hope that both provide a reference point for morality and that my daughter becomes curious enough to question everything and wise enough to see the answers that are out there.
Re: Curious...
Date: 30 Sep 2004 18:20 (UTC)I am not retyping that.
*sigh*