Ch ch chuh changes...

May 7th, 2008; 5:43 PM
Current mood:determined

So much can change in your life. Your positions and viewpoints on things that supposedly matter. Who you are. What you do. How you define yourself.

I remember when I was a young child. My grandmother was a very devout Catholic. She used to listen to mass every day. And at night I would hear her drifting off to sleep to the sounds of the prayers of the rosary:

"Oh my Jesus,

forgive us our sins,

save us from the fires of hell.

Send all souls to heaven.

-Especially those in most need of thy mercy."

...."Send *ALL* souls to heaven." -Not some. Not most. Not only the ones who look and think like me...but ALL SOULS. I found this prayer scary (the fires of hell part) and also somehow comforting. The idea that all souls are deserving of love, forgiveness, the grace of god, and the peace of heaven was nice to me. Growing up Catholic, I was sure that I was going to hell at an early age. I was damned by 4..maybe 5. By that age I was afraid that I had surely done something that ranked up there with one of those cardinal sins...or maybe a lesser sin..but probably one that I would die with, since I've never done catechism, and therefore cannot recieve communion. I also haven't confessed my sins to a priest. So therefore again...no forgiveness. The final nail in the coffin was when I became a Buddhist, and openly began questioning the existence of God. I had lost my faith. When I was young, I remember my Grandmother donating money to all sorts of charities. Especially Catholic charities. I had a subscription to Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family childrens magazine. (And I really liked it too! -I don't remember it being full of anything hatefull or even remotely bad.) Now that I am older, I am sad to see how those gentle magazines were probably one step down the road to indoctrination...the hatemongering would come later...when I was older...luckily I skipped out before then. I honesly lost my faith when I saw how the Catholic church treated my grandmother. As long as she was donating money, it didn't matter how sick she was, they'd make a special visit to her house to give her communion and let her confess her sins. The sins of an 80 year old woman can't be much. But if she was sick and you simply requested a visit...it was often that you would get no response. When my grandmother died, there was no comfort. In fact the church fell silent. I didn't see any of the priests or nuns come to see how things were. It was like she (my grandmother) was never missed. For all of her years of devotion and generosity...there was nothing but silence. I remember how grandma used to call people sending solicitations through the mail, or over the phone, for donations of money the "gimme gimme's". After my grandmother died, I began to view the Catholic church that way. As one big gimme gimme. If you have the money honey they have the time...but otherwise..no. Religion shouldn't be like that to me. It should be about heart, and connection, bringing people together in the spirit of brotherly love and peace. It should be about elevating the human spirit to it's highest places, so that we can all shine our own unique lights in this world and be loved.