I said in my last post that I wanted to learn to love God, but actually, I just want to know him first. I said that I think I stopped believing in God at one point in my life, but honestly, I don't know if I ever really believed to begin with. Growing up, God was always a given. The questions were always about where to find God, what kinds of things God could do, what would God want you to do. But no one ever addressed the issue of whether he existed to begin with.
I know the story of "doubting Thomas," who refused to believe that Jesus had come back to life without proof. I also know that the point of the story was to not be like Thomas. Thomas' faith was weak. He had to see to believe. But I just can't help it. I'm a Thomas. I would love to believe that there is an all-powerful being that only wants what is best for me and who will always look over me. Of course, I'd also like to believe that a jolly elf brings gifts to people who have been good all year on Christmas eve. I want all the things that God can do for me. It's just the believing that he exists to begin with that I have the trouble with.
I thought a good place to start would be by researching. I found a great blog called Conversion Diary by a woman who was once an atheist and has since converted to Catholicism. I went back to her very first blog post hoping to see what kind of proof she relied on. Unfortunately, it seems like even then she was ahead of me. Starting her blog, she had already gotten to the point where she could say that she believed in a creator. Of course, she also states that she had been studying the topic for two years, so she did have quite a head start on me.
A few days ago, I had dinner with a friend who had not been born into a religious family like I was but who had "found God" several years ago. I asked her how she knew there was a God, and she answered simply that she had asked God to prove himself to her (ahah! I'm not the only doubting Thomas!). It wasn't the answer I had wanted to hear. I was hoping she'd found some empirical evidence or something. A book or argument that made sense to her. I wanted something concrete that I could grasp.
I was also scared of that answer because in my research I'd come across a book written by atheists who had converted to Catholicism. In reading the reviews of the book, I discovered that many of the authors had experienced dramatic events shortly before their conversions. I don't know exactly what a conversion experience is, but I do know there are two things I don't want. I don't want anything bad to happen, and I don't want any apparitions, especially of the ghostly or scary kind (yes, I admit that while I have trouble believing in God, I have no trouble being scared of ghosts). In fact, I'd rather just avoid any kind of drama all together if I can help it. Luckily, my friend assures me that God tailors it to each individual and his or her needs.
Since then, I've been thinking about asking God for some proof, but I'm still not quite sure I want to do it yet. There are still a few things holding me back that I want to deal with first. But I've certainly been thinking about it a lot.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Lost
This is going to be a difficult post for me.
I grew up in a very devout Catholic family. My mom and her extended family emigrated to the United States in 1975 as part of a wave of refugees at the end of the Vietnam War. They came with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs, so my grandparents would watch all of us kids while our parents were working. My grandfather was especially religious and felt it his duty to make sure all his grandchildren were educated in the teachings of the Church. After our parents dropped us off, we would have breakfast and then start our religious classes. My grandfather would read passages from the Bible, teach us prayers, and discuss what would sometimes be very high theological concepts with us. At night, after the parents came back from work, we would say a family rosary before heading home.
My mom was a former nun who was just short of her final vows before having to be sent away from the convent for treatment when she became ill. She likely would have gone back to the convent had her whole family not fled Vietnam. Instead of fairy tales, my mom would tell my brother and me Bible stories or biographies of saints. When my brother and I reached school age, my parents sent us to Catholic school. Even though my parents still were not making very much money, our religious education was a priority, and they made sacrifices to send us there.
My parents really only had two priorities for us: that we grew up well educated and be good Catholics. So, we didn't really get to participate in a lot of extracurricular activities. I was in the Girl Scouts very briefly. In middle school I joined a junior arm of The Legion of Mary where we would get together with some other middle school-aged kids and pray the rosary, make rosaries, and visit Catholic shut-ins.
I grew up in this kind of Catholic bubble. Until high school, I don't think I'd met very many non-Catholics, and I never considered that Catholics would be perceived any differently from other Christians. I remember being very surprised one day in high school when I was riding the school bus, and somehow the issue of religion came up. I stated very proudly that I was Catholic, and this Baptist girl told me very matter-of-factly that I was going to hell because Catholics weren't saved. Still even through high school, even though I was exposed to a slightly wider range of people, everyone I knew was of one Christian denomination or another.
Even then, though, I think I was starting to get little cracks in my faith. I remember going to youth group retreats and seeing all my friends in tears over how moved they were by the grace of God and thinking, "um yeah...I didn't I felt that." I feel like my "faith" was always in my head and not in my heart. As I was learning more about science and history, religion started to not make sense to me.
When I got to college, I met even more people from different backgrounds. I met my first Jews, atheists, and gays. And they were all good people. I still went to mass on Sundays and joined the Catholic Student Union. I even went on some retreats and was even on a "Team" for one (that's what we called the retreat organizers). More and more though, it just felt like I was going through the motions.
Granted, there were a lot of distractions. I went to college in New Orleans, and its reputation for debauchery is not all-together unfounded. Boys were also starting to pay attention to me for the first time in my life. Perhaps some of my lapses in faith fall more in the category of rationalization. Also, like I said, I was meeting a lot of people with views I hadn't been exposed to before, and a lot of things I had been raised to believe just didn't make sense. Whatever the reason, I was growing further and further away from not only Catholicism but God.
After college, I moved to Tallahassee for law school, and it was pretty much the beginning of the end for me. After the first year or so there, I stopped going to church on Sundays except when my parents were in town (they have no idea about any of this. I still tell them I go to church every Sunday). I just felt like I wasn't getting anything out of it. And one day, I just stopped believing in God. If I ever did to begin with.
When I had children, though, things started to change. I wanted them to believe. I can't really express why, but I do. I feel like there's some inherent benefit to faith that I just can't pinpoint. When my son Cael was old enough for preschool last year, we signed him up for a Catholic school. It kind of happened coincidentally. The school just happens to be close to my work and the sitter that my younger son goes to. But it makes me happy when my son comes home and tells me he's learned a Bible story or a prayer or went on a trip to chapel to see the Eucharist. Maybe it's just because I went through the same things as a kid, and I feel like I'm bonding with my son. But maybe it's more.
The problem is, I just can't get myself to believe. I have the principles and the foundation, but I don't have the faith to go with it. I guess it's kind of like trying to make yourself fall in love with the person who's "good" for you but just not feeling the spark. I've been told that you can learn to love someone, so I'm trying to see if there's a way to learn to love God.
I grew up in a very devout Catholic family. My mom and her extended family emigrated to the United States in 1975 as part of a wave of refugees at the end of the Vietnam War. They came with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs, so my grandparents would watch all of us kids while our parents were working. My grandfather was especially religious and felt it his duty to make sure all his grandchildren were educated in the teachings of the Church. After our parents dropped us off, we would have breakfast and then start our religious classes. My grandfather would read passages from the Bible, teach us prayers, and discuss what would sometimes be very high theological concepts with us. At night, after the parents came back from work, we would say a family rosary before heading home.
My mom was a former nun who was just short of her final vows before having to be sent away from the convent for treatment when she became ill. She likely would have gone back to the convent had her whole family not fled Vietnam. Instead of fairy tales, my mom would tell my brother and me Bible stories or biographies of saints. When my brother and I reached school age, my parents sent us to Catholic school. Even though my parents still were not making very much money, our religious education was a priority, and they made sacrifices to send us there.
My parents really only had two priorities for us: that we grew up well educated and be good Catholics. So, we didn't really get to participate in a lot of extracurricular activities. I was in the Girl Scouts very briefly. In middle school I joined a junior arm of The Legion of Mary where we would get together with some other middle school-aged kids and pray the rosary, make rosaries, and visit Catholic shut-ins.
I grew up in this kind of Catholic bubble. Until high school, I don't think I'd met very many non-Catholics, and I never considered that Catholics would be perceived any differently from other Christians. I remember being very surprised one day in high school when I was riding the school bus, and somehow the issue of religion came up. I stated very proudly that I was Catholic, and this Baptist girl told me very matter-of-factly that I was going to hell because Catholics weren't saved. Still even through high school, even though I was exposed to a slightly wider range of people, everyone I knew was of one Christian denomination or another.
Even then, though, I think I was starting to get little cracks in my faith. I remember going to youth group retreats and seeing all my friends in tears over how moved they were by the grace of God and thinking, "um yeah...I didn't I felt that." I feel like my "faith" was always in my head and not in my heart. As I was learning more about science and history, religion started to not make sense to me.
When I got to college, I met even more people from different backgrounds. I met my first Jews, atheists, and gays. And they were all good people. I still went to mass on Sundays and joined the Catholic Student Union. I even went on some retreats and was even on a "Team" for one (that's what we called the retreat organizers). More and more though, it just felt like I was going through the motions.
Granted, there were a lot of distractions. I went to college in New Orleans, and its reputation for debauchery is not all-together unfounded. Boys were also starting to pay attention to me for the first time in my life. Perhaps some of my lapses in faith fall more in the category of rationalization. Also, like I said, I was meeting a lot of people with views I hadn't been exposed to before, and a lot of things I had been raised to believe just didn't make sense. Whatever the reason, I was growing further and further away from not only Catholicism but God.
After college, I moved to Tallahassee for law school, and it was pretty much the beginning of the end for me. After the first year or so there, I stopped going to church on Sundays except when my parents were in town (they have no idea about any of this. I still tell them I go to church every Sunday). I just felt like I wasn't getting anything out of it. And one day, I just stopped believing in God. If I ever did to begin with.
When I had children, though, things started to change. I wanted them to believe. I can't really express why, but I do. I feel like there's some inherent benefit to faith that I just can't pinpoint. When my son Cael was old enough for preschool last year, we signed him up for a Catholic school. It kind of happened coincidentally. The school just happens to be close to my work and the sitter that my younger son goes to. But it makes me happy when my son comes home and tells me he's learned a Bible story or a prayer or went on a trip to chapel to see the Eucharist. Maybe it's just because I went through the same things as a kid, and I feel like I'm bonding with my son. But maybe it's more.
The problem is, I just can't get myself to believe. I have the principles and the foundation, but I don't have the faith to go with it. I guess it's kind of like trying to make yourself fall in love with the person who's "good" for you but just not feeling the spark. I've been told that you can learn to love someone, so I'm trying to see if there's a way to learn to love God.
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