Emily

raised catholic

"It honestly felt like my entire body was just filling up with light.”

BEGINNINGS

I come from a military family, and my dad was in the Air Force until I was about I want to say 8 or 9 years old. Which means that for my early childhood we moved from state to state. But Catholicism was always a part of my upbringing.

As a kid a lot of what I associated with it was a routine that I didn’t really like. It was the waking up early and the having to sit for an hour. And likely getting breakfast afterwards. It was also with that the knowledge that my dad and his family, as well as my uncle who’s a priest, took Catholicism very seriously.

I wouldn’t say so much that I was a committed skeptic from the beginning, or that I purposely rebelled against anything I was taught, because I would go to CCD classes, I would attend church with my family without really putting up any sort of fight or outlining a different set of beliefs that I adhered to more. I guess it just never, it was definitely in a separate category than other childhood myths, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, or other things that you’re told from a young age exist that you can’t see. Those I knew in the back of my mind were my parents. But it wasn’t completely distinct from how I felt about what I was told about God.

I can’t say that I ever felt like I fully believed anything or everything that I was taught. But I didn’t disbelieve it. It seemed actually secondary to the ritual of church, and of prayer.

*

I think [I started caring more] around the beginning of high school, when people I knew were choosing different sets of beliefs.

Even during that time, I sort of deferred having to decide whether I thought everything that Catholicism carried was “real” or not. And I think it’s because there was a disconnect for me, between these very human narratives and the accompanying, like, much higher, broader messages that seemed to accompany Mass and prayer.

I think especially in the way like CCD classes were taught, for example. It seemed so beside the point to watch some like dumb religious cartoon. I didn’t feel like I learned anything, it felt like some strange history lesson that wasn’t verified in the same way other history lessons were.

So mostly I would go because I knew it made my dad happy. And it was so little effort on my part that that was why I put the effort in, to like get up in the morning and go.

The first thing I think of is really ornate, symbolic imagery. And a room full of people reciting the same thing. And homilies that were occasionally clearly meant to engage children. And, I think it was mostly the ritual, and the aesthetic. And the recitation, and the always anxiety-inducing part of Mass when we had to shake hands with everybody, and I was so afraid I would be like, seated behind a high school crush.

In fact once I clearly remember pulling my sweatshirt sleeve down over my hand, so I didn’t have to make contact with him. Those were the sorts of things I would think of during church, and actually a lot of it was leading up to the human contact part, because I was so insecure and awkward that I was so afraid of that. Having that forced interaction, having some like awful social ramifications.

Beliefs didn’t factor into what I experienced at church.

*

It’s funny because recently more than ever I’ve thought about the language of Catholicism, and words that I’ve really just recited my whole life.

I don’t know whether I would say I value the Catholic way of being a good person or living a good life necessarily. But that’s only because I don’t feel like I’ve exhausted what that can encompass. And I’m not ready to adopt that as a set of tenets.

But I was actually surprised to see [that] when I’ve encountered emotional obstacles in my life, even within the past year, I actually looked in the Bible to see how really big ideas or really big emotions -- things that are just like universal keywords -- to see how they were described.

Because I felt like I, just as a process of maturing I guess, was maybe learning what those were. I’d never actually turned to the Bible as a resource, ever. And it was a Bible that my dad had given to me for Christmas right before I moved out. Presented to me as this sort of, you know, “look to this for guidance if you ever need it,” probably in this exact sort of scenario. I think that was one of the first times I’ve chosen to let it into my life.

BREAKDOWN

I was never more or less involved with the church, really. I didn’t find peace or strength in going to Mass. Or even in prayer. It could be that nothing in my life was truly difficult, or nothing drove me to seek a source of comfort outside of my own means.

Though there was, I forgot about this, but think about it a lot. I think that this was probably early high school, when I had my first, and really only to date, total existential crisis. It was over the course of a few days. I suddenly broke down, just sobbing in my room at home, and I couldn’t stop, for three days. I couldn’t stop thinking about death being the end of life, about absolute nothingness, and about, I just pictured everyone I cared about – I didn’t picture them dying, but knowing that all the life around me would pass.

It was just this intense, sudden realization and inability to look away, is how I would describe it. And I was just crying, non-stop. And I couldn’t explain to my parents, who were obviously concerned about what was going on with me. All I could say was like, “I’m just really sad.” Like I’m just so sad.

My parents left me alone, or didn’t push to try and help me feel better in any way, which was really good. And I remember that I was sitting on my bedroom floor, and my dad brought in this box of old, I guess Kodak slides? Which were just photographs of his days in the Air Force, and like, my parents’ wedding, and, I mean it was just this entire box with tons and tons and tons of old, old photographs essentially, but like in slide form. And I remember he just put that down, and walked out. And I was still just sobbing uncontrollably, that made me cry more.

I don’t remember what made it stop. I mean nothing made it stop, it just stopped, and I don’t really remember it stopping. Or starting, for that matter. I just remember that it happened. But I think my dad knew what was going on with me. I think my parents realized I had to just, you know, cry it out at the time. They never tried to intervene in any way.

And I think that if I’d had faith in something at the time, or had understood what faith was, I would have turned to the church for strength, or for reassurance that nothingness wasn’t something I needed to be sad about. But it just wasn’t a place I went for comfort.

Eventually, maybe on like the fourth day, I was still seeing the same things, and thinking about the same things, but not having the same visceral reaction to them. And I didn’t suddenly believe that there was life after death, and I didn’t suddenly feel okay with life passing, but for some reason it was just like in a different part of my brain, after that.

REVELATION

Were there any other events or experiences that had that level of power? Or impact?

Yeah. Um…much later, though. I mean I guess the closest was really recent, and kind of the complete opposite.

I was having a really hard time. I was really emotionally overwhelmed. And was being shut out by a lot of people in a way that just made me feel powerless. And I wouldn’t say I feel powerful when it comes to interacting with people, but really being unable to speak is like one of the most maddening things I’ve ever experienced.

In the past, a big part of my personality was tending to put my needs aside for other people’s needs if I can. Which sounds like a nice thing, but I’ve always seen it a little bit as self-sacrifice. And as something that’s a little bit painful to me, but that I’ll power through because I care.

But I think I just had this, it’s really the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to having an actual, like, religious experience. Or not religious, but divine, or something.

I suddenly realized that when I’m interacting with people that I truly care about, I wasn’t being selfish, but I was bringing a lot of my needs or my wants to the table. Which is fine. But I was getting really bogged down about people not treating me the way I wanted to be treated. And having put aside my needs before made it extra painful now.

But I just suddenly realized that if I care, if I really, really care, about them, why would I ever want to really…why would I want to mess up anything in their lives that’s good.  Honestly.

It seemed like the most obvious revelation, but it was like I, for that moment, stepped back, and saw the entirety of the universe, just all at once.

I was even looking out my window, just kind of standing. And I just felt the most, like the purest joy that I’ve ever felt in my life. In not needing anything from people. And realizing that giving was enough. It honestly felt like my entire body was just filling up with light. And it stayed that way through the next day and into the afternoon.

I had never understood that, and had never really believed it. I had always seen love as some form of self-sacrifice. But it just wasn’t that. I hadn’t felt that bodily of an emotion, ever. I didn’t know that feelings could feel like that.

I kept looking in the mirror because I felt so different. And I was just like, I don’t get this, am I just hungry? I’ve just never felt that before. But I also have never felt…stronger, I guess?

I was like, oh god, I sound like a fucking plaque. But it was honestly the closest thing to a, I don’t want to say a divine revelation, but the word “divine,” I feel like I understood what it was, then. And it was humbling. And really powerful. And really changed my perspective on all of my relationships.

It was then that I tried to find what the Bible said about love. And just tried to read more about what I was feeling, because it seemed like such a universal human thing that surely this is what people talk about, like, this is it.

I didn’t find anything that really, really helped me understand it. I did find descriptions of it. Ranging from very hippie dippy to very Christian. But it was so powerful. I just hadn’t realized until then how really, really caring about people should just, like, fill you up, and be this source of strength and wellbeing. Instead of this painful emotional battle, and constant feeling of unfulfilled expectations.

And I think that was the most profound shift I’ve experienced, in how I view other people, and how I interact with them.