Monthly Archives: April 2012

by

My Mid-life Crisis of Faith (or How I Broke My Father’s Heart)-Part 2


I’d left the Catholic Church and all of the tradition I’d grown up with. I guess I could have left it at that and been just another of the many people who have left for one reason or another, after all a lapsed Catholic is still a Catholic who could potentially return to the church like the prodigal son. But no, I felt I needed some type of spiritual home which meant changing my religious identifier altogether.

But where to go? Clearly, my options were very limited. Protestant was out. Islam was out. Judiasm (reformed) was intriguing but they’re not really looking for converts. Buddhism sounded good, but there’s a shortage of Buddhist temples in the Dallas area. Decisions, decisions…..then I remembered a former co-worker of mine who had been Unitarian Universalist. I didn’t remember much about our conversations about her faith but I do remember her talking about how inclusive and open her church was.

So it was off to Google. Where I found the Unitarian Universalist principles:

  • Protecting the inherent worth and dignity of every person
  • Justice, equality and compassion in human relations
  • Acceptance and encouragement of each individual’s spiritual journey
  • A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
  • The right of conscience and the democratic process
  • The goal of a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.
  • Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part.

Yes, yes and more yes! I needed more information so I found a UU church in my area and attended a Sunday service; it was a revelation. If you get the impression from the principles that this is a hippy-ish type of group….you’re kind of right. There were definitely some members who looked like they fit the bill. There were also older members, and young families, a whole range of people. They were welcoming and very interested in what had led me there. They shared their stories with me, some very similar, others very different.

The best part, and what I had come to hear, was the sermon. The readings were taken from a Jewish rabbi’s essay, a quote from the great Sufi poet Rumi and Walt Whitman. I can’t remember ever being as connected to what a minister was saying than I was at this service. I have always believed that there is wisdom in all cultures and traditions both spiritual and secular and that we cheat ourselves when we don’t learn from as many sources as we can find.

Rumi-Mystic Sufi Poet

Walt Whitman-American Poet and Essayist

And it has been in this place that I feel comfortable and like I can be myself. It does’t matter how my thinking changes and evolves because all manner of belief systems are embraced. Many members come from Christian and Buddhist backgrounds. Many would identify themselves as Secular Humanists. There’s a smattering of pagan/nature worship followers, and even some atheists. We’re all just looking at the big questions of life without someone else telling us they know the answer. It’s about the wonder of not knowing and feeling that it’s impossible for any human to comprehend fully the greatest mysteries of the universe. In other words, a room full of agnostics.

My favorite UU t-shirt says:

I’m a Unitarian Universalist: The bedrock of my faith is the unshakeable belief  that your guess is as good as mine.

So that was that. I’d found my new place to spend some quiet reflective time, but now I had to tell my parents about my change of heart. I could think of a lot of things I’d rather do than have that conversation, and I felt like a little kid about it. (Amazing that I’m about to turn 40 but my parents are still my parents.) I talked with my mom first and she was surprised but not particularly upset. My dad however was a whole different story and I wasn’t even the one to actually tell him. I guess my mom brought it up one day and he was just devastated. She later told me not to bother trying to talk to him about it, because he was so upset he didn’t want to even discuss it with me. (I should mention here that my sweet dad is still an alter boy. This is the level of commitment we’re talking here…and please, no jokes.) It wasn’t until almost a year had passed that we were able to sit down and talk about my defection.

In retrospect, the timing couldn’t have been worse. I was visiting family in the days surrounding my grandmother’s passing and everyone’s emotions were on edge, but then again isn’t it always when someone has died that the conversation turns to things like religion and God and heaven? Things got heated but were both able to say what was on our minds and express the hurt that we both felt, him at my throwing away what he sees as an identifying characteristic of our family and me at his belief that this was a frivolous and poorly thought out decision. I wish I could say  there was a great meeting of the minds, but that’s not the case. I didn’t sway him and he didn’t sway me. We haven’t talked about it since, but at least we were able to understand where the other one was coming from, and while I may never get my dad to cross the threshold of my UU church, I know he loves me regardless of whether I consider myself Catholic or not. (However, I wouldn’t put it past him to be saying rosaries for my return.)

Thank you for reading my story and for all of the kind and encouraging comments you have sent me on this blog, on my Facebook page and through e-mail. I can’t tell you how much the support means to me. If you like this or any other post, please share it, and follow my blog on this site or through my Facebook page. And since you’ve been so kind I’ll leave you with this quote from Khalil Gibran:

Related articles
by

My Mid-life Crisis of Faith (or How I Broke My Father’s Heart)-Part 1


So, now it’s time for me to get personal. I’ve had some friends who’ve read my blog ask me publicly and privately about my characterization of myself as a “former Catholic“. It’s not a story I’ve shared too freely, even with family and friends, because of all of the emotion it stirs up.

It turns out, like many other things in my life, I take my religion in moderation too. Not a great follower of organized religion,  and not an atheist…….nope, I’m hopelessly agnostic.

I grew up in a Catholic family and as a young adult , I found a parish that kept me “in the fold” for many years. The parish priest was a cool dude. He wore sandals constantly. He spent all of his sermons talking about social justice and giving the poor a voice, in politics and society in general. Things I could really get behind.

He was one of the first, and only, whistle-blowers in the clergy sex abuse scandal in my part of the country. He didn’t seem overly concerned with birth control or homosexuality; he always said that Jesus didn’t talk about that stuff and neither would he and then he’d go right back to his social justice work. He made it possible for me to ignore the fact that I fundamentally disagreed with a lot of what my church told me I was supposed to believe. So, I stayed in my comfort zone, I rationalized away my doubts, and worse I condemned myself for having those doubts in the first place.

Then, I moved to Texas.

At first I thought that it would be easier to be Catholic here. Church is such a huge part of the culture and social life of Texans that I thought it would be a great way to get myself and my kids involved and I was looking forward to being a part of a vibrant parish. So I went out and found a huge parish, with a married priest (an Episcopalian priest who converted to Catholicism), and I thought that I had found the perfect place to continue my family’s religious traditions.

Well, not so much.

Not that it was a bad parish. From what I could see, the families are very involved in the life of the church and in volunteering and trying to live their faith. But this was not the easy breezy church I was used to. These folks take their Catechism very seriously, and I was often reminded that there are certain beliefs that go along with being a Catholic and if you don’t believe those things, you can’t really call yourself a Catholic.

Hmm. Food for thought there, but then again old habits die hard so I tried……I really, really tried to stay a part of the Church. Ultimately though, I had to be honest with myself and admit, that if I were to put a checkmark next to every Catholic or even mainstream Christian teaching I truly  believed, there would be very few checkmarks.

So I left. With a lot of tears. With a lot of soul searching. With a measure of guilt. With a sense of being unmoored. And I started on a journey away from the faith I grew up with and into the faith I could actually claim as my own.

So I hope the words of e. e. cummings are true.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.“

I feel like they’re true, and next time I’ll touch on where my journey has taken me so far and about the reaction of my family….which as you can tell from my title, was not what I’d hoped.

by

Yup, I’m Pretty “Uppity” When It Comes To Women’s Healthcare


My first two blog posts were about birth choice, and my next two were about politics which may seem like random subjects to start off with, but here is where I tie it all together.

As I stated before, I am passionate about women’s health. An acquaintance of mine asked me about work a couple of weeks ago and as I was telling her about my weekend on call she interrupted me and said, “You know, you light up when you talk about your job.” I can’t think of a better compliment; yes, I LOVE what I do.

And so, we come to the issue that has been sticking in my craw, the recent attempts to legislate women’s healthcare, specifically reproductive choice and the relationship between women and their healthcare providers. I don’t think any picture sums it up better than the cover of the April Issue of The Texas Observer.

Disturbing, no?

Of course,  Texas is not the only place where this is happening. State by state, legislatures are taking it upon themselves to pass laws stripping women’s rights of autonomy in making certain healthcare decisions, interfering with doctor/client privacy and, in the case of Arizona, trying to force women who take birth control pills to prove to their employer that they are taking it for reasons other than birth control if they want it covered by insurance. Because that’s what we all want to do, march into our boss’s office and talk about our sex lives (or lack thereof), our bad acne, our heavy irregular periods, or our polycystic ovarian disease.  (As it stands, the Arizona law only applies to religious non-profits. Thankfully, the bill that would have expanded that exemption to all employers was voted down last week, probably due to the public pressure generated by social media.)

The commentary I have seen in the news surrounding these laws is absolutely disrespectful of women, comparing them to farm animals (Georgia State Representative Terry England), dismissing the invasiveness of a vaginal probe ultrasound  (A Virginia Lawmaker who said that a woman had already consented to vaginal penetration by having sex so a vaginal probe shouldn’t be a big deal.), and probably my favorite comment, that in the good old days, all a woman needed for birth control was to hold an aspirin between her knees. (Foster Friess, a Rick Santorum supporter). Wow. What year is this again?

Infuriating.

So hell yes, I’m uppity. I’m not  a primary healthcare provider yet, but as an aspiring one, I feel a protectiveness towards all women who have to make decisions about abortion and birth control for reasons I may not even begin to comprehend. It’s not my place to judge anyone else’s decisions; I get to make decisions for myself and that’s it. Can I offer an opinion? Sure, if asked. Can I offer support and information? Absolutely. Can I walk in someone else’s shoes? No, not really, so I don’t get to tell them how to live their reproductive lives. And neither do you. And neither should the government.

I have the nerve to believe that women have the same rights of medical autonomy as men, and that together with their healthcare providers they are capable of understanding the risks and benefits of any intervention without some politician’s input. I have the nerve to believe that the men and women who are degreed and licensed to be healthcare providers know a hell of a lot more than legislators do about what constitutes medical need and informed consent. And I have the nerve to be outraged at anyone who makes access to legal interventions in healthcare harder on women. But then again, I also have a sneaking suspicion that there are lots and lots of people out there who feel the same way I do. Their voices have already made a difference in Arizona, Virginia and Oklahoma, and for that I am profoundly grateful.

Related articles