What's the Big Deal about Religion?

Today both Fussy and Brainhell have posts about God or god and all of that ruminating got me to thinking about my own point of view. I am not aligned with Ms. Kennedy or Brainhell since one seems quite athiestic and the other scientifically mystic. Othejoys believes in the Church of the Zoo and that's getting closer. But me?

I went to church every Sunday as a child, to choir practice on Tuesdays, catechism on Wednesdays, and often volunteered at the church taco hut on Saturdays with my Irish Catholic mother. My mom, president of the Altar and Rosary Society, laundered the holy vestments used in daily mass. I learned to iron by pressing pure white handkerchiefs with cardinal red embroidered crosses.

I can remember feeling the power of the holy spirit a number of times during mass, mostly on the holidays when the rituals of the Catholic church lent a certain majesty to the proceedings.

As a child those experiences seemed transformational since I believed that obeying the laws of the church gave me first-class reservations for heaven. I fretted over babies who died before being baptized because the laws condemned them to Purgatory. I wondered what would happen to Mom's Jewish friends when Jesus came again.

I tried to obey the laws of the church to the letter. I made up sins to confess to the priest in case I had forgotten something terrible I had done. I worried we could all go to hell if Jesus came on a Tuesday, three days before Friday confession, and we accidentally had mortal sins on our souls.

By the time I was seventeen I still believed in God and Jesus but the Catholic church had lost its appeal. The priest's answers to my legitimate questions in catechism were dismissive and dogmatic. My sense of the priest's and the church leaders' point of view was that this is a club where there are rules to follow, and hell to pay if you don't obey. I had had several negative experiences where I perceived a certain hypocrisy in our priest.

So fast forward twenty years. I still believe in God but I'm more interested in having a conversation about principles than in consulting a book that offers rules. I believe in kindness, especially kindness toward oneself. I don't like the idea of threatening hell for nonconformists. I believe in demonstrating moral behavior. I believe in making things right when you have done wrong. I believe in self-reflection and compassion. I believe in lifelong learning. I believe there are people in this world who will make the same mistakes time after time, and that they must be forgiven. I believe there are some very evil people in the world.

I don't do the right thing all the time. No one does. Knowing that keeps me from crucifying my friends and family for their transgressions, at least most of the time.

I'm not sorry I grew up in a religious household. Since my mother died when I was 18 there has been no one to chastise me for leaving the church. Maybe it would be different if anyone had encouraged me to feel the Catholic guilt as an adult. But in looking back, I think the benefits of the community aspect of the church were enough to overcome the limits of the religion. I go to the Buddhist temple for a certain feeling of community that doesn't order up a belief in Jesus and Satan.

I believe spirituality is critical to a healthy inner life, and I believe spirituality is personal by nature. I'm glad not to be confused by my spirituality any longer, as I was for years after my mom died. I imagine athiests, agnostics, and the faithful all have a personal sense of sprirituality and it's enough to allow all of us to connect on some level. Be kind. Do the right thing. Live and let live. That's how I feel about religion.