Friday, April 20, 2007

Life and Death

A friend sent me this today. It comes from a psychic out in California, natch -- where else? It's an interesting idea, although I think you could substitute any beautiful place in nature, that gives you the kind of soaring inspired feeling you get in a cathedral. That said and despite my problems with religion, I do find cathedrals full of music to be amazing places. And I'm interested in this whole idea of our personality, our ego, as a separate thing from us as part of a collective whole. In this sense the soul is the same as the Eastern idea of being part of the universe, beauty, the ultimate goodness, or what some call god.

A THUMBNAIL SKETCH OF LIFE AND DEATH

The following is a question asked by a Study Group Member: "Please
elaborate on the relationship between a soul and its human self. You
have said that we do not need to worry about dying because we are
eternal souls. But, I think you have also said that the human
personality self, the personality matrix, is self aware for a short
time after death, and then merges back into the soul. So, really it
would seem that the human personality self does end. Would you please
clarify this?"

The Guides' Answer (through Ron Scolastico, Ph.D.):

"If you can understand what we will show you, then all fear of death
will vanish.

The human personality self could be likened to your left thumb as
you are sitting in a cathedral where there is beautiful architecture,
and colored glass, and holy sounds being made by a choir. If you
turned your attention fully to your thumb, you would not notice any of
that. You would only notice your thumb.

As a soul, you are sitting in a cathedral of eternal love, and
perfection, and creativity, and beauty, and goodness. And, a certain
part of your attention is focusing on your thumb. In other words, what
you experience as you-as-a-human is a small portion of the attention,
or the awareness, of you-as-an-eternal soul. The rest of the awareness
of you-as-an-eternal-soul is blocked out from your human awareness.

When your body meets death, that 'sliver' of soul consciousness
that has been focusing on its thumb is turned back to the full
attention in the cathedral. What you experience as you simply stops
being small, and it becomes large. It does not vanish. So, your human
self does not vanish. It simply wakes up to its existence as an
eternal soul. Nothing is lost."

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Atheists Unite!

Julia Sweeney was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me today. She's the actress from Saturday Night Live who created the funny gender neutral character Pat. She also has a play called, "Letting Go of God" about her journey from Catholic childhood to atheism. We should be pals! AND, she tours with Jill Sobule, a singer/songwriter who I saw at the Birchmere last year and just love -- their show is called Jill and Julia. Check out her website and blog...see my nifty new links section on the bottom right of this page. I updated my blog today to add new features; being technologically retarded, however, we'll see how that goes...

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Thoughts on Faith and Growing Up Catholic

Here's the assignment I did this week for Hannah, my writing coach, on why my interest and focus on the Catholic Church in my novel. This is my very, very long reply. I hope some of you recognize the story, and that it doesn't bore you. Please feel free to comment.


I was born and raised Roman Catholic, which I consider one of the wonderful gifts and blessings of my life. Growing up catholic in the 1960’s in Rhode Island was about as Leave It To Beaver, baseball and apple pie as you could get. I grew up in a four-bedroom Cape in Lincoln that my father and grandfather built themselves – we moved in when I was six weeks old.

I had four brothers, and would probably have had several more if my mother hadn’t required a hysterectomy at the age of 30. We were only seven years apart from oldest to youngest; there was another brother two years later, but he died of a collapsed lung two days after birth.

Growing up in Lincoln, my friends Meg and Nanci had eight kids in their family; my friend Debbie had thirteen, with no twins. The Joyals had 17, with two sets of twins. Our neighbors, the Reynolds, had nine. Mrs. Reynolds had the first five – a set of twins, followed by a baby, followed by another set of twins – in 20 months. Those crazy Catholics! The more the church told us how bad and sinful sex was, the more we all went at it like rabbits, quite clearly!

And of course no one used birth control. My mother told me she thought she’d be struck by lightning if they did. She also said my dad simply had to throw his pants on the bed for her to get pregnant -- a very fruitful combination.

We all went to Catholic school, St. Sebastian’s on the East Side of Providence, off Blackstone Boulevard. We started at the little public school right down the street from our house, but something happened when I was six and my mom decided we weren’t getting a good enough education and that was it – off we went in our little uniforms. Mine had a navy blue and white checked skirt with matching bolero jacket and beret, and of course a white blouse with Peter Pan collar. The uniform included maroon knee socks, a maroon patch on the jacket that said “SSS,” and a jaunty maroon ribbon on the left front of the beret. I loved that uniform. It was way cuter than the other catholic schools’, with their more ordinary blue and gray or green and gray plaid jumpers.

Catholicism in the 50’s and 60’s was a separate culture, a parallel universe to the mainstream one. Throughout this whole country, in cities like Providence, Boston, NYC, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, and all the ones in between, the church built parishes and schools as fast as the baby boom grew and joined them. The children and grandchildren of all the catholic immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland and Portugal raised their kids in very self contained neighborhoods where you all went to the same church, went to the catholic schools, shopped at catholic-owned businesses, and socialized and volunteered and got help from Catholic causes. It was a cradle to grave support system that rivaled local governments, and it sheltered, protected and guided the children in a very loving but strict way.

Everyone I grew up with at this time, and really any Catholic I’ve ever met, remembers this strong cultural identity, this community that was about so much more than religion. Although that said, the church, the local priest, the nuns, the rules, the fear of sin and punishment, was also incredibly strong and made a huge impression too.

In addition, Catholics were looked down upon by mainstream Protestants. They weren’t allowed to join their clubs, and were always perceived as poor immigrants with too many children and weird beliefs. So we also had an “us against them” mentality that made us even more clannish. The troubles in Northern Ireland reinforced this identity. Sadly, the flip side was our own prejudices against blacks and other non-Catholics and other immigrants of that time.

Anyway, this is all just background to explain what a strong hold being Catholic has on people like me, and why so many remain in the faith despite all the many incomprehensible and unreasonable rules, such as the no birth control rule, or the fact that women cannot be priests, and that priests have to be celibate. Everyone knows these rules are crazy, and very, very few people actually follow them, and everyone knows that too. But at the same time, Catholics continue to revere the pope and the hierarchy while ignoring many of their major rules in everyday life. It’s crazy and contradictory, but true.

All my adult life I have questioned my faith, questioned not just the hierarchy and the power it has over millions of people, but also whether I believe that Jesus was the son of God, whether he rose from the dead, whether I even believe in any supreme being at all. I went through periods where I didn’t go to church for years, but once I had my kids I had them baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown just to hedge my bets, and to prevent my parents from having heart attacks.

Then when Cassie was almost six, the pull of my childhood got me, and I signed her up for the First Communion program at our local parish church. After trying a few protestant churches, I settled on Catholic because it was so very familiar and, perhaps more importantly, because it had by far the shortest services.

But it was horrible, very dour and serious and awful. The priest was so boring and our diocese is extremely conservative -- just my luck. He would actually give anti-abortion speeches during his sermons. We shopped around and finally found a groovy little liberal church on the other side of Arlington. That worked for several years because the people were wonderful and shared our values, and the priests were funny and irreverent and didn’t take themselves or the hierarchy too seriously. We loved it there, and that’s where I got involved with the Haiti committee.

For years I’ve enjoyed reading about religion, all religions, questioning my beliefs, and challenging the Vatican. I joined groups fighting for an end to celibacy, and in favor of women priests, married priests, and an end to the ridiculous rules on birth control. I felt like if I left the church I couldn’t work to change it, so this was the best option. Plus my kids had a nice community and being in the church helped reinforce our beliefs as parents about helping the poor, right vs. wrong, etc.

I continued to question and agitate, though. I challenged our priests about why everything had to be about Jesus, and about how exclusive it all seemed, the whole idea that you had to believe in Jesus and be “saved” to get into heaven. I’ve never believed Jesus stood for that, whoever he was, and think he would be appalled by what’s been done in his name throughout the centuries.

Then the pedophilia scandal hit.

I’d already read a lot about previous scandals and cases of abuse. I knew bishops and cardinals had covered up before, which was appalling. After a flurry of news stories the crises would die down and things went on as before. The church ducked its responsibility, evaded charges and never admitted wrongdoing. The victims were bought off and forced to sign confidentiality agreements.

This time, when the news started breaking in the Boston Globe, I was horrified at the stories but elated that the reporters were not letting up, that more and more damaging stories kept coming and coming. I thought, “Finally something is going to have to be done. Finally the hierarchy is going to have to address how sick the priesthood has become, how ineffective it is in our modern world, where people have so many more choices and where being gay is not such a shameful thing that their only choice was to become a priest." Because for many years that was the best group to recruit from, for sure.

Unfortunately, the seminaries also attracted sick, twisted men who didn’t know what to do about their sexual problems. They thought they could become a priest and hide from society, and the celibacy rules would protect them from their worst impulses. Instead, they continued to act out and the church simply provided them with easy access to prey: obedient children who were taught to never ever question a priest, who had more authority over you than your own parents. The church, for a variety of reasons -- not least of which was the entirely male, supposedly but not-even close-to-celibate culture and complete lack of women (and mothers) in any positions of authority -- turned a blind eye on these problems, especially after the 60’s when many priests and nuns left the church and recruitment became harder and harder.

In response to the recent scandal, the hierarchy continued to cover up. Their arrogance in the face of so much proof of abuse was unbelievable, outrageous, enraging! How could anyone keep going to mass, keep putting money in the collection baskets, keep giving to the bishops’ offices, when they were so corrupt and self serving? All they cared about was money and protecting the name of the institution. The victims, their FLOCK, were last on the list of priorities. These disgusting men – and it was ALL men – were so arrogant they knew that for most Catholics, leaving the church is almost impossible, especially Catholics of previous generations. So despite all the outrage, despite all the foot dragging and obvious lack of concern for the victims of such horrendous crimes and betrayals, most Catholics continued to go to church and defend “good priests,” and their particular parishes, and blame the stories on a few bad apples and on anti-catholic media bias.

I was completely disgusted. I joined Voice of the Faithful, a group that formed in a small parish outside of Boston in response to revelations about a priest who had been shuffled around by Cardinal Law, and had raped and abused dozens of boys in that and surrounding parishes. I wrote letters to the editor, cheered on the Boston Globe (which deservedly won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage), and spoke out at our church, the only one in the entire Arlington Diocese to hold a “listening session” where people could vent their feelings about the scandal.

I joined SNAP, Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests, and went to meetings locally where I heard mostly men but also some women testify, recounting horrendous tales of abuse when they were young and how much it had crippled them their whole lives. People who had been drug addicts and alcoholics, people who couldn’t hold a job, stay in school, or maintain a relationship because of the huge betrayal they felt, first at the hands of the priest; then when it was covered up by church and school officials, including other priests and nuns who knew what was going on; and then by their parents who either didn’t believe them at all, or who took payoffs from the bishops and signed agreements that they would never press charges or go public with their claims. It was so sick!

Eventually, the scandal died down, although more priests are credibly charged every single day. There have been literally thousands of victims. Cardinal Law was forced to step down in Boston, only because the people there picketed outside his mansion for weeks and months, but he was quickly given a cushy job in the Vatican where he resides in a palace, is the pastor of a gorgeous old church, and holds salons and lives like a true “Prince of the Church.”

As I grew more and more angry and disillusioned, I continued to read books by C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, and other theologians and scholars, trying to figure out how smart guys like these found such strong faith, when I was becoming more faithless every day. Over lunch one day, a friend suggested that maybe I was going about this the wrong way, that maybe I needed to read something written by someone who didn’t believe in God, and see if I felt compelled to defend faith in general. He suggested I try, “Why I Am Not a Christian” by Bertrand Russell.

That book changed my life. I felt like a homosexual who always was different but didn’t know why until I met someone else who was gay. It was like coming out of the closet! This is exactly what I had always thought, the same questions I always had, the same conclusions I wanted to draw. It was wonderful! After this I read “The Freethinkers,” by Susan Jacoby, “The End of Faith,” by Sam Harris, and his follow-up essay, “Letter to a Christian Nation,” as well as “Ethics Without God,” and other books by atheists on how to live an examined, moral life without faith in any particular God. I joined the Freedom from Religion Foundation and became obnoxious in my enthusiasm, driving everyone I know crazy.

Of course, with my youngest daughter about to make her confirmation and my two eldest in Catholic high school, I had to keep a bit of a low profile at home. I also could never tell my mother or she would die, but I did raise some interesting points. She told me she was too old to start asking questions now, it was too upsetting and to please leave her in peace with her beliefs.

So I did. But I am so comfortable with me new views, so RELIEVED to not be struggling against what I never fully embraced, it’s like a huge burden has been lifted from my soul. I feel a bit conflicted about my kids, but I’ve decided that we can talk openly about my change of heart when they are older, and have had a chance to live with their own views and contradictions for awhile. I don’t want to rob them of the comforts I got from prayer and being part of a Catholic community, which I truly treasured when I was young. Saying the rosary warded off the bogeyman, and calmed me and helped me sleep when I was older, almost like meditation. My friends and I still laugh about all the quirky, bizarre things we had to do as Catholics, about all the characters we met and all their wacky beliefs. All the times we got in trouble for so many infractions, so many venial and mortal sins! These stories are a huge part of our shared experience and shared memories.

But we were lucky. We were not abused, were not left alone with creepy, sex-starved perverts who used their power and station to rape children. My mother never left any of us alone with priests she thought were creepy – apparently she had good radar for that. At least not that I know of, that is. It’s possible my brothers, who went to an all-boys school run by Brothers of the Sacred Heart, who they often described as sadistic, have horror stories of their own that they’ve never shared.

Finally, the last straw that prompted me to quit going to church was when Pope John Paul II died and Cardinal Law was selected to give his eulogy! The highest honor possible was given to the man who had been run out of Boston on a rail for protecting and covering up for pedophile priests who had abused hundreds of children. Instead of being punished, he was rewarded with this incredible honor. The arrogance of it, the complete lack of contrition for his very real crimes, was appalling. It was clear the church had learned nothing and would never ever change. They held all the cards. They were the only game in town.

When Cardinal Ratzinger, the former head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly called the Office of the Inquisition!), and who had been even more conservative than JPII, and even more against modernizing the church, was selected to be the new pope, I simply had enough. I could no longer sit in the pews and give tacit approval by my presence to this institution that I was thoroughly ashamed of. It suddenly became so clear: I would never belong to an organization that excluded blacks or Jews or women, so how could I belong to this organization which excluded women from any positions of leadership; all non-Catholics from its idea of salvation; and rewarded criminals like Cardinal Law. I told my pastor that I just couldn’t do it anymore, that I would love to keep serving on the Haiti committee, but couldn’t come to church. He completely understood, and in fact told me he couldn’t believe so many women showed up and put up with it!

Now I think about faith in a completely different way. I’m interested in Eastern views, in how we might all be part of some wonderful union, part of the whole universe, and that maybe that is something like God. Or that god is simply humans’ best, highest impulse, our highest selves, which is expressed through love and selflessness, through caring for the poor and less fortunate, through fighting injustice and war and all the terrible suffering in the world. But I'm also completely Ok with there not being any God at all.

Meanwhile, I do have faith in the future, and that whether it has some higher purpose or meaning or not, my life is meant to be enjoyed, experiences are meant to be had, finding a good balance of work, service, love and pleasure. My children at least are probably glad that I existed! Whatever struggles I go through, whatever inevitable ups and downs life brings -- and it does -- I have faith, ironically, that all of this is somehow OK, that these are lessons I for some reason need to learn. And besides, compared to about 99.9% of the rest of the world, and because I was unaware of the ugly dark side of my religion throughout my childhood, I do believe I won the lottery in many ways when I was born here in the U.S. to a nice Catholic family in Rhode Island in what seemed like a much more innocent time.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Cherry Blossoms, Yoga and Writing Naked


I went down to the tidal basin before dawn on Monday to see the cherry blossoms, minus the maddened crowd. It was so beautiful and ghostly quiet, although there were photographers, walkers and other joggers enjoying the same experience. There was a huge full moon followed by a gorgeous sunrise, and I don't think I've ever had a nicer, more peacful time in DC. I wanted to go back and do it again yesterday, but I woke to thunder, lightning, rain and high winds that probably blew all the blossoms off the trees right at their peak, which is a shame.

I also went to a meditation class at my local yoga studio on Sunday. I love yoga but had never really explored meditation. I'm thinking it might be a good substitute for church and prayer, since I've given those up as spiritual pursuits. I still go occasionally as part of the Haiti committee, but I swear I don't inhale while there. Just kidding, but I honestly feel nothing of an uplifting nature from those religious rituals and haven't for a very long time.

I was inspired to try meditation by a phenomenal book I just read called "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. (For her excellent and inspiring thoughts on writing, visit her website: http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/writing.htm.) The book is a memoir of Gilbert's journey from unhappy marriage and painful divorce to finding inner peace and a new lease on life. To do this she spends a year pursuing pleasure (4 months learning Italian and eating every delicious thing in Italy); prayer (4 months learning how to be alone with her own thoughts, forgive herelf and others, and connect with her personal idea of God while studying yoga and meditation at her guru's ashram in India); and love (4 months discovering meaning and happiness in her life while spending time with a funny old medicine man and otherwise doing nothing in Bali, Indonesia). It's a journey of self discovery in three countries that begin with the letter I. She's a wonderful writer and it motivated me to check out meditation too. Yes, I know, I am truly a late bloomer in many ways.

Anyway, I loved it! I was surprised at how easily I sank into a kind of empty-headed stupor. It wasn't as hard as I expected to quiet my normally racing thoughts. The instructor suggested we picture a giant cauldron being tended by a very kind and loving wizard (so goofy, right?!), and we could get rid of any bad thoughts or feelings we had, any problems at all, by simply putting them into the pot to be stirred with all the rest into something new and better.

So that's what I did -- I threw it all in there, my worries, my fears, my anger, my sadness, my ever-present guilt, my longings -- and miraculously I just RELAXED and sat there for a pretty long while, just breathing and resting. It was awesome.

After these two lovely and positive experiences (cherry blossoms and meditation), I sat down to complete my writing assignment for the week. Hannah, my own personal and wonderful guru, asked me to write about my writing process these past few months since we've been working together: how is it going, how has it changed, what works, what doesn't; and why am I writing this story anyway. Why do I need to tell this particular story in this particular way? What's driving this need?

I hate these kinds of questions! I just want to write about someone else and not explore WHY. I want to go through this therapeutic experience without having to connect it to my own life and own struggles. But of course that's exactly what it's all about. And as usual, when I started to write honestly but fearfully about why I really want to tell Liza's story, pages of truth poured out. I exposed myself completely for the first time, the real issues I'm grappling with, which I have never put down on paper before. It was scary and surprising and cathartic. But as I pushed "send" I panicked that Hannah would be shocked, put off, maybe not want to work with me anymore.

Which of course was crazy -- she loved it! She was excited, and told me -- once again -- it's all about the writing. She's no judge, has no interest in judging or even knowing people's messy personal lives and struggles. And besides, she says nothing shocks her anymore. While I of course find it gripping, my life and concerns are probably not all that unusual or compelling to someone who's heard it all. Hannah says this isn't therapy -- in therapy you try to solve problems. In her writing course, you just want to get it OUT. Her entire goal is to get me to discover the core of what drives my story, what is it REALLY about. And now I've done it, and it's such a huge relief! I've finally started writing naked, and it's so obvious that this is really the only way to go. Everything seems clearer and easier now -- I feel like the outlines of the story are just falling into place and it all makes more sense.

My next assignments are: 1. to write about why I have such a huge problem with the Catholic church, to write down everything I feel about this subject, tell her all about the issues in the church, and why I feel the way I do about it. This will be an excellent exercise; and 2. write about what I mean when I think of the word faith. What does faith mean to me. Another excellent question, since this is a multifaceted theme in my novel as well. Cool, huh?