Losing My Religion

Alice at Wonderland has put up a fabulous article on not agreeing with her church but feeling the need to be a part of something spiritual and then, what she wants to do with her children in that regard. It’s amazing that the last 2 days topics I’m mulling over in the back of my head have found their place in well-written essays on the internet.

I was raised Mormon but felt most at home in my paternal grandmother’s Methodist church. I’m not sure if it was necessarily the teachings as much as this grandmother always made me feel like home and her church was a small country church where everyone was sweet and there didn’t seem to be a hierarchy, like all the priests and high priests and brothers and sisters and shit at the Mormon church.

Being baptized Mormon at 8 years old, I know now, was more a way for me to please my mother and maternal grandparents. I never, and still don’t, fully understand just what the fuck they were trying to teach me. I always held those Sunday school classes as separate from what we’d discuss at the Methodist church. But let’s not get too dramatic here. I wasn’t a spiritual adept in my budding youth; both churches were mostly boring and I was just happy when they were over.

Then when I was 18 and had just come off a seriously fun and kinda disturbing summer filled with sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, and lighting people on fire, theMan came along and introduced me to Christianity. I’m sooooo embarrassed by how far we took it eventually though and cringe when I remember the things that would come out of my mouth. But hey, it kept me sober, I met the man I’d marry, and aren’t your early 20’s all about discovery? I just wish I would have picked something a little less guilt-ridden, like Wicca or Paganism (although very cliché for 18 years old). There was much fun I missed out on.

So now on the cusp of 30 and child-bearing (please please) my mind has been weighing my options. I’ve been resting comfortably in my agnosticism and I don’t think I could ever 100% come out of it. I cannot see a time in my life where I could confidently say “this particular God is the one true God and these teachings are the final say.” It just seems a little, I don’t know…pushy to me for a subject that is basically only proven after you slip off this mortal coil.

But like Alice, I miss the spirituality, the family you get when you join a church, the feelings that come over me in any house of worship. And god, I do not want to fuck up my kids so they turn out little bastards. I think there is something to be said for dragging your kid up at dawn on Sundays to go to a place as a family to spend a little time learning new things and thinking of others…no matter what the religion.

I have friends that recently started going to a pretty liberal church and I’m almost tempted to join them. One of my BFF’s is a very devout Christian who I respect in so many ways. Hey, if she can be friends and have civil debates with an ex-communicated Mormon, agnostic, gay loving, pro-choice girl with a mouth like a sailor, she’s an exemplary Christian in my mind. I just keep thinking that maybe I need to look past the subject matter and just go for the experience.

Hell, maybe do a big church tour. Hit all the religions, although I think I’ll leave out Mormonism. Been there, done that.