Saturday, 29 December 2007

  • My Converstion Story Part 1


    I hadn't planned on my conversion story as the moderate sized tome that it turned out to be, but once I got writing, I thought there were some relevant parts that shouldn't be left out, so the story just kept growing. For that reason, I will break it up over the next few days to make the pieces of it more manageable for those of you interested in reading it.
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    I have often thought about writing down my own conversion story because I love reading about other people’s conversions and if reading my story can help even one person on their journey I would be so thankful. I really enjoy reading other people’s personal journeys and the struggles they face; ultimately overcoming all their initial doubts and obstacles to finally join the church handed down by Christ to the Apostles.

    I am certainly not a model of Christian virtue. In fact, until not too long ago, Christianity had no significant place in my life. Growing up, except for the occasional trip to the Baptist church with a friend or Catholic Mass with my cousin, I remained almost completely un-churched for the first 18 years of my life. It wasn’t until college that I encountered church in any significant way. Because of the excellence of the education offered, I ended up at a small liberal arts university – a Catholic university. I was able to stay away from church for my first year and a half. But then the “Rome Experience” came. Students at my university were encouraged to spend a semester abroad at the university’s campus in Rome, Italy. It was during this time that I was intensively exposed to church and for a time Christianity would come to play a part in my life. While in Rome I would often attend Mass with my Catholic friends and we spent time learning about Roman history through the eyes of the western church. One other opportunity was afforded me during this time; to spend a significant amount of time (along with other students) with a group of lay order “nuns.” Women, who though not tonsured in the manner of a monastic, had taken vows of chastity, poverty & obedience in order to serve God. We spent a lot of time with them and through them I learned much about the Catholic Church.

    An amazing thing happened to me while I was spending time with these “nuns.” I began to open my heart to God and to the church – at least a little bit. I was really confused about what I was supposed to be doing with my life and my faith. I was not a “religious” person and I knew that my parents would be upset if they knew that I was thinking about converting to Catholicism. They would think it was rash and would question my commitment. I guess even I questioned my commitment - to the point of feeling overwhelmed. So, while everyone else was off in other activities one day, I went into the church there at the “convent” and prayed… I prayed hard and I cried hard. I spent quite a bit of time on my knees that afternoon praying and crying. No one knew where I was, nor did anyone look for me as missing. Still, one person (with the help of my guardian Angel?) found me that afternoon, quietly delivered a bunch of tissues to me without my realizing it (I just heard footsteps, but didn’t realize they were intended for me), and then disappeared again without a word. It wasn’t until I came up for air a few minutes later that I realized what I had been left with this simple but significant gift… I knew at this point that there was a God and I knew I wanted God to be part of my life.

    I came really close to converting that spring. However, I was still young and the thought of disappointing my parents by converting to any Christian denomination was something I couldn’t bear. Added to this was my lingering doubt over the question of birth control and the dictates of the Pope. Unfortunately, I knew myself well enough to know that without the proper support at home and from my then boyfriend (who was horrified at the thought of my converting to Catholicism since he was raised Baptist), there was no way that this conversion would “stick.” So, as much as I thought I wanted to at the time, I didn’t end up converting to Catholicism that spring.

    I went through the rest of my college years reverting back to my old ways. As I spent more time at school, I actually became more liberal minded and acquired more of a feminist mind-set. I began to see Christianity as an oppressive patriarchal system that I didn’t want any part of. As I grew in this arrogant mindset I began to see Christianity as something for those people who couldn’t think on their own and needed to be told what to think and how to behave. I still believed in God and wanted to have God as part of my life, but that didn’t mean I wanted to have Christianity too. To my way of thinking the two were not necessarily intertwined. I think through these years my slogan was as the bumper sticker says “God, save me from your followers…”

    Left to my own devices, I really took a serious wrong turn… once I was out of my parents house and living on my own, I began to explore alternative religions. I stumbled across a book on Wicca, which really struck a chord with me. Here was a religion that was woman-centered (appealed to my feminist side) and was still ritual oriented – because I knew that the Catholics didn’t have it all wrong - those rituals they practiced week-in and week-out, somehow I knew that they were necessary, or at the very least appealing. Wicca also allowed me (I believed at the time) to “think for myself” and not get all caught up in those antiquated ideas of what was moral – and even worse think that somehow those ideas would dictate my life once I moved beyond this plane of existence. Thanks be to God, I never went very deep into Wicca. I liked the ideas behind it, but I was always too shy to actually join in any organized practice plus I was always a little suspect of the “woo woo” aspects usually linked to Wicca, such as crystals, casting spells, pyramids, etc, etc, etc.

    I went along mostly contented with my spiritual situation for many years. I was never one of those people who actively seek out something more, something higher. I knew there was a God (goddess as I addressed “her” at the time) and that there were forces in the universe that were beyond my understanding. When someone would tell me something about Buddhist practices or the Hindu religion, I would be mildly interested and would sometimes adopt some of the outward practices, but I would never seek out the fuller understanding of any single religion – they were all too confining for me. I identified myself as a pantheist, appreciated that the “goddess” was in everything around me and basically hinged my entire spiritual life on this incredibly shallow philosophy.  Other occurrences happened in my life during these years; I was married and divorced, I was nominally self-employed, and then finally I dated and moved in with the man who was to be my future husband and the vehicle for the most drastic change my life would ever undergo.

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