Deconversion - check; Deconstruction - in progress

I have been detoxing from my scrupulous religiosity for a good many months now.  

The first thing that happened is I gave myself permission to miss Sunday Mass.  This was big bc I had an almost compulsion to work around that weekly ritual.  Now, having missed a few Sundays, I am able to still attend without it feeling like a must.  My husband and son really still like going, and since it's been a family tradition for us all these years, and we haven't found a replacement yet, I still go.  My son in particular enjoys serving at the altar, and since we have a move coming up where he won't be able to continue serving at the new location, I want to give him the opportunity while we still can.  

The shift in thinking from "Sunday obligation" to "family tradition" has allowed me to still get some spiritual benefit from the liturgy.  I'm not sitting there angry at having to be there, or at having to listen to preaching I disagree with.  Technically I'm not sitting much anyway since we attend an Eastern Rite Catholic church ;) .  Rather, I focus on what I find enjoyable - the beautiful interior, the ability to sing/chant 90 % of the liturgy, watch my son doing something he takes great pride in, and this lets me turn a blind eye to any message that might come across as problematic for my deconverted sense of truth and justice.

Perhaps tied for first place was also my prayer life.  I stopped praying.  It wasn't that difficult.  At the height of my most recent religiosity, I recited the Modeh Ani (Jewish morning prayer) in Hebrew and English upon opening my eyes in the morning.  I recited prescribed prayers in front of our prayer corner, with icon veneration and metanoias (venerations).  For a time, I covered my head with a scarf as well.  Slowly, the practice dwindled to an evening family prayer where we just cuddled together in the dark and prayed.  This is the practice that needed tweaking once I made the conscious decision that I have deconverted.  I had to stop dragging my family through my spiritual quest, as I had been doing and they had graciously come along for the ride.  Besides, gathering together right before bed was a good practice.  It's just that what was said and done during it had to get tweaked.  

We kept a couple of rote prayers we cycle through as a way of continuity, and we sing a favorite hymn or just the Our Father together.  But the focus of this time together has shifted to non-spiritual things.  We go through and say what we are grateful for (which may or may not be seen as spiritual).  Then we say something we like about each other, including ourselves.  This started as a way of strengthening sibling bonds between my oft quarreling kiddos.  We then mention something we're working on ourselves that may need some accountability and/or what we need from each other in the coming days, as a way of encouraging open communication and humility.  

But otherwise, my so-called prayer-life has been getting replaced by a meditation practice.  In the past week or two, I've crossed into prayer during one of them - I do miss having a personal God to talk to, Whom I believe to have my back no matter what.  I hope to eventually land there, but for now, it's still marred by a very religiously dogmatic lens that I don't want to reintroduce into my spiritual life.

Probably the most freeing change as a result of my deconversion has been the process of revisiting my worldview as a whole, and reassessing my politics and ethics without reference to "what the church says".  I have returned to a more liberal political viewpoint, and I had to face head-on the single issue that always prevented me from truly and fully embracing leftist ideology: abortion.  Roe v Wade was just recently overturned, while I was very much still religious and unapologetically Pro-Life.  It was that day that I told my children about abortion.  I had been dreading the topic, but I felt elated when it was overturned.  I wanted to explain to them why I supported some candidates and not others, when the only reason was really their stance on abortion.  But now that I was revisiting the issue, I realized that it's way more complicated than I was led to believe, way more nuanced, and there really isn't a single clear solution to the problem, aside from universal voluntary abstinence which apparently is a no-go for a lot of people who are much more vested in their sexuality than I am.

I remember giving a talk at a women's retreat where I shared that feminism had become a type of religion for me.... Or was it environmentalism?  Either way, I was criticizing myself back then for letting something "other than God" replace my sense of direction in life.  My lifestyle and actions were seen as worshipping ideals other than God, but really, this was only true if "God" were defined as the war-lord of the Hebrew Bible and not the Universal Source and Destiny of Taoism.  To worship the God of Nature - the only God that it makes sense to worship - means to do many of the environmental actions encouraged by "the left".  Starting with not being wasteful.  Valuing natural resources and the contributions of all species to life on our planet.  Dismissing materialistic and convenience-based practices in favor of ones that build life up.  Really, I was becoming more "pro-life" by expanding my acceptance of ALL life, all lives, not just those from a narrow set of issues supported or opposed by the church (abortion, embryonic stem cell research, artificial reproductive technology, capital punishment, euthenasia...).  There were issues of life that never got touched with a ten-foot pole by adamant pro-lifers - the exceedingly high suicide rates among trans and gay youth, the plight of children neglected and abused by religious extremists, sexual harassment and abuse and rape of young women.  Immigration was an issue that was embraced by the Catholic church, but not by Evangelicals, who have warped into the American Nationalist Christianity of MAGA Trumpism.  

At any rate, I realized that if there ever was a disconnect between my religion and my conscience, the problem was not my conscience!  Even though that is precisely what is taught in catechism - that we have to "form" our conscience.  That we don't know what's right or wrong unless we are taught it from an authority wearing vestments at the altar.  Talk about gaslighting!  I am so done with being gaslit from my codependent upbringing in a family of an undifferentiated mass!  I'm supposed to doubt the still, small voice inside of me (in spite of what the Bible says (1 Kings 19:11-13) in favor of trusting external authority?  Based on what evidence?  Their lived experiences were somehow more trustworthy than my own?  Ahh, and there's that pesky word - evidence. 

I realized that I was becoming more scientifically minded.  I wanted to study formal logic and critical thinking.  I wanted to use reason.  And while I do recognize that reason is not actually a perfect guiding light, it beats brainwashing every day of the week.  I kept coming back to this word: nuance.  

Neither religions - any of them - nor the strictly secular, atheistic resources I started to dabble in were actually correct.  Everything in life and in the world is nuanced.  Nothing is actually black or white.  Imagine the blow that had on my autistic brain!

So my deconversion is now complete, but my deconstruction is ongoing.  I no longer believe in the literal dogmas of Christianity - none of their variety, nor the competing monotheistic options of Islam or Judaism.  Now begins the exciting part of figuring out what I DO believe then, and what that means for my spiritual practices, how I share these things with my children, how I make moral choices in life, and the inner dialogue that I carry with me.  See, I was once diagnosed with mild OCD, which may or may not be a valid diagnosis, but it points to the scrupulosity with which I tried my best for decades to "be a good person".  I measured myself using artificial metrics that no one could live up to (Virgin Mother, anyone?).  Was there any wonder that I constantly second-guessed myself?  That I deferred to others even against my better judgment?  That I had a hard time establishing healthy boundaries with my mom?  Religion not only didn't help with my mental health, it made it worse.  Now that I'm free of it, I can start to rebuild my life on what is truly good, beautiful, and well, true.  

 

My faith died a natural death

I am not only deconstructing my faith anymore; I'm officially deconverting.  It's as if a fog has gently been lifting from having surrounded me all my life.  Whenever I wanted to convert to yet another religion, it was when I felt the fog start to lift and desperately clung to anything resembling it - smog, clouds, steam.  But for whatever reason, this time it was different.  This time, my faith simply and gently... passed away.  I knew that what I believed wasn't "true" as in "factual", but I still felt that I could reasonably believe it on a symbolic level.  The faith was still useful to me as a metaphor.  But as time went on, I realized that actually, while it may have been a good transition, it wasn't a place I could permanently reside.  Faith of any level still entailed church attendance and thereby association with a community of believers with whom I did not agree about the ultimate reality of things, nor the resulting set of values that emerge from certain religious beliefs.  Faith meant reciting certain prayers that I felt were not only untrue, but now unhelpful and distracting at best and downright counterproductive at worst.  Most telling of all was that faith was giving my children explanations that I no longer believed in myself.  And that is where I had to draw the line.  I could not - would not - lie to my children.

And so now I'm left with the empty shell of religious observance minus religious faith, and I'm trying to figure out a way to rid myself of the unnecessary remnants.  My husband, bless his heart, has always followed me into whatever church I wanted our family to attend, even though he never fully embraced any organized religious world view.  He simply held his private beliefs and felt no need for external validation by a community of like-minded believers.  He just liked the fellowship.  And now I'm trying to pull him out altogether and I don't know how to proceed.

What's more, after spending the first decade of parenting doing all I could to help my children embrace our Catholic religion, specifically going on a two year journey of church shopping for the most reverent Mass experience in order to surround them with people who "took their faith seriously", I now find myself no longer taking our faith seriously.  I go through the motions because it's familiar, and there are certainly parts I enjoy.  But I feel the need to dechurch a bit, shake off the internalized guilt-inducing sense of "Sunday obligation".  

I know that moving to the UK in a few months will provide a natural transition, so perhaps all I have to do is wait it out.  The Universe has been gracious like this to me before. 

We finally found a reverent, beautiful church that allowed my son to receive Communion without having to wait for an arbitrary age... and New Year's Eve 2023 he impromptu began serving at the altar and hasn't looked back.  He loves it!  And we have enjoyed seeing him bond with other alter servers, most of whom are grown men, in an all-boys type environment.  But the flip side of that is.... now that we're in a church that embraces my son without discriminating against him by age.... we're also in a church that discriminates against my daughter on account of her sex/gender.  Not when it comes to reception of Communion, but still.  

In spite of the reverence and beauty and small community, my daughter is no more a believer than she was at the onset.  And now I've joined her.  She believes certain things - like the existence of God, without details about that, and has theories about life after death, but nothing that requires church or organized religion.  But my son seems to be hooked!  He's recently asked if, when we return from the UK, we can return to this church. Of course, a lot can change in 3 years, I hope.

I've spoken to my husband about finding a Sunday alternative in the UK where we can go as a family and enjoy community with others, some singing, some sort of ritual (my son likes "holding things" and "processions") and making a contribution to the gathering/community (my daughter liked helping to make the Prosphora bread that was then used for Communion during Sunday services).  We alreayd know we won't be going to another Byzentine church in the UK as the nearest one is 4 hours away.  So for now we're letting my son enjoy his time serving at the altar while he can.  

Maybe the whole thing will die a natural death after all through this move.  Maybe we'll find Sunday family nature hikes to be much more replenishing for our souls and our family.  Maybe we'll plug into some other communities, built around common interests and/or values instead of presumed common beliefs. That is my wish for us on this next leg of our journey.

Spiritual Independence

I have discovered recently that the underlying reason for my codependence is anxiety.  The way I came to that was by recognizing my overdependence on external validation and seeking approval of others.  The reason for this, as it turns out, is my lack of trusting myself.  And the result has been living from a place of ongoing anxiety.  The anecdote is confidence.  So I am slowly working on building my confidence in various areas of my life. 

Once I recognized the weak boundaries I have with certain individuals in my life, at one point it dawned on me that I likewise have weak boundaries with the Catholic Church.  I seek the approval of Church figures, I don't trust my own conscience, and I operate from a place of anxiety.  This led to a spiritual quest that took me on a mission of finding a place of worship where I already agree with the people there so that I don't have to face disapproval!  It did finally occur to me that no such place exists, and that what I actually need is to work on embracing the potential conflict that may arise if and when I speak my mind.

An interesting but sad thing happened as I allowed myself the freedom to think for myself.  You see, that's the problem with codependence, boundary violations, external validation - you let someone or something outside of yourself tell you who you are, what to think, and how to feel about any given thing.  I grew up with this sort of dysfunction in my family of origin, but it was once I realized it bled over into my faith life that the rubber hit the road.  I realized that I didn't understand the very word "conscience" itself, supposedly something the Catechism of the Catholic Church claims is of paramount importance even above and beyond church teaching.  Because the RCC teaches that a conscience ought to be "formed" by thorough study of what the Church teaches and why.  Basically, if I didn't agree with something the Church taught, my conscience "wasn't formed" well enough.  Come again?!  So only people who agreed with the Church had a fully working conscience?  This of course is ludicrous.  The very definition of conscience implies that no one outside of oneself can affect it. 

Once I allowed myself to listen to my own conscience, without fear of judgment from "Catholic authorities", I started to ask questions that I never dared ask before.  The trajectory of my unraveling faith was as follows.

1. Even before I started down this road, I believed in universal "salvation" (though I use that term loosely, for I don't believe in original sin nor the idea that God "needed" the atoning death of Jesus in order to let me back into His good graces in the afterlife).  What this meant was that I didn't believe my religion was the one true religion.  Perhaps, at my most serious in the faith, I thought we were "the closest", but certainly still missing bits and pieces of information.

2. I started to object to certain teachings of the Church that went against my inner sense of justice.  Namely, I disagree with the Church's stance on LGBTQ rights.  I disagree with the excessive fixation on sexual ethics to the near exclusion of all other transgressions.  I disagree that God would make some people attracted to the same sex and then impose lifelong celibacy on them.  Celibacy ought to be something entered into willingly, after discernment, and given there is the other valid option of a lifelong committed relationship (namely, marriage) held out as an alternative.  In other words, I couldn't get on board with the Church's anti-gay marriage rhetoric and the various discriminatory practices by Catholic institutions done in the name of "religious freedom".

3. Once I loosened the control the Church had on my conscience, I started exploring various religions, which I've done previously.  But this time, I started to notice something.  Each group seemed to be using certain critiques to discount the teachings of other groups, without applying the same critiques to themselves.  This became most noticeable when I was watching a popular Orthodox Rabbi on YouTube.  He was of course critiquing Christianity as a whole, but he said - how can mainstream Christians reject the idea of Mormons or Muslims reinterpreting Christian Scriptures and claiming additional revelations and prophets, yet they accept their own changes and reinterpretations of the original Hebrew Scriptures?  I knew he was right.  And then I added... and what is so uniquely sacred about the Hebrew Scriptures that makes them sacred beyond questioning?  If we don't believe in the more recent prophets' revelations, why should we believe in more ancient prophets' revelations?  Why can't God simply reveal Himself to each of us directly, based on our receptivity?  And so, I realized I could not follow any religion based on the supposed limited "special" revelation of supposed prophets.  The prophets of the world, or at least their followers and the interpretations of their revelations, don't agree.  Hence, we have as many different religions as we do today.  Some, like the Bahai, claim that all prophets are saying the same message, yet this has not at all been a universal understanding of religious prophecy.  The most recent prophet is always thought to be the more relevant one.

4. Once I left revealed religion behind, I automatically had to put down written Scriptures.  The Bible was no longer a source of authority for me.  A modern group of influential leaders could gather the inspired writings of more recent spiritual gurus, like Deepak Chopra, let's say, and declare these to be the Modern Testament, Scriptures that supersede all the others.

5. Without Scriptures or organized religion of any kind dictating the boundaries of where my thoughts could wonder, I began to look at how other faiths envision Ultimate Reality.  I started to question the nature of God as He is presented in the Bible and in Christianity.  I realized that this God, indeed was made in the image of man - with human weaknesses of character that led him to be full of wrath, fickle, power-hungry, jealous, violent, and then to smooth things over, merciful and forgiving.  It sounded like a control freak show, honestly.  You never knew "which" god you would get.  Mainstream Christians would tell gay people that their active engagement in homosexuality would invoke the wrath of God, but their own tendencies to lie, cheat, even kill - well, God was all loving and all forgiving then.  It was utter nonsense.  I couldn't believe in "this" god any longer.  I realized that this god was simply too small.

6. I was ok with God being less personal, more mysterious.  After all, technically that is what Christians already believe about God, yet they continue to try to make sense of Him with various attempts at domesticating Him.  If it's not the Trinity, then it's calling Him Our Father.  We are never forced to just accept the fact that God -whatever and whoever God is - is simply beyond our understanding.  We ought to just be grateful God created us, and do our best to live a life of purpose and charity, so that we can better know God in the afterlife.

7. Ah, the afterlife.  I started to wonder about what sort of an afterlife we might have, since I didn't have to parrot back "bodily resurrection" or "heaven and hell".   I was never particularly attached to the idea of having a physical body in the afterlife.  I was more or less thinking that our soul was what lived on.  I just didn't know the details.  As I pondered what the soul might be, I thought of consciousness.  Because it did me no good to think that we simply got reabsorbed into the Universal Force after death, and that the way we "lived forever" was in terms of the energy we left behind or our molecular restructuring or mere memories of those still living.  The kind of afterlife I always imagined was one where I was aware of myself.  Very anti-Buddhist.  I wanted to keep the Ego.

8. So I looked into what consciousness really was.  I watched a certain video by an atheist that explained the biological functions of consciousness, how certain parts of the brain are involved in our ability to be conscious of ourselves, and then it dawned on me - the implication is that once the body dies, so does the consciousness.  There goes my afterlife.  And this created a bit of a panic on my existential journey.  For better or worse, I am not prepared to abandon the idea of immortality.  I know it may sound cliche, and to some even naive.  But if I have to go through the rest of my life believing that when I die, that is the literal end of me and I will never again see any of my loved one, not the ones who went before me and not the ones I'm leaving behind?  Well, I'm sorry but I simply cannot imagine going through life with that world-view.

9. Thank God ( ;) ) I remembered an old argument by religionists against the secular materialistic scientific world-view.  Science as we know it today is actually rather new in the history of humanity.  It has definitively answered lots of questions that previously religions merely had theories about.  Yet I realized I was finding myself being swayed - yet again - by an outside source.  I was allowing the "scientific community" to tell me who I am, what to think, and how to feel.  So I shook off the depression and despair long enough to think this through.

In a way, science can be compared to religions in that it provides an alternate world-view.  Just like religions, it makes certain assumptions.  It holds certain values in higher esteem than others.  It has well-respected "prophets" and "authoritative writings".  Most markedly, it has set up a system of checking for evidence of theories within the material world, and rejects out of hand anything that doesn't exactly fit into its scientific method.  Sound familiar?  Religions likewise draw certain boundaries and just don't venture past them for fear of being proven wrong.

What's more, by definition science deals with the material world.  How, then, can science possibly answer any questions about the existence or nonexistence of a spiritual realm, when it is simply not equipped to measure frequencies beyond the physical?  It is easy to say that if we can't measure it, it doesn't exist.  But it is not very honest to do so.

10. And so where I find myself is here:  I do not know what the nature of God is, nor what exactly awaits us in the afterlife.  However, I have had enough spiritual experiences to tell me that there must be something worthy of mention there. That science has no more ultimate truth than does religion.  One thing I think science does a much better job of than does religion is to focus on the improvement of our world, here and now.  Religion often prioritizes the afterlife over the here and now to the point of ignoring the legitimate needs of our planet and certain marginalized people.  Religions tend to cater to the poor, though not universally and often with limitations, not to mention failing to see how minority group membership status affects poverty.  Yet for all the bad things that religion has done and sadly continues to do, there are also things that religion is doing better than science, providing hope, meaning, purpose, comfort, as well as high standard for character formation.  We need both.  Perhaps in a few hundred years, there will be talk of ecumenical discussions between the scientific community and the religious community (singular), like there is today within religions.  Religions need to band together and focus on what they as a whole bring to the table, because if they continue to bicker among themselves, greedy to win maximum adherents, people will simply trickle out and get lost in the sea of science, living for today, but with no hope for tomorrow.

I know some people don't need the affirmation of God or an afterlife to feel fulfilled.  There are also people who don't seem bothered by their religion going against what science has already established as fact.  We need to accept that different people need different things to lead a happy life.  We need to find a way for science and religion to talk to each other, not over each other.  But that's for another day.  For now, suffice it to say that I am holding on to that last shred of spirituality that was nearly extinguished by my newfound freedom of thought.  And that I need to focus my attention on reframing my own religious tradition in a way that I will find meaningful, a way that I can teach to my children while maintaining integrity.

If indeed I need a label for this new spiritual adventure, perhaps Spiritual and Religious is the best available term.  Not specific to any one religion, but rather valuing different aspects of several different religions.  Yet spiritual first and foremost, pursuing an individual and unique spiritual practice, building fellowship in unusual places, and only supplementing and falling back on religion as a way of being grounded in something that - while I don't believe in it literally - has stood the test of time and certainly holds certain valuable truths about the human condition.

Alternately, I certainly am "Spiritually Independent", and so perhaps this term is even more appropriate, since I am in need of labels ;)

Groups

What groups do we/I belong to?  What groups do we/I want to belong to?  What groups should we/I try to belong to?

I try to be very conscientious about doing what's best for my children.  Because we are a multicultural and multi-ethnic and multilingual family, I have to be intentional about which of the various relevant groups ought to be "ours", and to what degree.

The literature on the best practices for children "of color" (a politically correct phrase for non-white people, but one that my Latino husband dislikes, hence the quotation marks) talks of the importance of immersing children in groups where they can see racial mirrors, find role models, and gain a sense of identity.  And I have tried to do just that. 

For the past six years, we have tried to make friends by participating in Filipino events.  It has been frustrating, as no lasting friendships have emerged from our efforts.  I'm shy, so the effort has not come naturally to me.  My husband has never met a stranger, so it's actually surprising that his efforts haven't had better results either.  Finally I asked my good friend, whose husband is Filipino, for insights.  What a relief it was to learn that even he - a Filipino raised by Filipino parents, does not find himself regularly included in Filipino gatherings. 

Further insights from an online group I belong to pointed out that ethnic and cultural groups tend to be insular for self-preservation or just to have a safe space where they don't need to be explaining themselves to outsiders.  It now makes perfect sense why we, as outsiders, have been unable to "infiltrate" the Filipino groups that have been perfectly friendly on the surface.

It is important to try, try again.  It is equally important to know when to let it go.  I'm letting it go.  Not my intentions to keep exposing my kids to Filipino culture whenever possible, but rather my expectations of it ever getting beyond the level where we are now.  And this acceptance is freeing. 

Another aspect of raising Brown children is to ensure that they don't feel like they stick out because of their ethnicity or race.  In other words, we want to make sure we live and learn and play in areas that are diverse.  It doesn't need to be other Filipinos, but it does need to be other Brown people.  As long as the White people are used to seeing Brown people and interacting with them and befriending them, then we should not have any problems.  But we do not want our kids to be the experimental diversity in otherwise White spaces.

Here, again, I came upon a dilemma. I wanted to do right by my children and move to an area that was more diverse than not.  However, the truth of the matter is that this would come at a price.  Diversity is not the only value our family has.  Nor is it the only priority.  We must live in an area relatively close to my husband's work, and close to my parents, who are in need of more assistance as we all get older.  My children need ample space to run around, especially since we homeschool, and so our home is our base.  We grow food.  We try to spend daily time outside.  We value privacy and safety.  What all of these add up to is a certain sized yard. Fenced, with shade and sunny areas, and room to run and roll around all without worrying about nosy neighbors.  And what's more, we need to be able to afford this kind of living arrangement.  We decided not to incessantly keep up with the Joneses. We have no intention of upgrading the size of our house, or moving to more "elite" neighborhoods.  But we do want to keep a single family house with a fenced yard.  And we want to pay it off by the time my husband is ready to retire and our kids are graduated from high school.

And we're not talking about moving to a completely homogenous, secluded area where we can count on being the only mixed family in any given situation.  No, we're talking about a less diverse area, close enough to more diverse areas that we can drive there.

Finally, this is an issue for my own sanity.  I have been programmed by the anti-racist rhetoric to be very careful to avoid at all costs anything that may be interpreted as whitesplaining, ethnocentricity, or white fragility.  I worry about these things even as I am trying to guts up to putting "on paper" what thoughts are going through my mind.  See, I was brought up with judgment and comparisons being the norm.  I internalized the idea that if I am always judging others in black-or-white terms, then they are likewise judging me.  Concepts like giving someone the benefit of the doubt or not taking things excessively personally are seen as having racist undertones when applied to trying to take White experience as equal to that of people of color.  I was in an online group that taught me a lot, but at the cost of my own sense of self.  The "people of color" in my real life - Latino, Black, Native American, all thought I was in a "cult".  They simply did not experience the world in as harsh terms as the group described.  The group would retort that they weren't being honest with themselves or with me.  But that, indeed, started to sound a bit like indoctrination.

And I recently realized that I have had about enough indoctrination for one lifetime.  I am in recovery for codependence.  Through 3 years of therapy and recovery work, I've come to see how I have weak boundaries, don't trust myself, depend too heavily on the approval and validation of others, and operate from a general sense of ongoing anxiety.  With very few, specific, decisions I've made, mostly dealing with my children, I have no confidence.  I oscillate between superiority and inferiority complexes.  And so, when it comes to what's best for my children, I am again in a place where I can either take in everything I've learned and then make a decision based on my specific circumstances and those of my children, or I can once again let some "experts" make these decisions for me.

I've had enough of giving over my power.  People of color should know all too well what I mean.  Just like not all Brown people are alike, or all Black people, or all Asians, etc. the same holds true for White people.  We are not all alike.  Yes, we all share having White privilege in US society.  But aside from this, we are as different as minorities.  We have different experiences, values, priorities, intentions, goals all of which must be taken into consideration when making day-to-day decisions.  I know I won't find any popular outlet for this perspective, and I don't need it.  I only need to admit this to myself, accept myself, trust myself, and make these decisions for myself.

Returning to the initial questions of groups - what groups do we belong to?  The Catholic church.  Sunday School at OLPH.  Our area Catholic homeschooling group.  My daughter's gymnastics class.  My husband's men's group at church.  My husband's job.  Celebrate Recovery Meeting for me. Courageous Conversations (temporary group). Multilingual mixed families living in the US.  Immigrant families. College graduates.  Transracial adoptive (embryo) families.  I'm sure there's more. 

What groups do we want to belong to? Some sort of ongoing group where we can fellowship over shared values of racial, religious, and LGBTQ affirmation and understanding, as well as the pursuit of socioeconomic and environmental justice.  Homeschooling group local to our area.  A faith community where we can practice the rituals and traditions that give our spiritual journey meaning.  I'd like to return to teaching adults ESL. Honestly, I don't want to belong to any one-race/ethnicity/culture groups.  Not my Polish one, not a Filipino one, not a Latino one.  Our family is all of these and we operate best when mingling with others who understand what it's like to mix and match, to find commonalities across the differences, and not just to uphold long standing norms in an isolated environment. 

While I'm on the subject, I also need to remember that just because we are a multilingual family doesn't mean that we are aiming at 100% native fluency in all three languages.  Frankly, my Polish heritage language is the least necessary for my kids to retain.  Any language is a boon to the brain, and Polish in particular can make the learning of other Slavic languages easier if my kids ever decide to go that route.  But aside from that - their Polish relatives with whom they interact regularly are not monolingual, and we have no intentions for travel back to Poland in the near future.  I will be perfectly happy if my kids understand Polish music, movies, magazines, and can pronounce the uniquely Polish sounds if pressed to do so.

As for Spanish, this is a much more useful and ubiquitous language in our society and world.  Our kids are likely to come across many people who speak Spanish, even only Spanish, and can easily benefit from knowing the language for both economic advancement and the enjoyment of the culture.
Perhaps we should seek out Spanish-speaking playdates?

Tagalog, what I suppose could be seen as a heritage language based on the kids' Filipino heritage, is similar to Polish in necessity. Unless my kids express an interest in actively learning the language, I won't stress over it.  Since we cannot break into Filipino communities in order for the kids to be immersed in this culture anyway, I don't see how learning the language would do any good until they are grown and don't need us to facilitate.  And at that point, they can also pick up the language, having already learned other languages previously, thus making language learning as a whole much easier than if they were starting out as monolinguals.

The next entry will deal with the theme of trusting self and resisting external validation, but from the spiritual perspective.  (Both religious and secular-scientific.)

Losing My Religion

This R.E.M. song came to mind recently as I started on what I assumed was another leg of my spiritual seeker journey.  But the more time I spend pondering the future of my religious affiliation, the more confused and stressed out I feel. 

Why do I feel the need to even have a religious affiliation?  Why can't I let the particular beliefs and practices that I find soothing and relevant to me simply be what they are, without placing a label on them?

Well, it's because with that label comes a community.  A religious community is generally a group of people with shared beliefs, values, practices, traditions, etc.  The problem arises when there is a disconnect between one's beliefs or values that triggers a desire to look elsewhere for a better fit.  And the problem continues when one realized, after thorough research and consideration and "trying on" that while there may be other religious groups whose beliefs and values resonate perfectly with one's own, the associated practices and traditions simply don't jive.  They seem foreign, artificial, forced, irrelevant.  Yet it is in the practices that the faith tradition comes alive in community.  It's not a bunch of minds agreeing with each other that makes a community, but rather a bunch of people doing things together the same way.

And that is where I find myself.  I know plenty of people who recognize there is no perfect match for them and they just stay with whatever group whose practices are familiar and comfortable, and keep their beliefs private, or at least don't engage in arguments over them.  I know this is the easiest and most obvious thing to do.  And yet I'm struggling with it.

I feel like an impostor when I find myself keeping my mouth shut so as not to let on that I disagree with what was just mentioned as a given in a group of supposedly "like minded" fellow coreligionists of my same affiliation. Every time this happens, and it happens pretty frequently when you have as many objections as I do with the official beliefs of my faith tradition, I'm reminded of how I don't really fit it.  I'm reminded of how this isn't really me.  I'm reminded of how I'm compromising. 

Of course, I could also choose to opt out and join a group where I can have these open dialogues with people without worrying about getting their side-eye.  I could mingle only with people who value what I value and believe as I do, where we can talk about these things openly and without shame or fear of ridicule (or accusations of heresy or blasphemy).  But to do so, I'd have to engage in artificial rituals that hold no meaning for me.  And again, I'd feel like an impostor.  I'd feel inauthentic yet again.

A final option would be to simply stay away from all manner of religion altogether.  Pretend that deep topics don't interest or concern me.  Pretend that familiar ritual practices are not comforting to me.  Pretend that I could be a spiritual being without a spiritual community.  This would be a lie as well.  No one is an island, right?

The final option that I see before me is to patch a quilt of religious experiences into a coherent whole.  To divide my time between those groups that practice the familiar rituals that I find comforting and meaningful, and those groups with which I can engage intellectually.  I suppose the only thing left to do in that scenario is to decide on a label, something I need in order to understand my place in the world.  It could be two labels or a hyphenated label: Catholic Quaker, or Buddhist Unitarian Universalist, or Noahide Christian.  It could be finding the least common denominator between the two prominent groups that resonate with me for different reasons, and use that label instead of the two affiliations: Theist, Monotheist, Unitarian, Deist, Universalist. 

One label I don't think I can honestly use that I thought I could is spiritual-but-not-religious.  Because I am a religious being.  I just don't have a religious tradition that satisfies me philosophically and practically at the same time.

One label I cannot steer clear of is the label others may place on me.  Lapsed.  Cafeteria.  Non-practicing.  Heretic.  Schismatic.  Even blasphemer maybe?  No matter what path I find myself on, those not on it would inevitably label me as well: pagan, heathen, non-believer.

I am spiritual.  I am religious.  I am a global citizen.  I am a child of God.  I am the hands and feet of God in the world.  I am.

When I Considered Religious Life

My senior year of high school, I thought about becoming a nun.  I had just read a little book by now Saint Theresa of Kolkata (then and still today known to the world as Mother Theresa).  I was young and naive with romanticism about travel, experiencing other cultures, and spending my days in silent contemplation.  I had not real idea of what it meant to be a religious sister, much less a missionary abroad.  I was certainly confusing that and the life of a contemplative hermit-style nun.  Either way, it didn't take long for me to move on to other aspirations after I got discouraged from the idea by my family.

Their reasoning wasn't exactly based on the fact that I had no idea what I was talking about.  Rather, it was based on the fact that they didn't want me to live a life of poverty.  My grandmother, I remember, mentioned, that if I were a boy and expressed an interest in the priesthood, that'd be different.  There were clearly stereotypes about what the various religious lifestyles entail.

In the end, I wasn't being called to the religious life, but I can't really say that I actually discerned this.  Rather, in retrospect, after having actually learned more about what it takes to live out such a vocation, I see that God knew me better than I knew myself.

In a nutshell, if I'm being honest, what I wanted was to live free of charge on an eternal spiritual retreat.  I have since learned that a) you can't enter a religious order with debt, b) they put you to work, and it may not be what you want to be doing, c) the hours of prayer and contemplation come at the price of sleep and free time; they are not in lieu of the full time work that is expected, and finally, d) that entering a religious order is a calling, not a decision. 

This last one actually applies to married life as well, but sadly no one seems to discern if they are called to married life.  They just sort of assume that they are, unless something nudges them to the contrary.  And that's a shame.  Alex and I recently became mentors to engaged couples wishing to be married in the Catholic church.  Our first couple has been together for a decade, has lived together for most of that time, and have three kids together.  It's probably a bit late in their circumstances to be discerning if married life is what they're being called to.

So with that in mind, I want to raise my kids to keep their options truly open.  I don't want them to assume anything.  We don't know yet to which vocation God will call them.  We want them to stay open to all the possibilities, and this is reflected in our family standards regarding dating.  I know first hand how easy it is to "fall in love" as a teenager and then be unable to imagine a life without the significant other. By then it's too late to start considering if God is even calling you to married life or not.  I can't imagine having to break up with a steady boyfriend because "it's time to discern" a vocation.  Instead, we will discuss the different vocations (religious life, single life, married life) as they're growing up, and allow group dating but no serious steady relationships before age 18.

I got off easy.  I used to "blame" my family for discouraging me from pursuing a religious vocation, but now I realize that, had I actually discerned it seriously, I probably would have come to the same conclusion.  But you see, then the realization would've been my own, and I would've owned it.  I would have been able to know without a doubt that this is what God wants for my life.  Instead, I sort of cowered with my metaphorical tail between my legs, playing the victim to my family's lack of support.

Last year at a retreat I met a woman who spoke of the mixed blessing it was to have a daughter join a religious order.  Until that moment, I hadn't actually considered it from the parents' perspective.  But it didn't change my determination to be sure I give equal opportunity to all the vocations for my kids.  After all, married life - even single life - doesn't guarantee that my kids will live close by after they're grown.  My daughter, at 4.75 years old, may swear up and down that she always wants to live with me, and I always tell her she's welcome to it, but I can't hold her to it.  I may envision a happy multi-generational household like the one I grew up in in Poland, but it is not up to me.

I have grown a lot since considering religious life over twenty years ago.  Chief among the maturation process is the understanding of discernment.

My New Identity

I don't have to identify as Polish.  I can be Polish-American, or I can just be an American born in Poland.  Polishness is a part of my past, but it is no longer a priority for me.  I appreciate the culture and the fact that the language has an emotional affect on me, but it is now secondary at best to who I really am.  I'm an American Catholic, a woman made in the image of God.  I am a wife and mother by vocation.  I am a child of God; a daughter of the King of kings.  I am called to be another Christ.

Being Polish is something that has been an integral part of my identity all of my life, but why?  Because this is the identity that was given to me. This is what I was told that I was, without any consideration of my life's circumstances making it virtually impossible to actually maintain this identity long-term.  My mother left Poland at the age of 31.  Her identity as a Pole was already cemented.  It is unrealistic to expect that I would internalize the same identity as her, just because I am her daughter and I was also born in Poland.  I was raised in both countries, and I came of age here, in the United States, outside of a Polish community.  I was not allowed to question my identity because it never crossed anyone's mind that there was anything to question.  It wasn't done out of spite or maliciousness.  My relatives just didn't know any better.  Their experience was that of an adult immigrant (my parents) or a non-immigrant (my grandmother and maternal aunt).  Whereas my experience was that of a child-immigrant.  I had no role models with this experience, so it has taken me 30 years to figure out that the identity that was handed to me simply doesn't fit.  I have no reason to feel guilty about it.  It is what it is.

I don't love Poland any less if I merely say I was born there.  I am no less proud of having this other culture in my background.  However, I must be careful here.  Being proud of my Polish heritage does not negate being proud of my adopted nationality - American.  My loyalty lies with my current nation now.  My "home country" is now the United States.  In Polish, the term is slightly different and carries a different nuance: "ojczyzna", roughly translated "land of my father".  This is still very true.  I can still say, in Polish, that Poland is my ojczyzna.  But not my homeland.  My home is here now.  My heart is here now.  I am grateful for my past, but it no longer defines me.  My past no longer has a hold on me.  It no longer demands loyalty nor guilt.  It simply is my past.  

My future, on the other hand, is where I am now, where my children will grow up.  My future is the United States, and I must put aside the petty judgments and comparisons that I grew up with that were attempts on the part of my relatives to heighten my Polish pride.  There is nothing better about being Polish, or European, or American, or any other nationality or ethnicity, for that matter.  There are pros and cons to every culture under the sun.  I am well aware of the dark side of American history.  Colonization of indigenous lands and importation of human slave labor being two particularly evil aspects of the US.  But those, too, are in the past.  It may make my Polish relatives feel better to focus on our differences, but they don't impress me anymore.  Ultimately, we are all children of God, and ultimately we all return to the Father.  The sooner we realize this and start living it out, the sooner we can establish God's kingdom here on Earth. 

So next time someone asks where I'm from, I won't answer the question with a question, as has been my habit: "Originally?"  I'll simply say I'm from Virginia, which is where I spent the majority of my time until recently. 

I won't brag anymore about our multilingual children, either.  Because both of us now speak mostly English to our daughter, and only supplement with our native languages.  I actually wonder if, instead of "native" I should use a different term here as well.  "First" languages seems to fit much better.  There's no denying that my first language was Polish, and my husband's first language was Spanish.  But we are no longer "100% fluent" in them, and that's the connotation I have with the term "native".

We're not any better than other Americans for being a multilingual family, which we still are, even if our kids end up only receptive multilinguals (meaning they understand but don't express themselves in other languages).  We're not any "less than" either, less than those who are more fluent, more dedicated, more plugged into their communities of origin.  Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.  I'll take our current linguistic situation as it is and rejoice that it no longer defines me.

Now there's one more aspect of my drilled-in Polish identity that is on my mind.  My surname.  I made a big deal out of legally changing my name to my mother's much more Polish-sounding (not to mention therefore feminist!) name.  Both my siblings followed suite.  My husband and I compromised by hyphenating each other's names, and our children have both our names.  I've now had this name for 15 years.  And yet it didn't make me any more Polish than when I had my dad's surname.  It didn't empower me as a woman, either.  Because my worth comes from being made in the image of God!  Not from what my name is.  Finally, I regret having caused my father sorrow by abandoning his name.  Even though tradition would've had me abandon it anyway and change it to my husband's, the fact is that I replaced his with my mom's, and that I set an example for my siblings, and now he has a grandson that rightfully should've had his last name but doesn't.

This last one I may or may not be able to get resolved.  But I feel freedom in being able to decide for myself what is most important, and while my past is something I value and am proud of, it does not define me.  It's hard to admit this as it sort of feels like striking out on my own, but I'm turning 40 years old this year - it's high time to strike out on my own, isn't it!?

Recovering from Codependency

Over the past year, I have focused on self-improvement.  The way this has manifested itself is through spiritual direction as well as counseling.  I remember sitting in the Confessional about this time last year, hearing myself say to the priest that I'm not sure my recurring issues need a spiritual director or a counselor.  The Lord heard me and gave me the answer: I need both!

Through my spiritual direction, I have slowly begun to turn over more and more of my life to the Lord.  I am learning to trust Him and to include Him in all aspects of my life.  I remember when I first started meeting with my spiritual director, Jennifer, how I argued with every suggestion she made as far as making a dedicated daily time for prayer.  I was full of excuses.  I had a new baby and a preschooler at home.  I couldn't be expected to find any time to myself.  And what little time I did have, I wanted to use it to relax.  "Couldn't you look at prayer as this unwinding time for yourself?"  Jennifer asked.  Nope, my go-to response.  When I thought of alone time, I literally meant alone, not even with God.  I wanted to pursue my hobbies, which were reading, watching YouTube videos, or otherwise researching homeschooling, sometimes among other things. I couldn't share this precious time with my Maker.  But I dutifully went through the prepared questions Jennifer would give me at each of our meetings, trying to spend about an hour on them once or twice a week.  I still don't spend daily time in this sort of long, dedicated prayer.  But I have since reframed how I view prayer.  Turns out I can and I do pray throughout the day in a variety of ways, and being conscious of this slowly opened up a bit more time here and there.  My baby growing into a toddler also has helped, and I expect it to only get better!

Through my counseling sessions, I've discovered that my issues have a name: codependency.  Even though I am not an addict in the typical fashion, nor am I married to one, nor were my parents, I nonetheless exhibit classical codependency thought processes and behaviors.  My "drug" of choice?  As it turns out - my mother's approval.  Both she and my dad are adult children of alcoholics, which apparently means that they grew up with a dysfunctional view of the world and then passed it on to me.  They tried so hard to make up for the issues in their families of origin, yet they were unable to realize how overcompensating for one problem led to another.  I'm sure my personality has a lot to do with how I internalized my upbringing.  After all, my siblings have very different attitudes towards life than I do.  My counselor, Dr. Brian, noted right off the bat that since I mentioned my faith, we could incorporate my Christianity into our discussions, which has been a great blessing.  In the last month or so, I finally realized how being able to include God in my counseling has led me to see His hand in my life, all of it, not just the compartment I labeled as "spirituality". 

I have been able to shed some of the guilt I carried for wanting that alone time.  I no longer think of it as either-or between my "research for fun" and my "prayer time".  I have different types of prayer that I engage in throughout the day, and only one of them requires an extended period of silence and light.  I say light, because over the summer I started praying the Rosary every night right before bed.  It is quiet, but I can pray in the dark.  I don't need to reference anything anymore, since all I need to pray the Rosary I've committed to memory now.  Praying consistently every day for five months will do that.  I try at least once a week to spend time with my Ignatian Daily Retreat book and prayer journal, reading Scripture, pondering the questions and comments, and praying from the heart without the constraints of the clock ticking.  I wish I could do this more frequently, but I don't worry about it right now.  As my youngest gets older, I will have more time.  For now, I give the Lord what I have.

And what I have is a new understanding of what my issues are, where they originated, and how to proceed.  I have started attending Celebrate Recovery meetings that just so happened to have started at my church about a month before I joined.  I am bringing to the altar my history, my confusion, my pain, my trials and errors, my hopes and disappointments, my guilt, my efforts gone awry, and I'm turning them over the Lord.  I am looking to the future.  I am trying to reinvent myself for the first time.  Apparently, growing up with codependency has robbed me of the ability to be authentic with myself.  I assumed I knew who I was based on what I was told I was.  No one ever asked me who I was or who I wanted to be.  Now I am making these decisions and it is freeing.  Scary, but freeing.

One of my hangups is that I have an internal voice that is constantly asking me what my mom would think about any given decision I'm making.  It's like it's playing on auto-replay, whether I want it there or not.  I assume that a decision not in perfect agreement with my mother is automatically the wrong decision.  I have allowed myself to be handicapped in my decision-making abilities.  I freeze when pressed for time and having to make a decision, especially a big one, but even small ones like where we should go to eat give me trouble at times. 

Another hangup of mine is that I engage in wishful thinking.  If only my mom could see things from my point of view, then she'd be able to relate better to me and we'd have a better relationship.  If only she would love me unconditionally rather than imply that I am only worthy to be her daughter if I do as she would do.  If only my mom didn't get offended at my attempts to assert myself, then I could assert myself more and live a life of freedom.  Bullocks.  Dr. Brian has helped me to understand that my mother's happiness is not my responsibility.  I actually still get an uneasy feeling typing this.  It feels as though I'm saying that I don't care if she's happy or not.  But that isn't the point at all.  The point is that every one of us chooses to be happy or not, regardless of the circumstances.  Codependents like me and my mom often choose to be happy only as a reaction to something in our environment.  This is not healthy.  I can be happy even if my mom doesn't approve of my choices.  I can be happy even if she gets upset that I disregarded her advice.  I am not obligated to take her advice.  I wish (there's that wishful thinking again), I wish I could ask for her advice, hear her out, and then make my own decision and have her be happy either way.  Instead, what ends up happening if I don't take her advice is that she stops giving it.  As in, she refuses to give further advice in the future because she thinks the point of giving advice is that it ought to be followed. 

Finally, a hangup of mine that was probably the crux of the situation that allowed me to seek out both spiritual direction and counseling is this: I struggle with the first commandment.  I don't make golden calves to worship, but I do worry much more about what my mom thinks than what God thinks.  In this way, I have long idolized my mother, thinking that I was honoring her per the fourth commandment.  I am currently trying to iron out the details of what it means for an adult daughter to honor her parents.  As it turns out, it does not mean obedience anymore.  It does not mean taking all of my parents' advice.  It does not mean doing whatever they want, whether I want to do it or not.  It does not mean trying to make them happy.  This last one is going to be difficult to overcome.  I can't make my mother happy, and yet I still need/want to try.  I think that's called loving her. 

It's sad that I don't really know what it means to love my parents.  Or siblings.  I don't struggle with loving my husband or children.  I don't have any anxiety in those relationships.  I am able to be authentic and vulnerable there.  But when it comes to my family of origin, I get all confused.  Dr. Brian introduced me to a fantastic phrase that pretty much sums up the story of my upbringing:  the undifferentiated family ego-mass.  He got the phrase from a wonderful book I recently read per his recommendation. Another term comes to mind that I've long known but never applied to my family before: groupthink. 

One of the reasons I struggled with my identity as an adult is because the identity I was spoon-fed growing up didn't match what I felt on the inside.  I was told that I was a Scorpio, Polish, "smart, pretty, and polite".  These were treated as givens.  Now that my faith tells me astrology is not where my trust must lie, I'm having to rethink "my astrological sign's characteristics" and just think about what makes me unique.  Being smart, pretty, and polite were handed to me without explaining what I did or could do to maintain or lose them.  When times and cultures shifted, the old paradigms didn't fit and I couldn't understand what happened.  How come I wasn't considered these things by everyone, if they were a given?

Being Polish gave me the most trouble because I cannot deny being born in Poland to two Polish parents.  I even speak Polish, for crying out loud, so of course I'm Polish, right?  Except that I now live in the United States.  I married a non-Pole.  And while I speak Polish, it's certainly not at an educated adult level, so I am uncomfortable in Polish settings.  I lack a lot of cultural knowledge because I wasn't exposed to Polish culture outside the home, and I didn't have Polish peers growing up.  I'm Polish mostly in name.  My experience is not the same as my mom's, who didn't migrate to the US until she was 30.  And it's certainly not the same as my relatives who still live in Poland.  I'm "Polish, but..."  In other words, I'm Polish-American.  But I grew up looking down on this phrase because my family associated it with Americans of Polish heritage, people who didn't know the language and probably never set foot on Polish soil.  They weren't "Polish enough" to be called Polish.  How could I associate myself with them?  I clung to my Polishness so hard, that I changed my last name to my mom's because it was more Polish-sounding than my dad's.  I refused to check "White" on forms and would write in "Polish".  (White, to me, meant Protestant Anglo-Saxon.) With great pride I announced that we were raising our children multilingual, fully expecting to pass on our native languages (my husband's is Spanish) to our kids without much effort.  I panicked when this last bit started to become a challenge.  At three years old, our daughter already prefers English, and after some reflection, we had to admit that it's because... so do we!  We also prefer English!  I think in English.  I do math in English.  I speak to God in English usually.  I prefer to read in English.  I prefer to watch videos in English. I only find the Bible meaningful in English.

There is a very limited segment of the world that I like in Polish.  Namely, those things that I associate with my childhood in Poland.  I love Polish Christmas carols and other religious (and patriotic) songs.  But there are also plenty of English songs that move me.  I am moved to tears by a select few Polish poems, but again, English poetry also has that affect on me.  There are a handful of Polish prayers that I learned as a child that I easily recite (I pray my Rosary bilingually), but I don't have anything against the English versions.  I clung to these few things and finally realized they weren't enough to build a life around.  I felt like I was betraying my family by admitting - even to myself - that I was actually American, not Polish.  Ok, Polish-American, but that's the best I could do.  Even though I was born in Poland and started school there and even though I speak and read Polish, I am still more appropriately grouped in the category of "Polish-American" than "Polish" (or Polonia na emigracji).  I'm not merely living abroad.  I have made my home here.  For better or for worse, this is who I am.  I felt like I couldn't be both, American and a member of my family, but with my siblings, who were born here and don't have these same qualms about who they are, I was able to realize that 1) I am still in the family, and 2) their approval is not what makes or breaks me.

So yes, I have been addicted - to approval by my mom.  It has been paralyzing at times.  And you know what?  It's not her fault!  I have blamed her in the past - in classically codependent fashion - but it is not her fault.  She raised me based on what she knew.  And she instilled a lot of good in me.  The rest is now up to me.  I can choose to keep letting her micromanage me, because it's what she knows and is comfortable with, or I can choose to set boundaries and assert myself and forge a new beginning in our relationship.  No more conditionals.  No more, if only.  No more.  I am who I am, and she is who she is, and that's all I can ask from God, who created both of us.

Why be Catholic if even atheists can go to heaven?

As eye-opening as my spiritual journey has been over the years, spending time immersed in other traditions, either merely intellectually or even religiously, one drawback has been that it's been difficult to shed some non-Catholic notions that have become ingrained in me over the years.  One of the influences that I'm having to regularly put aside is that of evangelical Protestant Christianity.

As a Catholic Christian, I do not share evangelical Christians' understanding of salvation.  I'm not just talking about the fact that Catholics often get scolded for including works along with faith as necessary for salvation.  (James 2:14-17: "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?  If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.") 

Both our current Pope Francis, and his predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict, have gone on record as stating that not only do we as Catholics believe that one does not need to be a Catholic to be saved, but that even theists of other religious traditions and atheists can be saved... if they do good works.  So it seems that works even without faith can save?!  This doesn't seem to be found in the Bible, but luckily I am Catholic, so I don't need to be my own Pope and interpret Scriptures for myself.  Instead, I have the magisterium of the Church, with highly learned Scripture scholars who enlighten me. What this means that the authority for my faith comes from both the Bible and the Tradition (note the capital "t") of the Church. 

At any rate, the questions that is begging to be asked if we accept that 1) Catholic Christianity does hold the fullness of truth as much as that is possible this side of heaven, yet 2) one does not need to be Catholic or even Christian or even a theist in order to be saved and go to heaven after death, then.... what is the point of adhering to Catholicism/Christianity/faith of any kind?

This question is already found in the New Testament, where it is worded like this: "Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope." (1 Peter 3:15).  What's different about me as a Christian than when I was not a believer? Why am I choosing to follow Jesus, if I believe that I could still get into heaven without following Him?

Well, for starters, following Jesus doesn't mean belonging to a specific organized religion.  I agree with what Mahatma Ghandi once said, "I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."  Ouch.  I had read that he considered converting to Christianity but ultimately decided against it because of what he says in the above quote.  Following Christ is about a lifestyle, virtues, morals, ethics, standards of holiness, not about a label or membership in a place of worship.  Therefore, there are lots of people who truly follow the example of Jesus - knowingly or not - and therefore fulfill the works part of salvation.  As for the faith... we believe God Almighty is beyond the limits of time and space, right?  So in the moment of death, something we think of as a split-second event, God actually has plenty of "time" to confront the dying soul and offer - for the first time or yet again - the grace of faith.  

That's another reason that the recent popes' statements resonate with me.  After my daughter was born, extended postpartum anxiety and depression lead to my loss of faith.  For over two years I actively tried to regain my faith.  I continued to attend church, read, and pray.  I finally attended a spiritual retreat as a last ditch effort to get my faith back.  This slowly started me back towards God again, but I could not yet say that I believed.  And then, one day, right before I found out I was pregnant with my son, I suddenly believed again.  I felt it.  I felt at home at church again.  I could again sense God's presence.  It was not through anything that I did.  The return of my faith was God's gift to me - grace.  So if I couldn't force myself to believe, how can God who made me, hold it against me?  Faith is a gift from God, not something you can just decide to have.  Therefore, it does not make sense to say that faith in Jesus Christ is our ticket to heaven, because this presumes that we can simply make up our minds to believe something, when in fact we cannot.

The other point is that following Jesus is not merely about "getting into heaven" but about preparing ourselves - and by extension others who may see our lives and be inspired by them - to be acceptable to stand in God's presence.  Heaven is not some exclusive country club that only the select few can "get into".  Heaven is God's abode, it's the merging of our selves with Godself, it's standing face to face with our Creator.  Indeed, none of us are holy enough to merit such an encounter, much less an eternity in the afterlife with God.  For this reason I believe that Jesus's sacrifice on the cross was "the key" to our salvation.  

Figuratively, I explain to my preschooler that Jesus came into the world to find the key to unlock heaven, so that after His resurrection, He was able to do just that, and now, precisely thanks to Him, we are eligible to even dream of going to heaven after we die.  Before Jesus, heaven was simply off-limits.

I mentioned that faith is a grace from God.  Faith is a virtue, so all of the virtues are gifts from God.  Therefore, none of our works are our own, and therefore we have no reason to boast.  Indeed, any good deed we do is made possibly by God first putting that ability, opportunity, and inspiration into us in the first place.  So we do not "earn" our way to heaven because we do nothing outside of God's grace.  This is why doing good works is not at all contrary to the fact that Jesus died for my sins.  My good works are further graces from God that help me lead a happy life and prepare me for eternity with God.

One final note on good works.  I recently read an excellent book, "Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus" by Nabeel Quereshi. In it, I learned that the Muslim understanding of what leads souls to heaven is a balancing scale of sorts that compares one's good deeds with one's bad deeds, and that so long as the good deeds outweigh the bad, the person is granted access to heaven.  I disagree wholeheartedly with this, because this would mean heaven is simply a place where mediocre people mingle.  I do not see how Almighty God would allow into His holy presence people who just barely did more good than bad.  So that is not the view of good works that I am talking about here.  Again, our good works are merely us putting ourselves at the disposal of the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us.  They are not evidence of our own intrinsic goodness.

Now, to finally answer the question posed at the start of this reflection.  What is the reason for my hope?  Why am I a practicing Catholic/believing Christian?  Because I have experienced life without faith, and it was dreary.  I have lived without hope and it was literally depressing.  There was no meaning in my life when I couldn't get a firm grasp on God's love for me.  With faith - and by that I mean, with the belief that God loves me unconditionally, to the point of incarnating and dying on the cross so that my sins could be removed from my soul and my seat at the "supper of the lamb" could be secured - my life has meaning.  

So I believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ because it gives my life meaning.  Furthermore, Catholic understanding and practice of Christianity gives me great joy.  It is difficult at times, to be sure.  But to know that I am living for something greater than myself is incredibly fulfilling.  There is no greater peace than to know I am working towards the best version of myself thanks to the instructions available to me through Christ's holy church.  

In other words, I am Catholic not because I believe it will guarantee me entry into heaven.  I am Catholic because it makes this life better, and because it is preparing me for that eventuality of spending eternity with my Lord.

Perhaps this is why Jesus said, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand" (Matthew 3:2).  God's kingdom isn't in some far-off land in the distant future!  God is ever-present, and I can begin to partake in it here and now!  My Catholic faith is what helps me to learn how to do that.  How to love God, how to follow Jesus, how to do God's will.  Getting into heaven is only a small fraction of what it means to be saved.  To be saved from our sins is to start living for God right away.  To die to self, to detach from superficial trappings of the material world, and to see beyond the mundane.  

Being a Catholic Christian gives me great joy and peace!  I'm thrilled that God smiled upon me and brought me back to His fold - not once but twice!  Now, what I do with this grace is indeed not to keep it bottled up for myself, but it also doesn't mean trying to make others follow the path that's been paved for me.  God is present everywhere, including in religions that don't have the gospel.  There is that of God in all of His creation - it's His world and universe, after all!  To think that a person cannot come to know and love God because she belongs to the wrong religion is small-minded and not what Jesus taught.  We read in 2 Corinthians 5:15 that Jesus "indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised."  

And it is possible to live for Jesus without even realizing that's what you're doing.  If we believe Jesus is God, and God is the source of everything, then living for Jesus means dying to self and constantly seeking God's face.  That ongoing search and struggle, whether it is rewarded with the grace of Christian faith or not, is what I believe it is all about.  

But I'm no Scripture scholar ;)  That's why I'm thrilled to know that those who are, those who have been tasked by God to lead His flock here on Earth (Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict) agree.  

My hope for others, for those who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus, is that they also find peace and joy in this life, meaning and means of preparing for the next life, and may their good works be evidence of their desire to know and love God.  God will reward each one of us uniquely. I think if more Christians spent more time on themselves, working out their own holiness, they'd be better prepared to enter heaven than focusing on trying to get others to "catch up" with them.  There's plenty to do with my own life.  

Thank you Jesus for this peace.  Amen.

What is the Good News?

"Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence"  (1 Peter 3:15)

For years I asked the question - what is the good news?  It seems so vague, reading about it in Scripture.  I hear it weekly, proclaimed from the pulpit.  It appeared as though every other Christian knew what this was all about, except for me.  I kid you not, I truly didn't know what exactly was the good news!  

Basically, it's like this.  God loves me unconditionally, and He sacrificed even Himself on the Cross to ensure that I could spend eternity with Him in heaven.  He loves me so much that He couldn't stand the idea of being separated from me, even though I turn from Him when I sin.  He loves me like no one else loves me.  He loves me like I love no one else.  He models true love for me.  I am loved to the ends of the Earth.  What can possibly be better news than that???

Ok, so here comes the natural extension of this realization.  If I feel so utterly loved by God that I live my life in a way that is often contrary to the secular standards of the world, then shouldn't I be grateful beyond measure for this gift of unconditional love and the resulting inner peace that comes with it?  And if I am indeed grateful, then shouldn't I desire to share this gift with others? 

(Of course, if I don't live my life any differently than Secular Sam, then I have to wonder if I really believe in God's eternal love for me.)

I struggle with self-consciousness.  But in Christ (the incarnation of God's love for me!), I am learning to accept who I am, praising the Lord for my positive attributes, and humbling accepting correction surrounding my negative tendencies.  

I worry. But in Christ, I trust God and needn't worry any longer!

I judge. But in Christ, I am aware of my own smallness and feel a sense of comraderie with my fellow sisters and brothers, all children of God, all struggling to some degree in various areas of their lives.  

I have been waiting to replace these faults with virtues (mainly humility and faith) before feeling ready to be able "to give an account for the hope that is in" me (1 Peter 3:15).  But perhaps the best way to attain these virtues is through practice!  Humble in the realization that I am not where I'd like to be, where God calls me to be, as far as virtue is concerned, I have faith that He can nonetheless use even my imperfect attempts to give a testimony of His great love.

So, if right now you do not have a sense of peace about your life, if you are anxious about the future or have regrets about the past, if you struggle with tendencies that you aren't very proud of, if you feel alone and unloved.... I have great news for you!  

Your Creator loves you beyond measure!  He made you on purpose, with a plan for your life. He forgives you for whatever is nagging at your conscience, so long as you admit your wrongdoing and repent!  He wants to spend not just this earthly life with you, but all of eternity!  Whatever is holding you back from living up to your potential, He can help!  He is, after all, the mastermind behind the blueprint for your life!  He can fix it!  He can make it better!  All He wants in return is your love.  Can you believe it?  Can you accept His love? Because that is all it takes - accepting His free offer of unconditional love and eternal life.  

What Makes You an American?

What makes someone an American?  Is it merely American citizenship?  Or is that just a technicality?  What makes anyone associate themselves with a given nation?  I think a given country's culture is what makes that country unique.  This includes history, geography, traditions, food, clothing, religion, music, values, language.

I was born in Poland to Polish citizens.  I'm ethnically Polish (albeit about 75%, per my dna test results!)  I speak Polish and I'm Catholic (which highly correlates with Polishness). On the surface, this makes me Polish.  To boost, I hold dual citizenship, so my European Union passport likewise identifies me as Polish.

But over the years, I've struggled to put my finger on why this simplistic formula just wasn't working for me anymore.  I'm an immigrant, and as such, I'm essentially a cultural transplant.  I started my life on one trajectory, but at age 8, the trajectory of my life changed drastically.  Sadly, it was a much bigger cultural shock than my parents could've prepared me for.  They assumed a Polish-born, Polish-speaking daughter of two Polish-born, Polish-speaking parents would grow up to be - what else? - a Pole (Polka).

Whenever I did anything "Polish", I would be praised for it, in particular by my maternal grandmother.  My letters to her would always be praised, albeit with a grade attached: "You only made X grammatical mistakes, your Polish is still very good!" (Gee, thanks for judging and editing my letters instead of just reading them for pleasure, and for making me feel as though every letter "home" was a test of my Polishness.)

I hate to say it, but even though my parents adopted the United States as their new countr by virtue of moving our little family here (it was just me and my parents when I immigrated here), they never embraced it to the exclusion of our country of origin.  Unbeknownst to them, their Polish daughter was quickly becoming an American teenager, something no expat parent could possibly be prapared for.  I grasped at proverbial straws wherever I could, trying to make sense of the world I was living in, the world I was coming of age in.  My parents weren't able to prepare me for American adulthood - how could they?  They weren't American adults themselves.  Even my dad, who did become a naturalized citizen when I was 14, still only knew what he learned from colleagues and television about American culture and values.

I grew up trying desperately to please my Polish parents/family while at the same time making sense of the often contradictory values I was met with in my American school and among my American peers.  I had no Polish community to fit into, as we settled in an area without a Polish presence.  Now I know that community is crucial.  Humans are social beings.  We must feel that we belong.  One way or another, we will make it so that we feel we are a part of a community, any community.  This is why kids join gangs.  This is why people join cults.  Less extreme, this is why there are cliques, and why sports fans can be each other's mortal enemies.

So where did I belong?  We attended church, but that's just what it was - attendance.  It was not participation.  There was no fellowship.  I never made any friends through our church.  It was in and out, Sunday obligation fulfilled.

My parents worked very hard, so they were very busy.  My younger siblings were born 15 months apart when I was still a "tween", my dad worked overtime or two jobs in addition to a crazy commute, and once my siblings were in school, he and my mom started an alteration business for extra income.

I get that they were concerned about providing for us kids the economic opportunities they didn't think we could've had in Poland.  I cannot know how founded this concern is, because I only know life here.  But money was a big deal.  Making it, saving it, being very selective when it came time to spending it.  The assumption was made that the ticket to a happy life is a certain socio-economic status, and the higher one's formal education, the better one's chances at said status.

I'm a pretty literal person.  I set my sights on something and I'm not easily swayed to reconsider.  And so, having heard from my family that education is crucial, and since I was a pretty good student and - as an introvert - enjoyed studying, I took it upon myself to pursue a doctoral degree as my life's mission.  All because I simply assumed that having a PhD would mean employers would seek me out and offer me work.  It took many years of higher education - five years on top of my Master's Degree - to finally come to terms with the reality.  The truth was, there was nothing magical about a doctoral degree.  There was no guarantee of employment upon defending a dissertation, and even my own college professors were making no more annually than my dad, who did not have a college degree of any kind.

I withdrew from my doctoral program after many sleepless nights, lots of tears, and facing a total loss of identity.  Up until that point, I was the good little Polish daughter who would be "Dr. Karolina".  In fact, when we visited my grandmother and godmother in Poland shortly before I made the decision to quit my PhD program, I received gifts and congratulatory cards on account of the degree I didn't even have!  It was just assumed that I would follow this trajectory.  That was a lot of pressure, because what did I have to fall back on?  Absolutely nothing.

Being done with higher education after 11 years of post-secondary schooling was the beginning of the end of my primary association with the nationality of my birth.  By then, I had changed my name to my mother's because it was typically Polish.  When we became parents several years later, there was never any question I would speak Polish to my kids, but even choosing a baby name included considering if Polish-speakers could spell and pronounce it.  I was going to raise Polish kids.

And then, I started parenting.  And while I do speak Polish to my kids, when it was time to name our second, I was already disillusioned enough with the Polish aspect of my identity to not let that determine what we would name our son.

What was holding me back before?  On some level, I was still trying to please my Polish parents and relatives.  I was still trying to prove that I was Polish enough.  I was still trying to live up to an impossible standard.  I could no more claim 100% Polish identity than I could claim any other nationality.  Except American.  At one point in recent years, I thought I had figured it out.  I wasn't 50/50, I was 100% Polish AND 100% American.  But now I see that this was merely wishful thinking.  The truth is, I AM 100% American.  By virtue of my citizenship.  By virtue of my English fluency.  By virtue of my having served in the US Army.  By virtue of my understanding and appreciation of various (though not all - still learning!) American traditions and passtimes.

But I am no longer any more Polish than other Polish-Americans.  I used to differentiate between Polish-Americans and Polish expats like myself.  I followed my relatives' cues in judging myself to be more Polish than them. I no longer deem my language ability as some sort of secret handshake that gives me the priviledge of Polish idetity.  Nationality is circumstantial.  There is no reason to boast of one's national identity.  No nationality is any better than any other one.  I thought I believed this when I would call myself a global citizen, but really, before I was more like a nomad with no home base.  NOW I can truly call myself a global citizen.  An American, first, but with international ties and interests.

  What makes YOU an American?