Reflections: religious brainwashing and catholic guilt

I've often wondered what's wrong with me?  I used to be a more religious person. I'm sure my definition of what a religious person means has adapted over the years. As we experience life, things once defined in our mind may take a different shape.  It isn't that I don't like church, but I don't attend anymore and that makes me feel guilty. I find I just can't limit myself now, or live up to Catholic church expectations. Not after all the tests I feel I've been through: college, my father's sudden death, blending religious beliefs when I got married, my mother's seven month terminal illness journey, and my divorce. I appreciate my Catholic upbringing, and how my mom and dad raised me. They were good people. I hope they were rewarded when they died for all they did. My mom once told me she was going to hell because I wasn't practicing catholicism.  Good heavens, Catholic guilt has definitely colored my life. I don't desire believing in any other religious doctrine. However, I no longer feel I am an acceptable member of the Catholic flock. I think of myself as a free spirit now. I think there are many ways to practice, yet believe in the same standards.   

I was born and raised Catholic to blue collar working parents.  They always did the best they could for my brother and me.  They were not college educated, but they were incredibly kind hearted and capable souls.  My mom was artistic, and could do anything. I recall her making and having a ceramics business while I was little. I grew up with ceramic molds, slip, and a kiln in the basement.  Mom's passion for ceramics was strong when we were little kids, but I don't recall her doing it much as we grew, and moved houses.  I can look back today and I know when she stopped following her passion life was taking over.  My parents had two growing teens, a new house, full time jobs and then a new baby to manage. I understand so well now. Those responsibilities didn't leave a whole bunch of loose change or time for hobbies, or passions.  My dad was an Electrical Engineer at a steel mill.  I recall him fixing televisions on the side for extra income.  He had these cool, very small, telescoping, long-handled mirrors to look at the front of the screen while he was working with all the tubes in the back.  Sometimes he'd have me hold a hand-mirror at the front of the screen, while he adjusted the color bands from the back.  Televisions were so different.  My dad was so handy.  I swear he could fix anything.  I like to think I have a lot of that in me from him, and I definitely give my mom the credit for all my semi-artistic abilities.  I see my parents in things my own children can do and it makes my heart happy.

Growing up, we attended church every Sunday, and all holidays, big or small.  I was baptized as an infant, and recall making my fist communion where I felt like the Madonna.  My confirmation spirited me into adulthood, and when I went off to college, I became part of a Sunday Supper Club for College Students at church. I'd attend service first, where I would sing in the choir, and then rotate hosting a dinner over at the rectory with other college students. The priest would join us and we had wonderful conversations. A few of us were responsible for making dinner, and Father Bob would make drinks. I truly felt my Catholic faith was the deepest and strongest at that point in my life. I hadn't yet experienced adversity. 

Challenges happen as we age, which is part of being human. At college, I wanted to fully experience life. I questioned birth control and my religion. I think that was the first time I really wondered what it was that my church was teaching. I was in a serious relationship and had natural thoughts. I felt guilty for wanting to be safe and smart.

A year later my father died and I suddenly found myself not finding the solace in my church that I needed. My dad was too young. I didn't want people to tell me he was in a better place. It didn't help. I wasn't ready for him to be gone. I would go to church and cry. Church became a place for tears and unanswered questions. Why did he have to go? Why was using birth control bad? Flash forward another year, and I was married in the church. My husband wasn't Catholic, so we couldn't be on the alter to be wed, nor could all at the service take communion. Once I was married, I found it easy to stop attending church for a variety of reasons. My husband wouldn't go with me because the church basically said he wasn't welcomed as he was. I got it. Why was the church so narrow minded?  

When I got pregnant with my first child, I wanted religion in my family's life.  It was easy for me to adopt my husband's church. He fit in, and I was a religious chameleon by now. I could adapt to anything. I spent fifteen years making a home in the church. I taught weekly at one of the two children's services for over five years, and I directed and taught vacation bible school in the summer.  I tried to be the same kind of church parent to my children that my parents had been to me. I strove to be an exemplar. My husband didn't have the same level of faith that I had, and at first that was okay. He disliked attending church and found fault with all the members. Behind closed doors I heard how idiotic and 'below us' were most of the congregation. I didn't realize at that point I was dealing with the insecurities of a Narcissist. My children were witness to these conversations and I know it colored their beliefs. My husband became active in a hobby that kept him busy on Sundays. This wasn't my church, and I was finding it hard to go alone and give excuses for why he wasn't there as well. My children would complain, 'why do we have to go if dad doesn't?' What could I say? So I stopped attending. It was easier.  

I had a big dog who loved hiking. I would take him in the woods, and made a point of walking each Sunday morning for hours. I have always cherished the beauty that God has created. On my hikes, I found I love being outside and felt more spiritual when surrounded by nature.  

When my mom became terminally ill I wasn't sure where to turn. Science and research became my comfort. I found out all I could about Glioblastoma Multiforme. I all ready knew my mom was going to be gone before I was ready, so I needed to be factual. I appointed myself knowledge seeker.  I clearly understood the process of how the cancer would take over her body and shut it down. Being knowledgeable helped me to be able to do hard things, like sit with mom and have random conversations because she would forget which daughter I was, "You'll have another baby for me, right?" "No mom. That ship has sailed for me, but Eileen will have another baby.  I promise." Being knowledgeable helped me ask hard questions of the doctors and hospice nurses. Being knowledgeable helped me realize friends wouldn't come see mom because they were worried they'd be interfering or bothering us. My sister and I realized they were wasting time.  They needed to come tell our mom they loved her.  Being knowledgeable helped my sister and I organize a Celebration of Life party with our mom as the guest of honor. But, being knowledgeable didn't prepare me for how hard it would be to get mom to attend. I had to find that out the hard way. She knew she she was dying, but she hadn't been ready to face it. We pushed her that day.  I regret that a tiny bit, but I know so many were able to see, hug and laugh with her that day. The next six weeks were very long and emotionally painful. Being knowledgeable gave me the strength to give my mom morphine in her final days, so she wouldn't suffer. All I found on the Internet was raw and simple facts about her type of brain cancer, which was why I first even started writing. I found that writing about what was happening helped me, and maybe, just maybe, it would help someone else. Losing one's parents is hard. Especially when they haven't had a chance to see you reach your full potential. I get angry at times when other people take for granted what they have. I think I'm just jealous that my parents are gone. I've grown to understand that life is short and we really do need to enjoy what we have and be grateful.  

During mom's short illness, her second husband, technically my step dad although she was remarried when I was 23 so he never felt like my dad and I didn't call him that, became ill with West Nile. He spent a month in the hospital with a fever of over 104 degrees and was in a coma. He was brain dead and his body needed machines to help him survive. Being knowledgeable helped me to make the decision with my siblings to sit by his side, and hold his hand as we together, took him off life support and let nature take its course. Sitting with someone as they take their last breath is hard. I've now done that twice.  Thirty-one days after my step dad died, I was holding my mom's hand as she passed away.  

Spiritually I experienced something very deep during her final days I truly believe there are spirits that keep watch over us, and my parents and other loved ones are still very close to me. However, church still eludes me.     

When my marriage started falling apart, I turned back to what I knew...my church. I thought I must be a horrible person for this to be happening. My faith would surely help me. My past of pulling away from the church must be why I was experiencing this horror in my life of my 28 year marriage ending. I started attending church on Saturday evenings, and I sat in the very back of the church. Maybe God wouldn't notice that I crept in and slipped into a back pew.  As the weeks passed, my comfort with the church grew. I recalled all the routine of the Catholic church, even if some of the wording of prayers had changed. I found myself inching closer and closer to the front of the church as my comfort level grew. I'm that student who likes to sit at the front of the class so she can focus on the lessons. As I realized my marriage was truly headed for a divorce, I felt I needed God to forgive me and help me know I was a still one of the good sheep. I scheduled a talk with a priest. I don't know what I expected. I talked to a man who had never been married. He was young-ish, and even if he was 'married' to the church, he hadn't been married as long as I, nor was he in a verbally abusive relationship. The priest told me he could tell I still loved my husband, and he knew we could work things out. I suddenly felt ridiculous. I was turning to a church who hadn't been able to help or comfort me in the past, what was I expecting now? Was I just testing the church by going back? Maybe. Probably. Not surprising, it didn't pass the test, and yet I continued to attend weekly hoping it would change its ways. I am an eternally optimistic soul.

A few years later I pulled the plug on my attending church. I gave myself permission to go on sabbatical after a scripture reading near Valentine's Day made me feel as if I wore a huge, neon scarlet letter or at least I must have one floating over my head for all to see. The readings that week were archaic and offensive. As a divorced woman, I felt unwelcome in the church in which I grew up. Clearly, I have outgrown the doctrine on which I was raised.  

I do miss the community the church offers, but I have been forced to look beyond the walls of a religious institute where I thought it could only exist. There are other parts of church I miss as well, but I have found ways to move on there, too. I have become the spiritual being I am supposed to be without being confined to four walls. I don't practice any faith in particular, because I haven't cemented what God is in my own mind. I do live by the golden rule and do unto others as I would have them do unto me. I give back, because I live in a world where I feel blessed to have so much, and I am grateful for what I can offer. I love those close to me, because life is too short not to love. I have felt I am more than what a single church defines, and I am not meant to be broken, instead rules were meant to be broken. Maybe I'm a very black and white thinking person who knows she's really gray and can't be put into just one box. I'm just an outside the box resourceful, creative thinker.  I'll take that. I'm sure I got it from my parents.

I was recently listening to an interview on the radio with a religious expert and she made me feel normal with her words. I now give myself permission to not feel guilty about not attending church. If down the road I decide to attend a church again, I give myself permission to continue to be a free thinker and to not feel I have to agree with everything being discussed.  

~Lisa Kroll