Evangelical Experiences!

How many times have you been walking on a city street and seen a homeless person holding a sign with a scripture verse on it followed by “need money” or “need a job?”  Have you scoffed at him for trying to play on your religious nature? Have you sometimes questioned this person’s motivation for money (i.e. drugs, booze, etc)?

When I was working as a consultant in Houston, I worked downtown and if you left work after the normal exodus, you would run into a number of homeless individuals who would be making camp for the night near the many parking garages. It would become a regular sight for me as I walked to my car. The first few times, I paid attention to who they were – what they looked like, what they were wearing and I made sure to read the signs they held. A lot of the signs included scripture followed by a request for money and occasionally, a job. I was disturbed by this because I remembered my Corporal Works of Mercy – help the poor, shelter the homeless, etc. At first, I would drop change where I could (as a rule, I rarely kept cash on hand). Then, one day, I mentioned this to one of my clients. Every the properly raised southern gentleman, he was aghast that I was walking to my car unescorted so late and that I was being “hustled” for money. I told him I had not given much – just change here and there. He advised that even though I meant well, not all people were really the “good people who truly loved the Scripture.”

I was very young and I had been naïve. Yes, I had seen Law and Order but I never really thought anything bad would happen to me if I just looked confident and occasionally gave away some change. Shortly thereafter, it was arranged for all consultants to park in a much closer garage. When I would drive out, I would still see the signs, but now I questioned the genuineness of these people  and if they meant what they wrote or if they were just manipulating people like me.

Maybe you haven’t really spent time in a downtown area and have only seen the signs in passing on an access road so let’s try a different example.

How many times have you heard someone you know (either as a friend or acquaintance) go all “Jesus-y” and “holy roller” on you quoting scripture and talking like a preacher? During those instances, do you find yourself rolling your eyes and checking out of the conversation? Maybe even smiling politely while making a mental note to never ever bring up the topic again?

I have known several people like this and every time they went on their “Jesus kick,” I would mentally check out. I’m not a fan of being preached to so of course, whenever this occurred, I would immediately get defensive which equates to snarky. I would take delight in poking holes in the “holy roller’s” armor just because I did not like how it made me feel. Was it right? No. Did I feel bad about it? Not really. I justified my snarkiness with the all-popular school yard excuse of “Well, he/she started it!”

Yeah, not thinking that would hold up in the ultimate principal’s office very well, but at the time, I just shrugged my shoulders.

After Easter, I prayed a lot (still do) and felt God was pushing me to speak for Him…to evangelize.  BUT, I sure didn’t like the experiences I had gone through in the past and pretty sure there are others who don’t either based on general message board comments related to anything religious. Evangelizing like that just doesn’t work with our society today. Even the word “evangelize” is now the religious equivalent to a 4-letter word to most people. It paints negative images of everything from Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate to the Westboro Baptist Church and FLDS compound.

We live in a society of extremes. You are either extremely religious or you are agnostic or atheist. You are either very good or very bad. It seems very black and white. Where is the gray zone? Gray is definitely there, but the grays are the quiet ones. They are the ones who should have a voice. The grays should be the ones saying why they believe or why they have questions. Instead, they remain quiet because the extremes tend to be louder and more emphatic and therefore garner more media.

Well, as a gray, I am opening my mouth and voicing my thoughts on how to find God in a world we sometimes think has gone mad. It’s time for the grays to talk and be heard.

Until next time, many blessings!

UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE!

Happy Tuesday!  So I broke my own rule for myself and have not written in nearly two months, but everyone gets a chance to start fresh so this is mine…again.

Well, to make a long 2 months short enough for a blog, I did go to Mass on Easter Sunday and it did feel A-MAZING. Sure, it was super crowded and I had a kid coughing on me in the pew behind me and two others throwing temper tantrums in the pews in front of me, but to be honest, I was so busy paying attention to the Mass that I didn’t really allow myself to feel annoyed.

The homily struck me particularly because it discussed evangelization and facing the world outside the confines of your church. I immediately thought of my father preaching several times about this very topic. It dawned on me that this is something that we talk about a lot as Christians, but we don’t always practice. The remainder of the day and several days following, I continued to think about this topic.

Why is it so hard to evangelize and how can you evangelize without turning people off?

This is a topic I plan to talk about a little more later on.

As for my continued church attendance, I have attended via Church of the Sacred Heart each Sunday morning at 8:30AM on TV. Do I feel bad about not going in person? Kind of, but watching on TV allows me some private time to reflect on what’s been said and to enjoy the Mass in my own quiet contemplation which is what I feel I need tremendously right now.

So next up…Evangelization in 2013!

Until then, many blessing!

Thoughts on Holy Week

I have always loved Holy Week. When I was growing up, there seemed to be so much anticipation for it. At school, we were normally on Spring Break, but if we weren’t, we attended Mass each day of the week. We would have Mass on Monday mornings to begin Holy Week and then Stations of the Cross in the afternoon on Tuesday, Benediction on Wednesday, Holy Thursday service on Thursday and off on Friday for Good Friday.

I LOVED being in church. It was like visiting your best friend’s house – warm and inviting. The prayers and music were always beautiful…  It was a happy place. Then Holy Week would come and as the week progressed, the climate would shift from a place of happiness and comfort to a place of pain and darkness.

Even today, I feel a knot form in my stomach in anticipation of Holy Thursday tomorrow. After the Mass celebrating the feast of the Last Supper, the altar is stripped and the host is removed from the church. This is the only time when you can walk from church without bowing or genuflecting as you leave because Christ has left the building and that is all the church is now – a building. I try to leave as soon as I can to escape the cold and eerie feeling that lingers at that moment.

It’s hard to imagine a church without the warmth of Christ’s love and sacrifice inside, yet for three days (technically 2, but I don’t attend Holy Saturday services), the entire world feels like God has stepped away.  It’s as if He is trying to show us how empty we would all be without Him and He is right. Just like the empty church building, a world without God is a terrifying and empty place. Thankfully, we only experience it for a very brief time.

I can only imagine what it must have felt like 2,000 years ago when the Apostles and Jesus’ mother, Mary, witnessed the arrest and torture of Jesus following the Last Supper.  How lost they must have felt and what questions they must have asked. Surely there were doubts flying through even Mary’s mind as she watched her son be interrogated and beaten that night. How scared and helpless she must have felt knowing the prophecy was happening right in front of her and there was no way she could protect or save Jesus.  

Holy Thursday and Good Friday are the two toughest days for me. They are both emotionally taxing from the moment Judas betrays Christ until he is laid in the tomb, but at the same time, Holy Week offers me a ray of hope and opportunity – the opportunity to face my fears and inadequacies with an open heart and the hope for a new spiritual beginning.

Why I Don't Go...

I’ve danced around this topic in my previous entries. I don’t go to Mass regularly. I’ve become what my dad used to call a “C&E” (a Christmas and Easter attendee). So how did I get here? How did I become one of those people who doesn’t attend regular Mass?

Well, I guess to get through this, I have to start about 10 years ago. In a previous entry, I talked about my dad not agreeing with choices I made in my early 20s. With hindsight being 20/20, I have to say my dad was 100% correct to disagree with my choices. They were terrible.

Bad choice #1: When I was 19, I became involved with an older man and kept the relationship a secret because he was older (he was NOT married).  

Bad choice #2: My parents found out about a 9 months into the relationship and threw an understandable fit. I was given the choice to break it off and stay living at home (I was now 20 and thought I knew it all) or move out. I called their bluff and moved out and moved in with this man.

Bad choice #3: I became increasingly belligerent with my parents. I was 20 and I knew EVERYTHING. I was horribly rude and listened to the vast amounts of garbage the boyfriend was telling me about how awful my parents were and let that fuel even more nastiness.

Bad choice #4: I accepted this bozo’s proposal of marriage

Bad choice #5: Did not do as much as I could’ve to support my mom after my dad died and went right back to being nasty and belligerent again

Bad choice #6: I married the Bozo even though I didn’t want to (Lesson learned: if you are standing at the altar and it still doesn’t seem like a good idea, it’s ok to not go through with it. A little embarrassment is way better than a lot more hurt).

Now here is where I started getting smart, but at the same time, started falling away.

After this slew of bad choices including an awful wedding, I started to wise up. The husband was awful and treated me terribly. My mom saw this but stayed quiet (smart mom) because she knew if she said anything, I would never get out of the relationship. Finally, the first weekend in May came around and I went to visit my mom and brother in Houston. After confessing everything to her of how bad things were at home, she asked me to just leave him. I told her I couldn't because I had taken a vow and I had to honor it. She left it at that and I headed back to the hill country.  That was a long 3 hour drive.

When I arrived back in town, he and I fought again and I finally asked if he wanted me out and when he said yes, I made the first good choice I had made in a long time - I left and filed for divorce a few weeks later and the marriage was thankfully over.

I continued attending Mass and even talked with my priest who helped me start the annulment process. He understood what really happened in the relationship and said I made the right decision to end it. It was comforting to sit with him and talk about it. I had expected to be condemned for divorcing, but he listened and said it was ok and that God understood. Phew!

So you would think I was good and everything was better, right? Wrong!

After word got around that I was getting divorced, ladies at the church started treating me differently. Before my divorce, I had been involved in a lot of activities at the church. I loved it, but now things were different. Sure there were some who were nice and tried to be helpful. A couple tried to get my ex and I into counseling to work things out, but you can’t save something that was based on secrets and lies. Most of the ladies I considered my friends and “sisters” stopped talking to me. I was dropped from a retreat team with no explanation. I just stopped being talked to or included in retreat talk. I was a catechism teacher and some parents went so far as to remove their children from my class. The whispers grew louder and I could not ignore them anymore.  I needed these "friends" so much, but very quickly, they all stopped associating with me. Divorce was taboo. 

I talked with my priest about it and he said to leave it be and turn the other cheek; that soon it would become old news and things would be good again. I totally get the “turning the other cheek” thing…I took religion in school and remember many sermons my dad preached on it. I could handle being under the microscope.  What I could not handle was how women I once considered friends and sisters could turn on me so quickly and turn their back on me as if my bad marriage were a contagious disease.

I began to withdraw. I stopped attending retreat alumni sessions. Then, I stopped teaching catechism citing “work” as my reason. Then, I just stopped going. The constant looks and quickly averted eyes were just too much for me. I I decided I couldn't go until I thought I was forgotten enough to be invisible.

By the time I started attending semi-regularly again, almost 8 years had passed. Priests had changed; the children I once taught had grown up and graduated. I thought I could go back, but I had been in such a routine of not attending that attending seemed strange now. I was in a new relationship at this point and actually engaged. My fiancé was not Catholic and not really a churchgoer so there was never an argument about where we would go to church. He supported me and would go wherever I liked. At first, he was working on the weekends so I thought I would go alone. I did and it seemed strange. Outside of Christmas and Easter, Sunday Mass can be very sparse. I was afraid but I went anyway. My need to be in church was far greater than my fear of seeing someone who remembered my 5 month marriage.

I started feeling good again…until I got too comfortable. One Sunday I went to a later Mass. On my way out, I ran into a woman I had known during my brief marriage.  As we were walking down the very long aisle to exit the church, she asked how I was doing. I told her I was well and updated her on my brother and that I was engaged. She looked at me quizzically and said “Again? Already?” I was stunned. All of the sudden, I was thrown back nearly a decade with emotions flooding me. I could not answer her. I tried to make an excuse to hurry out but was stuck among people in the center aisle. I was humiliated and could not find a way out. I grew claustrophobic and though she had moved on to talk with someone else, I could not move past her comment. I did not go back for some time. I was proverbially lost and I have remained lost.

Since then, my now-husband and I have attended on rare occasion. I don’t make eye contact with anyone other than the priest when I take communion. I am scared that someone else might remember and verbally recall my past failure.

As I write this, I keep thinking how very silly this sounds. Church is supposed to be a community where people care about you and accept your mistakes. I felt safe there once. Now I’m afraid to go and have to pep talk myself into it.

Someone might read this and ask “why don’t you just go to another church?” Well, I’ve tried that. I have tried many other Catholic churches and even some protestant churches. None of them feel like home. I feel like I don’t belong; like I’ve been cast out. I wonder if I will ever feel at home in a church again or if I am forever relegated to this almost shadowy existence.

I'm a Big Fat Sinner!

Yesterday was Palm Sunday and that marked the beginning of Holy Week for most Christian churches. Holy Week is truly the holiest and most emotional time for Christians because you experience the last days of Christ’s life as a mortal. Because of this, the religious flock to church for services throughout the week and Roman Catholics attend confession to enter Easter with a clear and reborn conscience.

So, with that said, I have a confession of my own:  I am a big fat sinner!

Growing up, the 10 Commandments seemed pretty darned straightforward and easy to follow and there were only 10 of them. How hard could that be?  They basically boiled down to two things:

• Worship God
• Don’t hurt each other

 Easy cheesy, right?  Well, for a kid, TOTALLY!

As the daughter of an Anglican priest, I went to church every Sunday and most Wednesday with my parents and then every Friday with my school class. I also said my prayers every night so the whole section about honoring God? Big fat check!

Then, there’s the whole “don’t hurt others” part. Well, as a kid, that’s not terribly hard. I mean, yeah kids can be mean, but when I was a kid, we didn’t have social media and cell phones weren’t even around so it was all pretty tame in comparison to now. Honoring your parents was expected, back-talking was not an option (at least not in my house) so the only one you had to really worry about was the lying one and being envious (aka coveting). Of course, there was the occasional stolen pencil, but that didn’t really count. So following the 10 Commandments was a pretty easy game when you’re a child and things are simpler.

Then adulthood hits you and things go from black and white to shades of gray (and no, I don’t mean the book).  On the surface, you can look at the literal wording of the 10 Commandments and say, “Nope, haven’t done that…I’m still good,” but deep down you know you haven’t been all that pure and awesome.

So how do you deal? Well, when I was in my early 20s ( I define this as my “wild and reckless” time), I would go to the communal penance services at my church. They were held before Christmas and Easter each year. For the first few years, I did not really pay attention. I zoned out and thought about work or school or what I was doing next so I didn’t even listen to the priest. I mean, how bad is that?  You go for communal penance, kneel in a pew to ask for the forgiveness and don’t even think about it? WOW…

Anyway, I digress…So, one year, I went and this time, I actually listened…didn’t just hear but really listened. To help people call to mind their sins (because no one actually keeps of list of all their screw ups), the priest read from the “Examination of Conscience.” OH MY GOD…

After hearing all of the different ways you can break the commandments, I was stunned. It was like a check list where you find yourself answering to yourself, “Yep…Yep…Yep…uhhh yeah…that too….oh crap, that one too…darnit, I just cursed so that one too!”  By the time you make it to the 10^th commandment, if you’re not already curled in a ball in the corner, you’re pretty convinced you’re the conductor on the fast train to Hell. It’s positively awful, yet supremely brilliant.

What better way to do away with the shades of gray (stop thinking of the book) than by eliminating all the loopholes? I’m the world’s worst about this…I started looking for loopholes when I stopped attending Mass regularly. I would justify it by saying I had banked up a TON of extra Mass days from when I was growing up. (Remember all of those Masses I attended in school and then went with my parents…BAM - Loophole!). I would tell myself that it was ok because I had gone SO much when I was a kid, that I didn’t need to go now.

Ok, so typing that doesn’t sound nearly as good as the reasoning I had in my head, but moving on…

So key take-away: the Examination of Conscience is scary has heck. I am still terrified to Google it because it makes me feel so bad. It forces me to acknowledge that I have done some terrible things that have hurt both me and God. I don’t like acknowledging those things. I like to try and forget them, but then I look at that Examination of Conscience and they come flooding back so that I become convinced that I am going to be singing “The Wheels on the Hell Bus” one day. It’s such a scary and horrifying experience, but it doesn’t have to be.

 So often, we all try and convince ourselves and all of those around us that we have these perfect lives and that we are perfect people; that our flaws are few and failures are non-existent. We hide behind technology and fake smiles hoping that one day we will actually believe our own stories; yet knowing we never will. We strive to believe that things are still black and white and that grays do not exist. The fact of the matter is, inside each of us, we know our faults even if we cannot admit them to ourselves. Because if we admit them, then they become very real and we see an ugliness that we fear will never leave. Again, we are wrong.

It’s taken me a long time to come to grips with some of the things I have done that I am ashamed of. I still have trouble forgiving myself because they feel so far off my personal norm that they are beyond forgiving. So, I find myself in confession every now and again confessing some of the same things. I almost want to print out an Examination of Conscience, circle what I have done and just give it to the priest and say, "there you go. What's it gonna take? The whole rosary 50 times?" Seems like it would be easier, but I don’t because I have to keep saying the sins. The last priest I confessed to seemed to understand that I had said the same things before. Maybe it sounded too scripted or maybe I didn’t sound contrite…who knows. At any rate, he called me out and I told him that yes, I had confessed these before. He told me something so simplistic that I will never forget…he said, “God forgave you a long time ago. It’s time you forgive yourself.” I asked him if it really was that simple and he said it was..God WANTS to forgive. He WANTS us to do better. He WANTS us to try harder, but it’s hard to do better when you can’t let go of things He already forgave us for so we just continue to punish ourselves.

This resonated strongly with me. I still have trouble forgiving myself for some of my actions, but others I have come to accept as failures that I am trying to do better on.

So in the spirit of total disclosure here is a list of my recent sins (using the Examination of Conscience as my guide):

1.       I still sometimes despair about my salvation (who knew this was a sin?)

2.       I’m still superstitious and still kind of believe in good and bad luck (especially when playing Yahtzee!)

3.       Used the name of God in vain (i.e. OMG, Geez, Jesus H. Christ)

4.       Used curse words

5.       Been snarky to others

6.       Failed to attend Mass regularly (this is my biggest one and the one that hurts the most)

7.       Knowingly ate meat on a Friday in Lent

8.       Overeaten

9.       Lost my temper

10.   Argued with someone

11.   Lied

12.   Gossiped

These are the sins I will be confessing this week. They are the ones I wish forgiveness of because I know they are wrong and that they displease God.

I am determined to make it to Holy Week services this week and I will make it to confession.

I am sure I will stumble again and sin again because I am human and I will make mistakes, but at least I can be assured that I am truly trying and that things can be simple again. Things can still be right and wrong and there can be some shades of gray, but things don’t have to be overwhelming. You just have to keep trying to be better.

Learning to Pray

One thing has always been certain for me – God exists.

When I was a little girl, my parents would put me to bed and remind me to say my prayers. I would kneel at the side of my bed and say the standard prays and ask God to bless my mom and dad and all of my pets. I would always smile because I felt God was with me.

As I grew up, I continued to feel God with me. For a time (like a lot of children), I wanted to be a nun so I could spend time with God all of the time. I quickly dismissed this when I talked to a nun at my elementary school and she told me about not being able to marry or keep my long hair (hair was important even at a young age haha). When I was a pre-teen, I started confirmation classes and one night, my dad talked with my class about prayer. He said I could talk to God anytime I wanted and say anything to him. Dad said that prayer was just a conversation and I didn’t have to just the standard prayers. This resonated with me so I started talking with God as if He were sitting right there with me. Every night when I would go to bed, I would lay there and tell him about my day and thank Him for the day and ask Him to allow me to have another day. If I was having a particularly difficult day (as most teens do), I would tell God about it. I didn’t expect Him to fix it or make the problem magically disappear. I just wanted Him to listen and I believed He did.

When I went off to college, things at home got difficult and I started doing things I wasn’t very proud of – getting involved with someone I shouldn’t, be disrespectful to my parents. I guess you could say I was rebelling.  One day, I went to watch my brother practice baseball and my dad was sitting and watching him as well as reading a book. I went to sit with my dad and we went through the normal pleasantries followed by the “you know I don’t agree with you what you are doing with your life” bit.  I was frustrated by this because I felt my parents did not understand me. Before I could even begin to speak, my dad began telling me how much he valued family. He then talked of the Holy Family and how even they probably had their disagreements, but because they were family, they would work it out. He said God was the same way. No matter how far you strayed, God would always be there with open arms and that no matter what, God would always love his children.

Later that night, I remember asking God for help and asking Him to guide me. That was the first real time I actually asked for something from God. Did I expect to wake up and everything to be perfect? No, not really, but I did expect some small miracle. The small miracle never happened.

I went to watch my brother practice again the next week and again spoke to my dad with the same pleasantries followed by the same “I don’t like what you’re doing with your life” bit. I was now seeing this would be a pattern. During that chat, we discussed my school work and work in general. Then, I asked Dad about prayer and he told me that God always answers, but sometimes it takes him longer to answer and sometimes the answer isn’t what I want to hear. I remember Dad likening it to a genie in a bottle wish – the wish is never what you expect and not always what you really want.

I continued to pray the same prayer for months. Things didn’t feel right in my life and I didn’t know how to fix them. I felt like God was right there but just wasn’t quite ready to give me the answer I wanted. That answer would take years a lot of pain to get through, but that is for another post.

I started praying for other things…I prayed for the health and happiness of my family. I prayed for health and happiness for me even though I didn’t really believe I deserved it. Then after all of this and not a lot of action, I went back to my usual conversations with God. It felt right and like I was coming home again and being hugged. It gave me a sense of peace. I began talking to God every day. When I was able to attend morning Mass, I would and then I would sit in the pew and feel the solace that comes from feeling so close to Him. It would be this closeness that would help me survive difficulties that were yet to come and it would be this closeness that would allow me to truly get to know God.

Even today, I talk to God and it makes me feel better and close to Him. I still ask Him to care for my loved ones and keep them happy, healthy and safe. I still thank Him for the gift of the day and ask to please allow me to have another.  I try to be grateful and let Him know I am truly thankful even when I may not show it all the time.  With every conversation, I am learning more about Him and more about me. I guess I am still learning to pray, but I have learned what works and how to feel and be close again. I've opened the door to God again and I don't want to step away. Now if I could just get my behind back in the pew.

Why am I writing?

I grew up in the church. I loved being in the church…so why am I writing about facing my faith? Because I have fallen away and it upsets me. Because I want to explore more about my faith. Because I want to find "home" again.

I guess to start this journey, I need to give a little backstory so here goes...

I grew up in a clergy household. My father was a Anglican priest and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. Every Sunday, we drove the 45 minutes from our home to my dad’s parish. My mom taught Sunday School and I even sung in the choir for awhile. Church was a happy place for me.

When I was 13, my dad was elected bishop of our diocese and suddenly everyone knew my family. Years later, my dad would ask me if it ever bothered me being the bishop’s daughter. I could honestly reply that it did not. I thought it was cool to have my dad as bishop mostly because I grew up watching him work so hard to keep the churches together through a great deal of turmoil. He always seemed to be the one people turned to for answers so it seemed only appropriate that he was elected bishop.

Things did change though…at least at our small church. Well, things did not really change, but people did. They did not like that my dad now traveled a lot and was often absent from the church 2 weekends a month or more. That’s when things went dark and when the church building I had grown up in no longer felt like a second home.

People started being snarky. Rumors were spread and comments were made. All in all, things got very ugly very fast. My young brother and I were dragged into it and soon my dad had a decision to make. He chose to leave this parish and become a fulltime bishop for a time. I had never seen anything like that before. Maybe I had been sheltered and protected from the ugliness, but by the time I was 16, I was wondering how a place filled with the love of God…a place I felt so safe…become a roman coliseum.  I couldn’t even go back with my parents to visit the church because it felt like something horrible now lived there.

As college approached, I made a decision. I was going to become Roman Catholic…or at least, start attending Mass. I grew up going to Catholic school for elementary and both of my parents were “cradle Catholics” who left for different reasons so I was familiar with the Church. I started attending here and there at my college Catholic Student Union and enjoyed it.  It was GREAT being anonymous. It was GREAT knowing that no one was going to say hurtful things to me just to hurt my dad. It was GREAT knowing I could just focus on the service and enjoy it and I did.

I converted to Roman Catholic on Holy Saturday when I was 20. My dad was hurt and due to other things going on, we weren’t really at the best place with our relationship; however, he still came and I saw him in the back participating in the Mass just as he had when I was in Catholic school. He passed away less than a year later and the Catholic Church would be my comfort and solace throughout the difficult years that lie ahead. My mother and brother would eventually return to the Church and for a time, we all were close with the church, but that is not the purpose of this blog.

The purpose of this blog is for me to explore more of my faith and some of the questions I have. It’s not about being a Catholic or Anglican or anything like that. It’s about how to express faith and face my faith.

I look forward to hearing from anyone about your own questions on faith. It’s always good knowing you’re not alone. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. God bless!