I was raised a Catholic. My dad comes from a proud Irish Catholic family, and my mom happily converted when they married. During my childhood, our Mass attendance went in waves, but we always identified ourselves as Catholic. I even went to a Catholic high school.
But in the last many years, I’ve had a slowly building crisis of faith. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m an unabashed liberal. So as you might imagine, I find a lot of the Catholic church’s teachings and directives are the polar opposites of my own beliefs. However, over the years, I always said, “I don’t believe there is any church out there that matches my beliefs entirely, but I do believe in Jesus and that he was the Son of God, so I’ll remain a Catholic in name and worship there when I choose to do so.”
And then I discovered Universal Unitarianism, a religion that respects all beliefs. I attended a few services, and I liked it a lot, but the nearest church is about half an hour from me. And, well, I’m lazy all the time, but especially on Sunday mornings. Plus, Nate wasn’t really on board with it; although he’s as liberal as I am, he doesn’t feel a disconnect from Catholicism quite as much as I do. So we went about 3 times, and then stopped going.
But to be honest, in the past couple of years, I’ve found myself not really believing in Jesus, the Christian God, or really any god anymore. I look around and see so much heartache in the world, and I just have a hard time believing that there is any loving being out there who allows it to happen. Certainly, there are miracles in life – my children leap to mind – but I just can’t wrap my mind around all the pain. So I’ve found myself walking down the path of agnosticism, heading rapidly toward atheism.
That said, I’m not a cynical or hostile agnostic/atheist. I have no problems with those who do believe (as long as they are respectful believers who don’t push their beliefs on others, anyway). In fact, at times, I’ve envied them. When we learned about Nate’s brain tumor last year, I wanted desperately to believe in something, to find comfort and succor in the idea that Something was looking out for me. But I just couldn’t. Any attempt to do so felt fake and false, negating any gain I might have gotten from it.
And yet even though I don’t really believe, I appreciate the prayers of others for me and my family on a very deep level. I received in the mail today a Mass card from my wonderful Aunt Patty, saying that she had signed Nate and Gus up to be on a daily prayer list. And it brought me absolutely to tears. Doesn’t that seem odd? Paradoxical? Nonsensical? If I don’t believe in God, gods, fate, or any sort of higher purpose, why should it matter? I mean, obviously I’m going to appreciate that someone is thinking of us. But specifically, the nature of prayer (whether Christian prayer or otherwise) touches me.
So I’m rolling this over in my head and trying to figure it out. Because I think it is a part of my faith journey, whatever it may be. I do know this – a big part of me wants desperately to believe in something. Like I said above, when life overwhelms me (and it seems lately that that is all it does), I want to have somewhere to turn, something bigger than myself to look to for guidance and comfort. And yet I feel that I don’t. But I think that maybe what it is is that I DO believe, but I’ve somehow lost my relationship with whatever that greater power is. It’s like the parent I’ve had a falling out with and we stopped talking. I’m at a point where I want to start talking again, but the distance between us has grown too great, and picking up the phone just feels too awkward. So maybe when other people pray for me, it’s kind of like someone is at least letting that long lost parent know what’s up with me.
Eh, I’m rambling. I know I’m not making any sense. And I guess that’s the crux of the issue. I don’t know what I believe anymore. I don’t know even IF I believe anything, other than we’re all floating out here for a tiny and discrete period of time that will simply end one day. But the fact that other people do believe, and that they are willing to use their beliefs to try to help us, somehow gives me a tiny measure of comfort.
