The Champagne Soapbox

this sunday is yet another annual return on sacrifices made during lenten season. usually, people give things up on ash wednesday and continue to omit those things and number of other things from their lives until easter. this season, i decided to journal everyday about how i identify religion. i have held many relationships with god, or the holy trinity, or the universe. at one time or another, i was/am in a religious relationship with three things, one thing, and everything.

three things.

i grew up insanely catholic, alike most of the people who developed back home. i guess we could say that it started at my baptism, the moment where the sin we were born with was reset, and i was granted the key to heaven if i were to meet death earlier than expected. i really enjoyed the chaos of being catholic, at least the community aspect of it. repeating prayers back to your parents so they could be recited during the weekly test at CCD. coming to class after school hours and hearing people talk so deeply about their concept of afterlife at a very young age. going back to school the next day as if you didn’t contemplate creation together the night before. looking forward to vacation bible school and water balloon fights and desserts your almond parents probably would not approve of.

i think my opinion of religion changed when i began to question the routine of it. i remember distinctly a teacher saying that if you were to question if he was even real, or a possibility and this effort was met with nothing, then you were already damned. if you were lucky, you can spend time in purgatory reflecting on your mortal sins for permission to enter heaven. i remember that i walked out of class feeling absolutely nauseated, scared to talk to the person next to me in fear of judgment about the way i contemplated how life was written. was the catholic ego was just an attempt to collect tithes and dismiss culture? now that curiosity was an option, i had to hide the intrusive thought behind many ideas of tradition and teachings. i’m not even sure what the person meant when saying it, but it was the first time i allowed myself to interpret religious teachings.

however, scared shitless through tradition, i had to fall way deeper into my faith. trauma dumping at confirmation retreats directly to the guys who sexually exploited my friends. confessing widely uncomfortable things to a man you have known since birth behind a partition. listening to women of faith describe celibacy while most girls in my class have already failed the task. being taught to desire marriage over love. crying to shrine of penance bread because you feel so guilty for things teenagers fall into naturally. sitting first pew hoping that everyone in your hometown recognizes your dedication to your faith. screaming into a pillow at night hoping that maybe if you asked loud enough, he will hear you. thinking about the afterlife so much that the present becomes an afterthought.

i moved to austin, and i learned very quickly that you need to be curious in order to make friends, succeed in classes, and to form real opinions instead of relying on other people’s stated facts of life. i met people of different religions. i met people of different cultures. i met people of different languages. i still felt faithful, to a very robust nature, until i went to a younglife event out of curiosity. it seemed like a very safe place: people were talking about their weekend plans openly, they played loud music i heard on the radio and not in a gospel book, and they wore whatever they wanted. that was the only time i went, only because i felt ten times more confused about what i was taught when my only intention was to gain more clarity.

in college, my favorite thing to learn was cognitive psychology and development. i thought it was convenient how the most intensive religious education begins directly after our brains are drawn toward individualism, free-thought, and experimentation. right when are more inclined to explore creatively.

now i’m sitting in a pew sophomore year for ash wednesday. i went alone, right down the street from the UT tower. in the middle of the service, i had to go to the bathroom and chug water from the sink because it became really hard to breathe when the priest looked directly at me. it was like he knew that i was lost, or that i didn’t want to be there, or that this was just a fulfillment of a parent’s holy assignment- take a picture of my ashes to convince them my mind was right, my faith was still there, and that i was still that god-fearing girl who never questioned him much like she did society. the blood tasted like wine, the body tasted like a cracker, and the girl left for one of the last times.

one thing.

junior year, i decided to take a writing credit course called “the bible and it’s interpreters.” i thought this would be my salvation, discussing christianity in a multi-cultural context with a teacher who speaks with a thick norwegian accent and was as kind as jesus himself. a few people in that class always introduced ideas by saying “as a catholic,” though i never felt comfortable to admit that i was one. not only did i feel that it was not necessary to announce every other minute, i did not feel comfortable talking to others about my awkward experience of what i knew church to be. the class was only intended to discuss historical context and not spiritual philosophy, and at one point i began to debate with the catholics using a hard bias of religious trauma. this peaked interest from those who joined the class for the historical context, varying religions and only present to learn about the origin of this huge religion. i finally felt comfortable talking to others about their religion. subsequently, i healed a lot of the shame i carried from my strictly catholic childhood by asking questions and considering that my idea of god was separate from religion and practices. maybe god had more than three names. if he has an abstract presence, how am i to assume that no one else experiences him.

everything.

i had to read a lot of scripture for this class, way more than i ever did in catholic school. now that i was held boundless for interpretation (compared to “this is what he meant by this, learn it and live it”), i began to form a beautiful understanding of what those words meant regardless if they were from god himself, by proxy, or some random dead dude in the middle east. god made everything in his own image, so he is the sky and the beaches and the dirt between your toes and the air that you breathe and the water you drink when you become nervous matching eyes with a priest who is guessing your motivations for appearing in church after so long. i didn’t want to associate myself with a god who punished curiosity, especially if he made our minds so free thinking. i didn’t want to associate myself with a god who restricted connection, because our mouths were made to speak to others with open ears. i didn’t want a god who shamed people for accepting the way in which they were created. i didn’t want a god who favored creations and allowed society to create a false narrative of supremacy.

people don’t write books to dictate opinions. they write them to inspire.

last week in a conversation about religion, someone told me that purgatory is closed (it was a joke… maybe). i think in this whole religious journey, which is a contemplation for many my age, i began to accept the universally unknown. i know everything happens for a reason, whether fate or god or being written in Bailey’s Chronological Life Plan according to Age dictates that (it’s probably all the same). i know that there is something that made us so individual and similar, despite whatever name we give to it (god is a good word for it).

i know that belief makes life purposeful, even if that belief is contrary to those around you. i believe in energy and understanding motivations. in growing opportunities rather than constricting paths. in people and their psychological desire to find solutions to their curiosities. in guidance opposed to teaching. how experiences shape beliefs. how age boosts position and how those can be manipulated through ego. whatever you believe is yours, and thank god we have that freedom forever.

now that purgatory is closed, i guess it’s finally time to start being good people! this concludes my lenten season contemplations. all that really matters is that you have your own relationship with whoever built you. if anything comes out of this, i hope you take your time to think about what you believe in. i’m glad i allow myself the space to do so, and speaking about it to my friends, myself, and the virtual abyss is more healing than intended.