Every now and then...

....I miss going to church.

When I was little, I went to a Catholic school. We went to church on Sunday mornings and on Wednesdays. Every now and then we would also go on Friday mornings, but I can't remember why. We had a religion class as our first class of the day. I remember that I HATED it all.

I was a weird child. I LOVED learning, but I didn't ever feel like I learned anything in my religion class or in church. They just kept telling us a bunch of stories that didn't make any sense. But that's what we did- we were supposed to go to church and we had to go to religion class, so I did. As an aside, as I look back on it now I DID learn a lot from those "pointless" stories. They taught me the difference between right and wrong, and kind of taught me the types of morals I should possess.

When I moved and started public school, we still kept going to church every Sunday, but I no longer had any religion classes. There was an eye opener that year- I learned that other religions existed other than Catholicism. I know it's hard to believe, but, unfortunately, it is true. I started to doubt my upbringing at that point. Why didn't we get taught about other religions at my Catholic school? Why would they hide something like that from us? Was it because the other religions made more sense? Whatever the reason, I was not happy (and pretty freakin' embarrassed- oh yeah, that's the new girl. She thought Catholicism was the only religion.)
Shortly after I moved to OP, I started religion classes through our church. I think these were to prepare me for my Confirmation in 8th grade. I met a lot of great people through those classes. We also had a youth group that met during the week. This was the first time I had met kids my age that really believed everything they had been taught by the church and seemed to feel a connection with god. And I was jealous of these kids. I wanted to feel that closeness with god and know that everything I had been told was true. But the truth was that I felt nothing.

So I searched for a couple of years trying to find my way to god. Then the time came for me to be confirmed. I'm not sure why they choose 8th grade as the point in time a child is ready to accept Catholicism as their one and only religion for life, but they do. So I got confirmed. I mean really...what choice did I have? Sorry mom & dad, grandma & grandpa, but I'm just really not feeling this religion. I think I'm gonna switch or just not practice it anymore. Yeah...doesn't quite work that way.

I was kind of hoping that my Confirmation would be the magic switch that opened up a line of communication with god. No such luck. Nothing changed at all, except now I supposedly had a new middle name- Rose, after some random saint I chose and wrote a paper on. Well, I guess one thing did change- I felt like I owned my faith and that it was my responsibility now. So I started paying attention in church. Instead of speaking the prayers and various things we do, I listened. And I tried to understand what it all meant...why it was we were saying those things. I watched people, looking to see if they had that connection that I was looking for.

You know what I found? I heard people droning on, speaking words that they knew by heart but did not say from the heart. I saw people checking their watches, checking their texts/emails/etc, or even people staring at the ceiling as their mouths moved along with everyone else's. I heard the priest give sermons about how we needed to give more money to the church so that we could build a new church. Then after church was over, these "holy" people would avert their eyes and practically run to the safety of their cars in which they would speed out of the parking lot without any regard for the safety of others around them. Hands would fly up, curse words would escape their lips, as if nothing they had just witnessed in church had ever happened.

We were just in the presence of Jesus himself. You said you believed that, you confirmed it when you took his body and drank his blood. But it was all a lie because just like me you felt nothing and you believe none of it. You are here because you have to be. Because it's what you've always done and will always do.

These people baffled me. I went to school with a lot of people that went to my church. They were all what I considered "bad" kids. This is the point where you're going to think, "Ugh, she's such a prude." Damn right I am. Anyway, they were having sex, smoking, drinking, cursing and didn't seem to have any respect for anyone outside their social circle. Everything they did contradicted everything my moral upbringing had taught me. But these kids showed up for church every single Sunday.

Was I supposed to be fake too? Sit through church and pretend like I was touched and that I believed? Was I supposed to act like a "good" kid in front of my religion teachers and youth group and then do bad things when they weren't around? From what I'd learned about morals from my religion classes, I was not. I was supposed to act according to my morals at all times. And I did. I seriously did not say "fuck" until I was 18 years old. I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I hadn't even kissed a boy (not that kissing is a bad thing), and I was a great student.

I guess my idea of religion was something that made a group of people have integrity. They were to act the same way at all times because they were living for god. When the priest actually gave a sermon that wasn't asking for money, he would talk about things like that. So why didn't these people who came to church and acted all holy apply what they pretended to believe to their lives?

This was the point where I just got fed up with it all. I didn't want to pretend. I wanted to actually feel like I had a relationship with god. I wanted a priest (or pastor) who actually cared enough about their faith to not get sucked into a money making plan and focus only on that. I wanted to be surrounded by kids who were like me instead of ones who shunned me because I was like they should have been. I wanted role models that I could actually look to for help when I was struggling with my faith, not ones who I couldn't even trust to not run me over after church.

So I gave up Catholicism. By then my family had mostly stopped going to church because it took up too much of their schedule (a whole HOUR out of their week!), and I had been going alone. So when I quit going no one really cared. No one from church called to see where I was, and the only people that would have cared (my grandparents) were being lied to by my parents so they wouldn't know.

The hardest part was telling my family I didn't consider myself Catholic anymore. My little sister: "WHAT?!?! You were born Catholic, you just can't stop being Catholic!" Uh, it's a religion, not a skin color or something. They were very disappointed with me, but I didn't understand why. I was the one who had tried so hard to make it work for me. And even when they had stopped going to church, I would go by myself to see if I could have my breakthrough with god.

It may sound like I'm bashing Catholicism, but I'm not. The people who actually believed in it (my grade school teachers) used it to shape me into the person I am today, and I will be forever grateful for that. But my experience with religion has just made me a little wary of ANY religions at all. I think people get too focused on what they have to do per their religion instead of just feeling their way through their relationship with god.
So for the past few years I've just been working on developing my faith instead of following a religion. And it amazes me how much this confuses people. "But if you don't have a religion, how can you believe in god?" To me that's kind of like someone asking who's method I use to train my dog, me responding with, "Well really I'm just sort of winging it," and them not being able to comprehend that. Just because I don't have a set of rules to follow doesn't mean I still can't be faithful.

But the truth is that even after my "split" with the Catholic church, I still can't say that I have ever felt god's presence. Part of it, I'm sure, is that the book that most people use to prove the existence of god uses stories that are really hard to believe coming at it from a scientific point of view. I just can't rationally justify the existence of a higher power.

So, after over 1500 words, I've come back to my main point. I feel lonely. When I believed in god and was trying to feel his presence in my life, I thought I felt nothing. But now that I've practically given up that part of my life, I feel like there is a void. Does that mean that I did find my connection with god without knowing it? I don't know.

That leaves me asking myself how I find something to fill that void in my life. Do I go back to church? Can I convince myself to start believing in god again? The really sad part is that I don't have the people in my life to talk about religious issues anymore. My parents don't have time for me anymore, my grandparents still don't even know that I'm struggling with my faith (or that I'm not Catholic anymore...my wedding is going to be a HUGE shocker), and my sisters would just tell me, "It's easy. I don't see what the big deal is." The other side of me keeps asking if I really even need to find my way back to god.

Honestly, I do want to feel like I have a higher purpose in this life and feel like there's someone up there making sure the shit doesn't hit the fan, but I don't think I could ever be like those "holier than thou" people. I don't want to be the person who annoys everyone (which I'm sure I already have) by bringing up god's name and talking about having a relationship with him. I guess I just want to have a private relationship with him, if I even want that.

Faith is confusing to me because it really is a huge part of my life, but it's something that I understand so little. I'm scared of it and want to push it away just as much as I yearn for it to be a part of my life. I'll close by saying: you rock, reader, for making it this far!