Week 1
“Write your spiritual autobiography.” The task seems simple enough… until you realize that you have to put your own spirituality into words. My spirituality is really simple to me, but when I’m asked to explain it, the more complex it becomes.
I was baptized in the Catholic Church when I was two years old. My family likes to joke that it had to have burned me because I started crying, but the truth from how I remember it is: it was cold. I was two years old, in a frilly white dress and annoying shoes, being presented to a group of people by another group of people while an old man in fancy robes dumped freezing cold water on my head.
The joke about the holy water burning my skin is made every time something religious is discussed near me. I’m not sure why, it’s not like I have done anything to warrant the joke. Maybe I have without realizing it. I have been called a witch, a devil child (and I hope it’s truly a joke when that one is said because wow), hippie, hippie witch, and tree hugger. The holy water joke is just one of many that have been made about my existence and relation to Christian religion, jokes that only grew when I started at the University of the Incarnate Word.
I’ve never been against organized religion, never once have I made someone else’s life miserable because of my own beliefs, but somehow, it is believed in my home that I am against it all. I think the problem is, I was raised in the Catholic faith too long, maybe even too young. I was growing up being told the world was one way, but seeing it completely different. I was being told that God was one way, but He was also this other way too. He loves unconditionally, but no He doesn’t. With messages like that, of course I ended up finding my own way to look at the world, forgoing all attempts to keep me boxed in the Catholic mindset.
Now, I don’t know what to call myself. I am sure that there is a higher power out there, but I’m not sure it is the version of God I was taught about as a child.