In Reply to: Yep posted by Question II on October 06, 2006 at 01:12:40:
part one.. the roots of belief...
Born & raised Catholic... I cannot remember ever NOT believing while i was growing up. I think it was my anchor in the midst of much dysfunction, but even before i realized things were screwy at home, i had a fervent innocent unquenchable belief in everything the church taught. I thought of God on a daily basis, in whatever i was doing, but didn't necesarilly associate him with church. I talked to or thought of him daily. It gave me comfort, and maybe he was my 'invisible friend'. I remember not wanting to go to church one day, age 6 perhaps, and being told then to go and pray and tell GOD why i didnt want to go see him that day. I still remember the guilt i felt over that perfectly normal 6 year old desire, and my inability to explain that it wasnt God i didnt like, it was church.
Another true story that still makes me cringe at my vulnerable innocence... eight years old and hadn't made my first communion. Not sure why mine hadnt been a priority in my family, there are family photos of my older 4 siblings all making thiers in full white gowned/black suited attire.
For mine, my mother told me it was time and gave me a little book to read re: first confession and told me the priest was waiting for me down at the church and to go down and make my first confession. I was a VERY shy child, and the thought of this terrified me. I had an overblown sense of guilt and of not feeling like anything i did was right already... so the thought of exposing myself to more scrutiny by telling someone my sins was very scarey.
I walked down to the church, walked around it twice, it was winter time... I couldn't really tell where to go, so i passed a bit more time and then walked back home and told my mother i'd done it. Seems to me she said the priest had called but i bluffed and said that i had indeed gone, must have been after he called. I'm guessing now that i confounded them, as the priest is supposed to be confidential, so how could my mother know if i hadn't gone? Nothing else was said about it. I felt terrible inside however, because even though i was too afraid to go, i believed that that was what was necesary to get in to heaven.
So in my eight year old innocence, i made a soletary alter out of snow in the backyard, and alone with God, I knelt at it and asked him for forgiveness for my sins. Now i know now that that was without doubt the purest thing i've ever done, but for the next ten years the secret of it weighed over me, whether it was 'good enough', and how to make it up to God. And remembering that, if i dwell on it, makes me angry. Angry at how religions can be used to have control over people, and how it contributed to years of me not feeling good enough.