Catholishism

God,

with a capital g. 

The big man upstairs. 

The one who spoke through Muhammad, 

who established the covenant with the Children of Israel, 

who embodies the holy trinity. 

People today are afraid to talk about God. 

They whisper about him, 

they hand out pocket-sized copies of the Old Testament and politely ask you to make a dollar donation for their weekly collection, 

but they don’t talk about him. 

At least, they don’t say anything worth listening to. 

For the most part they just regurgitate the words that were spoon-fed to them by an eager Sunday-School teacher. 

God. 

The one whose controversiality now is the driving factor behind countless wars and acts of violence, 

simply due to the prophet’s tendency to claim victim.

I grew up Catholic-ish, 

a strange denomination of Christianity that allows you all the benefits of catholic eucharist for a quarter of the work. 

You get baptized, 

just to get you a fair shot in Eden, 

but you only really go to church when there’s a holiday or when your grandparents are in town. 

I used to be a real Catholic. 

I went to a private school where a Monsignor was the principle, 

and I did everything a real Catholic schoolgirl should. 

I went to mass every Sunday, 

even if I had to walk there all by myself. 

I would sit alone in one of the big pews in the back and I would pay attention to everything except the homily. 

I would hug and kiss the old ladies in the front of the church, 

and I’d pay fifty cents to light a candle for my dying grandmother. 

But as I grew, my beliefs evolved. 

Today, 

I would call myself a practicing member of the laity of the Catholic-ish church.

Honestly, being Catholic-ish sucks. 

All I want is to be is Catholic

or not Catholic, 

being stuck in the middle is just confusing. 

When you’re Catholic-ish,

you don’t know what or who to believe. 

You feel like there’s no one that you can trust,

no one that you can turn to in times of need, 

except for… well, God.

I believe that there is a God. 

There has to be, otherwise how would anything make sense? 

Science explains the formation of the earth by the smashing together of big rocks, 

and the development of human life by the mutation of floating amoebas, 

and that’s perfectly valid.

I’d buy that for a dime.

Maybe Moses took some creative liberties when writing the creation story in Genesis; 

maybe there was no Adam and Eve, 

but science can’t explain everything. 

Not yet at least. 

It can’t explain the complexities of the human mind, 

it can’t explain how or why we’re here, 

and it can’t explain the unquantifiable expansiveness of the universe, 

at least in a way that’s fathomable to humans. 

I mean, there have to be answers somewhere right? 

I guess it’s just easiest to pin all of these unanswered questions onto a common deity, 

because someone or something out there has to know more than we do, 

right? 

God. 

That’s actually not why I believe in him. 

Or her.

It? 

I don’t know,

like I said, 

I’m only Catholic-ish. 

I believe because I think I’ve felt God before. 

I’m pretty sure I’ve felt God three times in my life.

The first time I felt God I was probably in fifth or sixth grade,

I was still a real Catholic then. 

I was standing in the church of the Most Blessed Sacrament, 

looking up at the ivory carved skeleton of a man. 

His head was limp and crowned with thorns, 

his chin was resting on his bare chest. 

Above him was a plaque that stated in bold calligraphy, 

INRI, 

King of the Jews.

I looked at the dead man. 

He looked down at his bloody feet, 

nailed to the bottom of a cross. 

My palms were pressed flat against one another, 

my thumbs against my chest, 

with the end of my nose brushing my fingertips.

I was locked in the classic position of a praying child, 

kneeling still, 

but my thoughts were racing, 

as they often did, and then… 

everything seemed to quiet. 

The image of the pews and altar blended into a thick wash of varying shades of browns and I became increasingly aware of my heartbeat. 

The walls within me had become paper-thin, making it so that I could feel that steady beat reverberating through my praying hands. 

I felt tall.

My bones were extending like a collapsed telescope, 

and I was growing,

and rising, 

and reaching, 

and I was getting taller, 

and taller,

and taller. 

I think that was God. 

I think he was stretching me. 

Either that or it was a hallucination of some kind, 

but I’d like to think that it was God.

None of the other times that I’ve thought that I’ve felt God have been in a church. 

The last time that I felt God, 

I was crying my eyes out in the women’s bathroom of the public library. 

The thing about church is that they try to force it, at least the Catholic church does. 

That’s why I first started practicing Catholishism, 

because the church makes things so superficial, 

so ritualistic. 

You have to do everything just so, 

and in the perfect order, 

or else you’ll burn in the fiery depths of hell for all of eternity. 

You get it on before marriage, 

you swear to God, 

you get an abortion, 

you fall for someone of the same sex, 

you drink, 

you skip mass: 

you’re a sinner, 

you need to confess, 

you need to be saved. 

I think that’s ridiculous. 

It contradicts the fundamental principle of acceptance that the ivory skeleton man lived and died for. 

Unfortunately the corruption of the church stems from such perverted lessons, 

and the desire of the most faithful to defend these teachings. 

God’s supposed to be a father,

not a jailor. 

The Catholic church has created a philosophy built on guilt. 

Whenever I question, 

whenever I screw up, 

I am overwhelmed by a crushing sense of guilt, 

because the church has taught me that I need to be forgiven in order to be saved. 

But you shouldn’t have to apologize, 

you shouldn’t have to feel guilty for being the person that God made you to be. 

I think that finding God is a personal thing. 

Some might find God in the church, 

I might find God in the falling leaves of a dogwood tree, 

you might find God in the eyes of someone that you love. 

In my opinion, 

God means something different to every single person, 

so we can’t all find God in the same way. 

God might not be the creator, 

God might just be a feeling, 

or a force, or an easy explanation. 

You may not even believe in God, 

and that’s respectable, 

because what even is God?

I don’t know if I was trying to impress God, 

or if I was just naïve, 

but I used to hold myself to unrealistically high standards.

I had to have an immaculate conscience, 

a squeaky clean search history. 

As a Christian, 

a chronic empath,

and the oldest of three girls, 

I always had to be selfless, 

caring, 

a good role model and a good person. 

I had to be holistically holy. 

Perfection started to seem unattainable, 

so I backslid into a sin pit.

I slipped and fell into a puddle of imperfection, 

and I became aware of the fact that I am unbearably and indefinitely human. 

Being made in God’s image wasn’t enough,

I longed for his unattainable righteousness. 

But then I started to let go, 

and as a result I apparently signed a lease for a cozy home in hell.

I’m convinced that swearing initiated my regression. 

It sounds silly, 

but I felt an instant release of pressure after dropping the f-bomb for the first time. 

After years of staying silent, 

I was sick of people censoring themselves around me. 

People respected me less because I limited my vocabulary to clean words. 

I was “innocent” in the eyes of my peers. 

They talked to me like a child.

It made me angry, so I started swearing out of spite. 

And after that, 

I simply stopped giving a fuck. 

The summer after senior year I finally stopped clenching my teeth and digging my fingernails into my palms every time I was presented with the unknown.

I also stopped going to church regularly.

My relationship with Catholicism wasn’t a healthy one as I neared the end of my high school career. 

It was demanding and strained, 

and going to church had begun to feel like a chore. 

Who was I doing it for? 

My parents didn’t want to go, 

and why would my squirming younger sisters want to sit still for so long?

I was tired of the monotony of a cold pew on a Sunday morning, 

sick of clamping my mouth shut to hide yawns during homilies that dragged on and on, 

my ears ached from listening to pitchy pre-pubescent choir kids trying to follow the melody of an untuned piano, 

and I had begun to realize that my questions were not being answered. 

I love God, 

I really do, 

but going to church was starting to feel like being trapped in a stale marriage, 

treading lightly and waiting for someone to bring up divorce at the dinner table.

I don’t know exactly what God means to me, 

or how we fit together at this moment and in this world. 

I’m only nineteen,

I have so much more to learn, 

so much to experience. 

I want to find God, 

I want to understand God. 

Maybe I’m just a scientist looking for answers. 

Maybe I’m a curious kid. 

Maybe I don’t understand myself, 

and I think God might. 

Maybe the monotony of adult life has started to hit me early, 

and I need a new adventure to keep me occupied and entertained. 

Maybe I’m just a stewing pot of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive tendencies that needs someone or something bigger than myself to rely on when I start to boil over. 

Maybe I’m looking for someone to blame when I feel like I’m spiraling. 

Maybe I just like talking in circles. 

I don’t know.