Before this river becomes an ocean
Sep. 23rd, 2011 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jawnbcLet us die young or let us live forever
I am a person of faith—a deep, profound, inspiring faith. In the creator who, if s/he/it (aw shiiiit) has a personality has better things to do than cultivate a personal relationship with me. Or to pull the puppet strings of life. Life unfolds; there’s an element of the random and I don’t believe in divine interanythings.
As a Catholic child I was introduced to the idea of a (spiritual) vocation, quite literally a calling, to “serve” god. I felt I had a calling; I know now that I do. But it wasn’t to serve some vastness, some omnipotent entity. It was to serve man. Largely as a teacher. The opportunities for leaving the world a bit better than you found abound if you’re a teacher. With a good heart. And big balls. We have, to my mind, entirely too many doormat teachers. And worse.
Shortly after I got my vocation I also started to put a few things together. The first was about the sacraments. Confession, once explained to me, made no sense: I didn’t see how telling a man anything secret could end up well. I knew what “it’s OK, you can tell me the truth” meant…if you told the truth. I went twice: before first communion and then before confirmation.
When the sacrament of holy communion was explained to me it scared me. Eating Jesus seemed…wrong. Cannibalism is always wrong, right? I was assured that this was a beautiful thing. I couldn’t buy it. With time it only horrifies me more. And when I try to explain to observant family members that I don’t believe in the “the mysteries” I usually have to explain what they are. And then they look at me like “WTF—you think about this shit?”
I do. Or, more precisely, these things move me to thought and reflection. I went through the motions for confirmation and then dropped religious instruction. I sporadically attended Mass until my early 20s. Then Big Gay Me™ brought in the “fuck you” phase of my spiritual development. No joke: moving from “I’m horrible, evil and worthless” to “fuck you, I am not” was progress—spiritual progress. If I did go to Mass (weddings and baptisms, usually) I didn’t take communion. I couldn’t; the thought nauseated me. Then I moved to Canada. Then I became estranged from my parents.
And then Pop died, Da’s Da. I didn’t regain my faith, but I did plug in to the rituals and found comfort in them. As a pallbearer (all his grandsons and sons were) I took communion: suddenly it wasn’t important to me, but I knew it’d be important to Nanny and Da and many others in the family. Since then I’ve taken communion at everyone’s funeral where it seemed to matter. I don’t believe in transubstantiation, so it’s meaningless for me. But means the world to them.
But anyway: faith. Today. Canada’s a pretty easy place to be an atheist or agnostic—or believer. But there don’t seem to be many GDIs (gawd damned independents, as the non-frat guys called themselves in college) who believe but not in anyone or any faith. Maybe because we don’t congregate around an ideal or narrative or shared values. I miss the community aspect sometimes, but I’m no longer capable of acquiescing and being silent when I don’t believe what is espoused. I can’t be a winky-winky Christian. Don’t won’t to be. I don’t feel the need to scaffold my faith onto any narrative: allegorical or fictive.
Feels lonely sometimes. But it felt lonely within a faith a lot of the time too. So I’m moving back into a phase where I seek and explore the silence. I’m looking forward to it.
I am a person of faith—a deep, profound, inspiring faith. In the creator who, if s/he/it (aw shiiiit) has a personality has better things to do than cultivate a personal relationship with me. Or to pull the puppet strings of life. Life unfolds; there’s an element of the random and I don’t believe in divine interanythings.
As a Catholic child I was introduced to the idea of a (spiritual) vocation, quite literally a calling, to “serve” god. I felt I had a calling; I know now that I do. But it wasn’t to serve some vastness, some omnipotent entity. It was to serve man. Largely as a teacher. The opportunities for leaving the world a bit better than you found abound if you’re a teacher. With a good heart. And big balls. We have, to my mind, entirely too many doormat teachers. And worse.
Shortly after I got my vocation I also started to put a few things together. The first was about the sacraments. Confession, once explained to me, made no sense: I didn’t see how telling a man anything secret could end up well. I knew what “it’s OK, you can tell me the truth” meant…if you told the truth. I went twice: before first communion and then before confirmation.
When the sacrament of holy communion was explained to me it scared me. Eating Jesus seemed…wrong. Cannibalism is always wrong, right? I was assured that this was a beautiful thing. I couldn’t buy it. With time it only horrifies me more. And when I try to explain to observant family members that I don’t believe in the “the mysteries” I usually have to explain what they are. And then they look at me like “WTF—you think about this shit?”
I do. Or, more precisely, these things move me to thought and reflection. I went through the motions for confirmation and then dropped religious instruction. I sporadically attended Mass until my early 20s. Then Big Gay Me™ brought in the “fuck you” phase of my spiritual development. No joke: moving from “I’m horrible, evil and worthless” to “fuck you, I am not” was progress—spiritual progress. If I did go to Mass (weddings and baptisms, usually) I didn’t take communion. I couldn’t; the thought nauseated me. Then I moved to Canada. Then I became estranged from my parents.
And then Pop died, Da’s Da. I didn’t regain my faith, but I did plug in to the rituals and found comfort in them. As a pallbearer (all his grandsons and sons were) I took communion: suddenly it wasn’t important to me, but I knew it’d be important to Nanny and Da and many others in the family. Since then I’ve taken communion at everyone’s funeral where it seemed to matter. I don’t believe in transubstantiation, so it’s meaningless for me. But means the world to them.
But anyway: faith. Today. Canada’s a pretty easy place to be an atheist or agnostic—or believer. But there don’t seem to be many GDIs (gawd damned independents, as the non-frat guys called themselves in college) who believe but not in anyone or any faith. Maybe because we don’t congregate around an ideal or narrative or shared values. I miss the community aspect sometimes, but I’m no longer capable of acquiescing and being silent when I don’t believe what is espoused. I can’t be a winky-winky Christian. Don’t won’t to be. I don’t feel the need to scaffold my faith onto any narrative: allegorical or fictive.
Feels lonely sometimes. But it felt lonely within a faith a lot of the time too. So I’m moving back into a phase where I seek and explore the silence. I’m looking forward to it.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-24 06:26 am (UTC)I think I have another vocation coming on in the future but yeah, I will always dig the idea of that.
I really appreciate this post for a whole host of reasons.
Sometimes it is weird being a cultural Catholic in that so much of it remains a part of my person despite not going to mass and all that jazz. I tend to think of God/higher power as the ultimate free-range parent. Existence happens but God kind of lets it all unfold and stuff happens with no real hand.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-24 03:40 pm (UTC)Precisely. Very well put!
What's the next vocation?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-24 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-24 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-24 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-25 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-27 12:54 am (UTC)I still take part in the local Christian (well, I believe they are in fact syncretic) rituals that honour the dead and comfort the living.
And I've chosen to serve my fellow humans by all that gay-related volunteering. It's amazing how we've came to more or less the same point from the opposite directions. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-27 04:48 am (UTC)You continue to impress me in new and suprising ways :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-28 08:57 am (UTC)