Coming Out Catholic

I left you off at the end of Conversion Story: Part I (Atheism to Belief) with me at that point where I had to acknowledge the inherent faith required in understanding the “why” of science, and my subsequent realization that my definition of religion must change drastically if God does indeed exist.  In other words, I had to admit that religion was not merely a bunch of imperfect humans collectively fantasizing together, but rather was a bunch of imperfect humans collectively attempting to figure out how best to love God and one another.

This was a big moment for me, and I had to just savor it for awhile, so savor I did.  But eventually, as with all things I hypothesize about in my head too much, I had to eventually get out of my head and into the “lab” of the world and try some things out.  I didn’t really have a very good plan.  I’d “tried” religions in the past, but I found it hard to believe then, and between that first experience with religion and my subsequent studies in physics in college, I had ended up in the Unitarian Universalist Church.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this organization, their history is quite interesting.  They’re no longer a Christian church, though their heritage is with the two groups, the Unitarians, and the Universalists, both Christian organizations from around the time of the Reformation.  What they are today is a diverse group of people who emphasize community service and the personal faith journey as the individual defines it.

This put me in a place where I was able to explore a number of faith systems without ever having to leave the comfort of the church.  This search was primarily a lonely one nonetheless, and also one which in retrospect was a good display of my distractability.  I jumped from one faith to another rather frequently, reading about everything I could get my hands on, including a number of unconventional religions.  I’m not going to catalog them all here for you, mostly because I can’t even remember all the faiths I researched.

The important thing to me was just that I find something–anything really–that wasn’t a Christian religion.  I couldn’t see myself becoming Christian because it just didn’t make any sense to me.  Christianity is, after all, a collection of disparate denominations and the very thought of having to sift through all those different ways of worshiping only to end up being a member of one of the most un-cool religions in America today was enough to keep me away for a long time.

I spent several years on that search, preferring to sift through all the world’s religions but one, and I exhausted myself doing it.  The very religions I was exploring did not seem to have the answers I was looking for.  They did not leave me feeling the way I’d always thought religion was supposed to make a person feel–connected to something larger.  I had given faith in religion a try, but I was ready to give up and just go back to being an atheist.  After all, it had to be the better of my only two options left right?

Well, that’s what I thought, but God works in mysterious ways.  Around then I had started going to business school.  I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life, I just knew that whatever it was I couldn’t leave my immediate area because I was married and my husband hated the idea of moving outside of our little town.  So I went to business school instead.  At a Catholic university.  One with monks living on campus.

Let me tell you… that was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life.  Okay, so I spent two years there in all, and left without a degree, mostly because I realized that I hadn’t been called to attend that school for business, but for religious purposes.  I loved my time there.  I met some amazing people, and they got me through some very difficult times.  The year before I started attending that school my father had passed away from a battle with cancer, and a few weeks before I started classes there I got married.  To a man who didn’t love me, but who told me later than he didn’t want to break my heart again so soon after my father died.  We’d even had a discussion before the wedding in which he told me that if things didn’t work out we should just divorce and go our separate ways.

BEFORE THE WEDDING!

I should have known then, but I didn’t have the courage to do anything about it.  So many people had spent so much money on our wedding that I just couldn’t imagine cancelling it the day before.  I got married out of a feeling of obligation to my family and friends.

Well, when the you-know-what hit the fan several months later, I was terrified of the reaction that my friends on campus would have when they found out.  I mean TERRIFIED.  So I only told a couple of friends, because I desperately needed someone to talk to who was on my side.  What I didn’t count on was their love and support and kindness.  Where I was afraid of what this Catholic community would say and do when they found out I was getting a divorce, my friends were confident that I would and should find the support I needed.

By that point, the free coffee with flavored creamer had lured me into Campus Ministry almost every day at lunch time.  I wasn’t sleeping very well, so the extra coffee was a temptation I couldn’t resist.  I spent nearly every lunch period listening to the Campus Ministry students debate topics such as the danger of relativism, and the use of birth control.  And more importantly I had the opportunity to listen and ask questions of the campus priest and the Campus Ministry Director.

I considered converting then, four years ago, but the divorce nearly broke me.  I’d just started to let Christianity into my heart, and I was afraid of more than just the Catholic community I belonged to rejecting me because of my divorce.  I was afraid of God rejecting me because of my divorce.

Somehow the priest knew–he’s reassured me multiple times over the years that it is highly likely that the Church will grant me an annulment, and reminded me that I’ll never know until I start the process.

But that fear was pervasive.  Though I had begun to allow Christianity into my heart, I was too afraid to allow Catholicism into my heart.  I explored every Christian denomination I could find, with the number one criteria being that they allow divorce.  I even fell in love with a Methodist, moved in with him, and to whom I am now engaged.

It was inconvenient then, when I felt that tugging at my heart, pulling me to the Catholic Church again.  And so since September of last year I’ve been on this inconvenient path, agonizing over the decision to become Catholic or follow family tradition and become Methodist like my husband-to-be.  I researched all the reasons why Catholicism couldn’t possibly be the best expression of my faith in God, and I exhausted myself with this search, just as I had done with my first round of religious searching years before.  Searching for the answers I wanted instead of the answers that were there literally wore me out.  I found nothing that stood up to the test of evidence, or to personal experience, and so here I am now, coming out Catholic.