From this Blog to God's Ears?

Disclaimer: This blog is about religion. Maybe not religion, perhaps more about faith and power and families and all of the baggage that comes along with religion. I just think all things God need a warning these days. The fact that I believe the previous statement probably says more about how I feel about religion than this blog ever could...

I was baptised and raised Roman Catholic. The degree to which this was a factor in my life varied based on my mother's constantly changing attitude towards her faith. But regardless of whether my mother always adhered to the Catholic teachings, the power of the church was ever-present in our lives. My mother considered the family priest, Father Joe, one of her closest friends and confidants. When Father Joe told my mom to do something - she did it. When my mother and father(then 17 and 19, respectively) attended pre-marriage meetings with Father Joe he explained the evils of sex before marriage - my father was promptly cut off. When mom and dad could not decide on a name for me, Father Joe was enlisted and helped my mother choose a name. Father Joe baptised all three of my mother's children and both my sister and I made our first communions and reconciliations under his guidance. We were sent to Catholic school in spite of my parents having no realistic way of paying for it. My mother saw the church as her support, her beacon of hope. When she was feeling lost and vulnerable, we would visit Father Joe - sometimes staying for days at a time with him in the rectory. When my mother needed money, Father Joe sent her some. When my mother locked herself in the bathroom and took an overdose of prescription pain pills, she called Father Joe for her last rites.

Fortunately Father Joe called the ambulance instead.

Given my background, it was no real surprise to me that telling my mother we were not planning on Christening our unborn baby in the Catholic church would lead to a certain level of disappointment. It was the defensive, enraged and irrational reaction that I was more shocked by. My mother used all manner of emotional devices to convince me I was making a terrible mistake - including the implication that my faithless child might grow up to be a sociopath with no concept of right and wrong. She pleaded with me to recognise the good of the church in spite of its flaws, to remember that Catholicism had to be a good thing, because Father Joe had been sucha good man. She even insisted that she would have the baby christened in spite of me, that it was too important to leave to one of my whims. She suggested politely that I find some other way to be "defiant" against cultural norms, one with less significant repercussions for my family.

Being raised in the church myself, I know the power that the institution has over its followers. My mother has been told of purgatory - of the need to erase original sin that follows each of us into this world. I would be lying if I said the same nagging fear hadn't crept into my own mind at one moment or another. But instead of being led by that fear, I have been angered by it. Frustrated in a church that would imply that my child's soul could suffer at my failure to adhere to their rituals, furious at the emotional blackmail that seems to be behind the act - an attempt to ensure future generations of followers and patrons. In fact, there are a lot of things about the Catholic church I get angry about if I think about them too much.

I'll take this opportunity to say that this will NOT be a church bashing session. Catholicism has given me many great things in my life. There is no doubt that my strong sense of right and wrong was a product of my mother's religious belief. Father Joe, the man I describe above, instilled in me a great sense of hope and and love - and let's not forget that he saved my mother's life. Another priest, the University Chaplain and the man who married my husband and I - Father Rob - helped me regain a sense of self-worth when I was 20 years old that I otherwise may have taken years to find. He also gave me the words that acted as my greatest comfort during the miscarriage that nearly ate me alive 6 months ago. No, I would never claim that no good can come from Catholicism or from any organised faith.

But I can recognise the bad as well. I can tally up the things I think and feel - and know - and I can weigh them against what the church tries to enforce. And the majority of the time, I just can't balance them. I can't get past the church as a power structure, one that has grave potential to inhibit and exploit. The same girl that felt loved and cared for by a priest was also petrified of hell and the devil, afraid to even think "bad" thoughts in case divine retribution were to follow. Although Father Rob helped that young woman regain some sense of self-worth, much of that self-worth would not have been lost if it were not for the guilt she had amassed over not being perfect in they eyes of her family, and especially of God. I have listened to sermons and homilies which condemned the lifestyles of people I loved. I listened to my Grandmother (the most faithful person I have ever known) tell of her excommunication from the church after divorcing the man who abandoned her and their three children. I have watched my mother put money she could not afford to sacrifice into the collection basket, only to look around at the grandeur of the church and the size of the rectory. I have sat in silence while an institution I supported openly and unapolegetically discriminated against my gender, where abusers of children were covered for and excused.

Finally, after years of turning a blind (faithful) eye to these offences, I began to ask the questions which led me to my decision. Would I tolerate these abuses from anyone else? If I had a friend who was openly homophobic, who was bigoted against other faiths and harshly judgemental of those who did not adhere to the same moral codes as them - how long would I put up with such a friend? If a school hired teachers who went on to abuse children in their care, and then covered for and refused to fire those teachers - would I continue to send my children to that school? Would I not be demanding the punishment of all involved in that cover up? If a charity asked me for donations to help sustain itself, and then used my money to buy over-the-top, fancy new offices while calling for its patrons to live humble and simple lives - would I still give them money? If a company used scare tactics and manipulation of truth to convince me and my loved ones to buy their products, would I not boycott their goods and try to find another provider?

Basically, if the Catholic church had been anything other than the Catholic church, I would have held it to account. I don't support people, politicians, businesses or organisations whose practices are at odds with my morals and beliefs - why do I continue to be a member of a church whose practices are at odds with my morals and beliefs? When my children are born, I like to think I will go out of my way to keep those kind of negative influences out of their lives. Why then should one of my first acts as a parent be to commit them to a life of serving a church which may well be that same kind of influence? It no longer makes sense to me, and I can no longer justify it as a rational act.

I am not saying that I don't want to teach my children to have faith in something greater than themselves and other human beings. I remember very well that believing in God and Heaven was a great comfort to me as a child. My mother once told me that God has a plan for everyone. I loved believing this, feeling like I had some great purpose to fulfill. I felt safer with the idea that God was looking out for me and my family, reassured that those who I loved were not lost forever when they left this Earth. Praying gave me a sense of control over things against which I felt powerless, and faith gave me strength and confidence at so many times in my life. I have not ever been ready or willing to let go of those things, nor have I ever felt I had evidence against the existence of God - whatever form he/she/it might take. I want my children to know those comforts, I want them to have faith and hope.

I just can't allow them to be made to feel like that faith and hope is dependent on their conformity to a rigid set of man-made rules and regulations.

So you see my dilemma. A modern dilemma, I suppose, and one which I assume is not new or surprising to any of you. How do you raise hopeful and faithful children outside the confines of a church community? How do you find a faith community that works for you and your family? Or is this all the same as telling my children there is an Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause? Should I let them learn the realities of life without the safety net of God and Heaven and all things hopeful?

When it was just me, I was happy to take a lifetime to answer this question. Now I feel like I need a five month crash course.

They F***k You Up... But By God You Help Them Sometimes

Please pardon the absence. Life lately has been a mess of family visits, catching up at work, and trying to get through the day without at least one nap. And frankly, after my last post (you remember, my declaration of hope for family relations?), I was embarrassed to have to chronicle the reality of my mother's trip to Ireland. It was a visit that raised within me questions I had asked before so many times, but been afraid to answer for fear of knowing the truth.

Do people have the capacity for real change? And if they do, can the people they are closest to ever recognise and accept that change?

I often pride myself on the changes I have made over the years. Once obsessed with traditional success at any cost, I have begun to recognise the value of non-material things in life and to seek those successes instead. Once the owner of a short fuse that could be ignited with little more than an awkward glance - I now work hard to maintain a cool and calm demeanor when dealing with difficult situations. There are many more, just as there were once so many things I hated about myself. Slowly, and deliberately (and frankly, not without help from some unlikely sources) I have begun to weed out those parts of me of which I had been ashamed - the ultimate goal of "better person-hood" looming there in front of me, my carrot on a stick.

Max, my husband, once made the argument that perhaps I had not changed anything other than the way I looked at myself - that maybe I wasn't so bad to begin with. I love him for the suggestion that I might have been less flawed than I had thought, but at the same time resented his failure to acknowledge my hard work. But with my family, it is a different story. I regularly accuse them (both verbally and otherwise) of not seeing me as I am now, of refusing to look past that emotionally unstable 16 year-old who hated herself and most others around her. They regularly accuse me of being ashamed of them and of where I came from. Is this the penalty for self-improvement? Am I actually ashamed of the people who produced the person I have tried to hard to change?

It is a mess of unanswerable questions, and sometimes I think I should get some real problems so I would have less time to think about such tosh. I mean, the fact that a leading psychologist wrote a book about parents entitled They Fuck You Up, inspired by a Larkin poem of the same subject is an indicator that I am not alone in my boo-hooing about the life I was given and the people who gave it to me. But here is where I implore you, just as I spent a week imploring my mother, to understand that is NOT what I am concerned with.

My life was my life, it has made me who I am. I am not a boring person, I am not a cruel person, I am not a stupid person, I am not a lonely or socially incapable person. I have a roof over my head, a life-partner I love, and a family on the way. What I need now is to somehow make this horrible cycle of fighting and resentment stop once and for all, to make my family see that I don't hate them and make my mother see that I don't carry around a big ball of angry because she screwed up occasionally when I was younger.

What I DO need her to acknowledge is that sometimes she screws up NOW. When I see her, I need her to see past all of the traits she hates about herself that she inadvertently handed on to me - and to instead see the things she managed to spare me in spite of suffering them herself for so many years. I need her to stop expecting me to hate her, to blame her and to fight against her regardless of what my actual responses might be. Why do we need to stay trapped in this cycle of who did what to who, or who hates who more? Why can't the decisions I have made be about me, and not be some rebellion against her?

When I saw my mother in the airport on that first day, the first thing I thought to myself was that she was more beautiful than I had remembered. I was watching her sitting there talking to my brother, oblivious to the approaching audience, and I thought "I can't believe I had forgotten how pretty she is." When I hugged her I smelled that familiar smell of cigarettes and original flavour chewing gum, and marveled for the millionth time at the softness of her hair and face in spite of years of dying her locks and refusing to invest in proper face cream. I reveled in her laugh, the way I often do, surprised that even now I could be startled by the loudness of her cackle juxtaposed with the tiny-ness of her voice. Standing in front her, nearly 28 years old and soon to be a mother myself, I was amazed by my own mother's youth - by her green corduroys and trendy brown Keds. It was so easy to forget in that moment that this 5'4" woman, with wrists and hands as small as a child's, had been through so much. Even harder to remember how much she had frightened me, and how large and overpowering she had seemed for so many years. But most of all I was surprised that after years of noticing only how many wrinkles she had gained, or her neglectful lack of make-up, or the fillings in her teeth, I could finally see how beautiful she was - and had always been.

This paragraph may seem oddly placed, but my perceptions of beauty have always been a tell-tale sign of my emotions. I have never been able to look at someone whose behaviour upset me and see them as beautiful. Likewise, many people in my life have grown more and more beautiful to me as we have grown closer. When I first met Max, I shrugged off his advances at first because I simply did not find him attractive. I find that almost impossible to believe now, nearly seven years later, as when I look at him I can't believe my luck that someone so handsome and kind wasn't snapped up before I came around. When I was a child I thought my mother was the most beautiful woman alive. My beliefs were not based on maternal adoration alone - no, my mother was a stunningly beautiful woman. My father, who can barely stand to be in the same room as my mother, would still say that my mother's beauty was unrivaled when they met. During the worst of my mother's temper, I would never have seen the tiny bird-like frame she actually possessed. She seemed larger than life, her teeth a bit sharper and her eyes a bit wilder. But after my mother left, I began to notice my mother's diminutive stature more and more. I did not as cute, as many of her male suitors did, but as meek and frail. While others insisted she had the face of a teenager, I thought she had too many wrinkles for her age. I thought her lips were too thin and that she looked almost pitiable when she walked into a room. I dreaded being told I looked like her, for I was far more proud of my tall frame and strong jawline which I had inherited from my father. I couldn't see her as beautiful, delicate or enviable, because I couldn't afford to see her that way. I needed her to be weak, or cruel, or pitiful, or unkind, or crazy - because then it would be OK for me to resent her the way I did.

So when I saw her in the airport and thought she was beautiful, I knew I had forgiven her. I knew I was ready to see her as a person, better still as a person who I would want to be around. I thought that maybe, just maybe, all those years of going to her and wishing that she would be the mother I needed and getting rebuffed were over. Now we could understand each other, respect each other, like each other.

But life is life, and not a feelgood summer flick.

We danced around each other for a while, me restraining my "tone" as much as possible, attempting to bite my tongue when she said something critical or interrupted what I was saying to point out the nearest floral display. If she were writing this I am sure she could tell you of many things she bit her tongue about, or many annoying habits which I possess that she had to ignore politely. But it wasn't long before the facade was broken, and frustrations became outbursts. I became convinced that she was trying to turn my brother against me, she became convinced that my husband hated her because I told him to. There were tears, mostly mine (as my mother rarely cries publicly), there was pleading for her to see my point of view. There were harsh words and condemnations of personality traits - blame allocated to each other for our failure to get along. There was even an implication or two that I would undoubtedly not be the best mother I could if I didn't change certain things about myself. We smoothed things over enough to get through the trip, but in spite of my several attempts at long and honest heart-to-hearts, no resolution was reached.

So at the end of her visit I was left feeling the way I often feel after seeing my mother. Drained. Sad. Relieved that she's gone. Guilty. Ungrateful. Emotionally unstable. Etc. It's not entirely her fault. It's not entirely my fault. It's not her mother's fault or her father's fault, or my father's fault or my father's mother's fault. We're just human, and I just don't know if either of us is ever going to be willing to change enough to be the person the other one needs us to be - or to accept each other for who we are.

Any pointers, sane people?