The day I turned 18 I quit church. I never regretted it, felt guilty about it, or looked for another. It had been so over for me for a couple years. My parents, who lived life around the church, perhaps surprisingly, never tried to change my mind. I was an adult and my sins were my own.
I knew the reasons why. I thought women should be allowed to be priests. I was for contraception and, though I couldn't imagine doing so myself, legal abortion. There were too many pregnant girls in high school. Sexism in churches was an affront to my sensibility. I knew the so called World's Great Religions were Not Great for women.
I disliked several members of that church, in particular my schoolgirl friend who acted out religiosity on Sundays, so prayerful and humble with her hands folded and a scarf over her bowed head, but who had become a phoney. Puberty had turned her into an actress. She'd even honed a high fake voice.
There was a woman just the opposite too, a talking, laughing, attention seeker who one Christmas wore actual dangling Christmas bulbs in her pierced ears- one red - one green- who disturbed prayerful peace and would arrive a smidgen late and go down the center isle rather than settle her haunches in the back row.
And slutty altar boys. Sending meaningful gazes to girls they liked between movements.
These people were to me just the more notable annoyances. It troubled me that church or not, when you got to know them, so many people in the church were not nice people.
As well, the Age of Aquarius had begun (or so some of us thought) and many of my artist friends were spirituality exploring and experimental. One of them would tell me about her meditative experiments staring into a candle flame. Another declared herself a witch though I realize now there are many definitions for that lable and there wasn't any reason to believe her other than, as a friend, you believed whatever she said. I also had a friend who had lured me away from going to church by inviting me over to look through magazines like Creem, the pages full of photos of cute British rockers. (She joined a cult during her Freshman year in college and is still in it.)
Mainly I was bored with the routine of church. And the Obligation.
In recent years I tried to reevaluate my aversion to church -any church. Through the years I had been, at times earnestly, a spiritual explorer. I think this is very much Californian. I read books. Stacks of them. (I so miss the Bodhi Tree bookstore.) Once in a great while I attended - sometimes observing, sometimes participating, in a service or ritual - Christmas Eve Mass at a Mission, a Unitarian world wide meditation for peace, a party a Christian friend -who told me You Gotta Get God - took me to that turned into a sort of circle dance in which the woman, whose home it was in, began, in a teacherly way, to turn it into a ritual and call out the names of Goddesses from many cultures to "attend." (Something I've since heard is not advisable.) If this didn't bother him -someone raised Mormon, why should it bother me?
Over time I questioned myself. Had all those years of religious education (some would say indoctrination) really given me my values? Had my family of origin? What about the friends I cared about along the way?
Ultimately, I'm glad for the foundation but I see it was me - learning and evaluating - who came to think as I do - to have my values - and I'm not so Liberal overall.
As a child, I did not experience being supported as a human being - not really - I could not conform to expectations. There was too much "Yours is not to ask the reason why. When I say Jump, you say How High?" I was always asking why.
That was my upbringing.
Fast forwarding to my more recent life, I realized very few people I had associated with went to church, almost none identified as Christian, even the ones raised Catholic had abandoned believing or living those values. Friends had been raised as "nothing."
I had a lot of materialistic, success driven people in my life and, considering how few were self made, as dependent on parents most were, snobs.
I had been offended when a bunch of Unitarians started talking against the Pope at a Thanksgiving dinner I attended.
I had been bombarded with hate at another event when a self styled psychic teaching A Course in Miracles and who claimed to have been raised Catholic started spewing woppers against Catholicism. It was cheap of her. I spoke up and got slammed.
When a friend visiting LA saw that Mexican appearing women were on their knees praying wholeheartedly at the outdoor mosaic of Blessed Mother Mary in the historic Oliveira Street area, and she loudly announced with disgust "Who even believes this shit anymore?" I could barely believe her lack of consideration.
Had I been too hard in my thinking about the annoying members of my long ago church? My mom, not a person who explained much, gave me this bit of wisdom."Church isn't for saints, it's for sinners."
In all those years of trying to understand human existence, if there is meaning in life, our reason for being here, how to be moral and ethical and still succeed, how to be happy, I was never an athiest but surely agnostic. I wanted proof. Belief is an overused word. I'm using it correctly in saying I wanted to believe but could not believe without proof.
I felt that I didn't want anyone praying for me because they were either trying to convert me or basically were unwilling to be practical. Praying could even be Black Magic.
Another thing I did not want to do is join with anti-Catholic, Protestant churches. My grandparents, parents, and myself all suffered from Anti-Catholicism and -they'll deny it -Masonry. When someone left The Church back in the day we might not shun them but we were wary. There are still many lies about Catholicism that are used by Protestant missionaries such as that Catholics don't read the Bible. Once I was told Catholics are not allowed to read the Bible! I've heard Catholics were all going to eternal hell. I can make a long list of self-called "Christians" who I wish would go to hell for the things they've said or done to me. Based on them, I felt I would not want to be called Christian.
I did not and still do not understand the emphasis and scholarly competition in literary interpretation. I got screwed over by one of these "scholars" who turned in an Academy Award worthy performance and lied when I took him to court to get paid.
My question became how many real Christians even exist? Membership in a Church requires participation and tithing. It requires wanting to be there and among the others. Are there people in that club who will accept you? Will they help you if you need help in a practical way? Membership in a church is no proof of being Christian. But maybe it's good for networking? Ah, does being a Christian still require not being a Feminist?
My first foray into checking out a church in recent years happened accidentally. I went there looking for a minister to discuss a person who I understood to be a member there. This person was harassing me - moving and stealing things on my porch. I thought he could talk to him. The minister advised me that the person had been thrown out due to crazy behavior on the premises. However I was invited to attend. I did, weekly, for several weeks. I liked their loud, joyful singing. I liked their fellowship. I liked that I could take my dog! This was a small and very liberal church that greatly believed in prayer. Women could be ministers. But I couldn't keep going because I moved.
I next attended a Bible Study over several months and only one service (because I couldn't take my dog) at a more literal conservative church because I met a woman in a computer lab who was writing a book and she said it was a good place. While I enjoyed learning more about women in the Old Testament /history and admired that the pastor was fearless when it came to telling husbands to straighten up when their wives came crying, these people were sure eternity in Hell awaited Oprah, Shirley Maclaine, and just about anyone into the New Age Movement, thought homosexually and the like also meant Hell, and forget feminism - these were women who let their husbands support them financially and felt it was their right. It took a while for all this to come out, for me to get it. I liked some of these women while feeling none of them understood my life. I did some volunteer work while there with them. They were highly Republican and involved in missionary work. I began to see that I didn't want more people on earth to become so condemning. I gave prayer and daily reading a good try for many months. I became frightened of the fact that there were so many people like them in this world.
Lastly, I, without joining again, got involved in another Christian group that considers itself interfaith (though barely) with an emphasis on volunteering, especially in the community. At this point my thinking was that The Bible and Christianity are so much Western culture. I was born into this culture. Do I need to be reacquainted?
Ministers including women from various Protestant churches were involved but time proved no Catholics were. I'd begun to think this place was a decent fit for me. By putting in time I realized not so. They can't do anything without board meetings. It's not a cult but the board is a clique, a clique that doesn't do much to attract or keep volunteers and ministers who are statistics fiends but do little to attract members and are always looking for grants and big donors instead.
It's time to go it alone again, I think.
Threes a charm.
However, I have some advice. When you meet someone new in your life, try to find out what they value. Do they hold beliefs against your being? Are they empathic and kind? Are they honest in their dealings with you? Or opportunists and users? Do they have a spiritual or religious view that's compatible with yours? In general, are they loving and giving? If they pray do they ask you first if it's ok? Will they pray for what you want or need or a complete makeover of who you are and what you stand for?
Will that person be the friend who is there through success and failure? Or a turncoat who treats you like a contagious disease when you fail? Or who can't bring themselves to congratulate you when you win?
How does he or she treat women? Is there basic respect? How are they raising their children?
These are my thoughts today after researching What To Expect From A Minister.
C 2021
Slightly edited for clarity.
