An Agnostic All the Time

 I don't know when I made the choice to be agnostic.  I've struggled for years, 38 at least, with my faith and the trickle down to my religion.  I've written about the struggle before.  I've written about the comfort and the grief I have found in believing in a god and following a religion.  And now, I write about being comfortable in my agnosticism and knowing that not following or believing has not lessened me as a human.

I was baptized into Catholicism within two weeks of my birth.  My parents raised me solidly in the church.  I attended mass when I was big enough to sort of behave and I attended catholic school first through twelfth grade.  I have very positive memories of my time at Immaculate Conception school.  The school closed at the end of my third year there.  That was a blow.  The school was later sold and torn down.  It was not only a grand school building but also where the Parish bazaars were held and losing that tradition was very difficult.  I associated being catholic with the group of people my parents associated with.  Theirs was a group of families with a lot of kids that all played sports together, were in the same classes, lived on the same streets.  When IC school closed, that changed.  I was angry that I didn't get to be a greyhound, coached by my dad and Mr. Derby.  St. Matthew's, my new school wasn't old, it was different families, the church was not as beautiful as Immaculate Conception.  It was at St. Matthew's that I went through instruction for Confirmation with my classmates, my friends.  At that time, the parish priest at IC decided that parishioners that attended other schools would need to attend RE at IC and received the sacrament a year later.  That was maybe the first time I saw the politics of religion.  I was angry that the parents didn't fight for us to make the sacrament with our friends.  I was angry that we had to repeat instruction, losing our Wednesday nights and sometimes Saturdays.  My attitude did not improve for a great many years.  Anyone that attended high school with me could attest to that.

I returned to church when the parish was assigned a new priest.  I took my boyfriend to mass because he wanted to learn more about the church he had been baptized in but never attended.  We were married with a full mass.  When we move to California, I looked for a church to attend but without my mom reminding me to go to church, I never kept up with the habit.  I watched midnight mass on TV, but that is as close as I came to going to church.  After our daughters were born, we baptized them but when we were away from Cedar Rapids, never stayed consistent with mass.  When we moved to Germany, there was no shortage of catholic churches, big and old and beautiful with the mass spoke in another language.  We visited plenty of churches but again, did not attend mass regularly as the closest English speaking mass was about a half hour away, and on a Sunday morning with three kinder, getting there was more miss than hit.  Obviously, attending mass and building that community was never a true priority for me.

Returning to Cedar Rapids was an easy return to the habit of mass at Immaculate Conception seeing so many of those same families, knowing the pastor as a priest from my grade school days, getting involved, feeling a sense of belonging.  The kinder were enrolled in St. Matthew's.  Sacraments were made.  It all felt familiar and comforting and right.  Then we moved again, and we searched for a new church, again.  And we found a truly wonderful, welcoming place in St. Francis.  We got involved.  More sacraments were made.  The girls and I taught religious education.  I retreated, joined book clubs, made these wonderful friends but still, was not going regularly.  

And then the news was filled with the dark, dirty secrets about the Church's cover up and protection of predator priests.  The movie Spotlight, released in 2015, along with so many other special reports and exposes revealed this dark, disgusting practice of protecting men that preyed upon children, over and over again.  The church paid millions to victims and that money came from the millions of faithful tithers that gave willingly and without question.  Many giving from tight budgets, never expecting that their money was used in such an evil way.  Even though my diocese did not have any evidence of abuse or cover up in my lifetime, I wanted my money back.  I felt betrayed.  And when the church never owned their sins, I felt finished.  There was no place to be within the Church.  I know it was a minority of priests, I know that the majority of clergy took their vows to be part of a community to help and minister.  I know that my parish was not responsible and that the priests that I knew probably felt the same kind of betrayal and disgust.  Regardless, it didn't feel like a place I wanted to be any longer.

Plus, I am pro choice and pro marriage between any two consenting adults,  those two opinions are not very Catholic though I imagine that many Catholics share my opinion about marriage.

So, what did I believe?  Where did I practice?  What box did I check on a survey?  

Oddly, I still get very defensive about Catholicism.  I still take issue with Martin Luther and his desire to ruin perfectly beautiful buildings.  Though I cannot completely disagree with his disgust with many of the practices that were common within the church in the 1500s.  But still.  

What did I believe?  Well, based on the emotions I had after my mom died, I had to believe in heaven because I was so sure that she was there.  So if I believed in heaven, then I had to believe in God.

  Right?  There is a difference in believing in something and having a belief in something.  So, do I think there is a god?  Yeah, I suppose I do.  Do I think he's a gigantic jerk?  Yeah, I do.  Do I believe in Jesus?  I want to, because he seems like the kind of being I want to have faith in?  He has been depicted as kind, without a lot of judgement.  He often had practical solutions to issues that plagued the day (like plagues, oh, wait that's his dad).   But also, what I know about the man was written several years after his death and was written by humans.  I did a google search to see when the gospels were written and there were so many different answers from addresses that ended in blog, org, com and edu.  So many interpretations  and opinions out there and I don't know what is true, and also, I don't know that it matters.  Belief is different than truth.  Isn't it?  The American band The Eagles are a great, iconic American band.  I think we can all agree that that is true but it is my belief that they suck because their videos interfered with me seeing the videos I wanted to see on Night Trax circa 1984.  I rest my case.

If god is love and gave humans the capacity to love but also gave humans the capacity to love members of their own sex, why in the name of god do people say it goes against god to love that way?  I think homosexuality is brought up in the bible because homosexuality was practiced within society in Roman times and the bible writers wanted to separate themselves from the Romans.  I realize there is a lot more to it than that, but my point being, should the old testament be the guiding force one uses to look down upon a nurturing love being two consenting adults?  The old testament suggested killing your baby to show god you loved him was an okay thing to do.  Today, we would realize that that is not an ok thing to do.  But folks are still going to point to the OT to do their intolerant bidding.  We are required to take some of the teachings in context and some are universal and some are a compelling story for the evidence of aliens, and that is a topic for another day.

So, what to I believe?  I don't know.  I know I don't need a book or a building or a body to worship.   I know I don't need to worship.  I know there are some really very beautiful ideas inside the books, not just the ones that Christians read, but probably most other religious books as well.   And I can use those as tools to lead a better life here, not as an end goal to get to heaven.  Besides, I have screwed up enough in life to know that my entrance into heaven is not a given.  So I'd be better to be better for this life I am leading here.  And shouldn't we be kind and good and love not because the bible tells us so but because it is the humane way to be?  Shouldn't our actions be a reflection of who we want to be, not as notches on our get into heaven belt?  Are you good because god wants you to be and if you didn't believe in god, you would be an asshole?  Is that it?    

Your faith is a beautiful thing for you.  I would never want you to lose that, question that or try to show me that I should have faith as well.  I did have faith and got sucker punched in the process.  And I am happy to be on the other side of faith.  I am not nearly as disappointed as I once was, or confused or angry.  I still attend mass on occasion for weddings and will always believe that a Catholic funeral mass is one of the very best send offs there is.  Probably right up there with a Raveragers or Viking funeral.  As I stated earlier, I still get defensive about the catholic faith and think the rest are knock offs.  But the rest didn't cover up the rape of thousands of children so there is that.  

You are still going to find a lot of crosses in my house (a collection that was started when I still believed) and there is even a crucifix and a few rosaries.  I will even say the rosary from time to time because I think Mary is a good ally to have as are many of the saints.  I know they work for God or Jesus and I don't, but I still find that I like to have them in my corner.  St. Francis is going to keep an eye on my pup regardless.  I am still putting up my collection of nativities at Christmas.  I am still celebrating Christmas and Easter because I want to and other than the nativities, all my décor and traditions are pretty pagan anyway.  

But here's the thing, a believer or follower or worshiper or not, I am still going to be kind, be a steward, not covet my neighbor's ass, I am probably not going to kill, I am going to take names in vain, often.  I am still going to be a lot of the things that are associated with following Jesus, I am just not going to follow Jesus.  I don't believe I disagree with any of His ideas, I just think I am going to need a little less talk and a lot more action from him if I am going to go down that road again.  

A Pandemic Introspective

 So, yeah, a year of masks and social distancing and take out and online orders and so many opinions.  And here we are on the sort of other side of it.  Many vaccinated, many not.  Many still following the best advice they were given, many others following the best advice they were given.  Many, too many, still mourning, always mourning those that they lost in this past pandemic year either because of the virus, because of the effects of the isolation, because of the shut downs, because of the other crisis' that happened in these past twelve months.  Many still, caught up in the decisiveness of it all, unable to see the humanity in it all.  

I have come through to this other side tremendously grateful.  Grateful that those I love managed to stay healthy even though they were often in very high risk situations.  Grateful that because of my best job, I was able to not return to the higher risk job.  I had just shifted to working three days a week as the shut downs began.  Not thinking that they would last as long as they did, I went ahead with the plan to work just on Sundays as Monday through Wednesday was spent with a little gal and Thursdays and Fridays were to be spent at the loom to create stock for the spring and summer shows.  Well, those spring shows were cancelled and those summer shows were resting precariously on thin ice.  We weighed the benefits of not returning to retail position with the potential loss in income if shows did not return.  The benefit of not exposing myself to the virus and keeping the little gal safe was all that mattered.  And as it turned out, summer shows did return and people bought rugs, quite a lot of them.  Grateful that as a family, we easily saw that limiting my exposure, especially in the beginning, was the right move.

Then Hayley was directed to work from home so I shifted from having the little gal come to me and I went to her.  It definitely added more to my "work" day and in return, I was able to see more of my daughter in general, we had lunch together three times a week.  I was also able to see more of my daughter being a mama and that was really quite amazing.  Because Hayley's work day was shorter without the commute, she got more time with her baby and how great is that.  I know that so many people didn't get that or the time they got was so stressful because of online learning etc.  that is why I am so grateful that we got what we got when we got it!

I am grateful that my other two children were able to navigate this pandemic year the best they could.  But knowing that they lost out on opportunity that may not come again is frustrating.  Hoping that as the world opens back up, it opens widely for them.  I suspect that they will take full advantage when advantages are safe.  Grateful that we were able to see one, often from the prescribed distance as he navigated through the fun game of is it allergies, is it COVID?  It was never COVID.  Grateful that we were able to see the other just a couple of times as she diligently respected her own city's mandates that were stricter than ours.  It was hard knowing she was just an interstate road trip away and yet, there was no getting there.

I am grateful for the time I was given to dive deep into my own thoughts and realizations.  I was able to make sense of a lot of my emotions and opinions.  I was able to find answers to questions that I had never asked before.  Growing up in a life with four TV channels, with the Five O'Clock news being my one and only source of information, it is easy for me to see why I was completely ignorant of the depth of racism.   I was a self absorbed teen of the 80s, a young mom in the 90s, it wasn't like I was going to go to the library to research a subject that I did not know existed.  So this time free from a lot of obligations gave me the opportunity to educate myself.  I am still very ignorant, but trying, right.  I am not so prone to knee jerk responses.  I am not so prone to keeping social media contacts that aren't good for me in some way.  I am much more aware of the fact that I cannot undo what has been done, that I am responsible for myself and my action and I can be on the best side of history.  And, no, you will probably never see me out there marching for a cause, but there are many, many ways to not remain complicit.  

I know this pandemic year that people parted from me over differing views and that could have happened in any year over any circumstance.  I am not easy!  I learned several years ago, that the parting of ways, though often painful, is okay.  

I regret that I never took advantage of long walks in nature preserves or that I did not devour a stack of books.  I don't regret that most of my binge television was of a light weight subject matter.  I regret that I did not strive to maintain an exercise schedule, am surprised that I only gained 5 pounds.  I did not take up knitting or baking or growing a victory garden.  I did not hoard toilet paper or hand sanitizer.  I did not order food from a local business regularly.  I did decorate my front door.  I did participate in ZOOM calls.  I found my admiration of Dolly Parton to increase and my dissatisfaction with a great number of other public figures to increase as well.  

I have come out on the almost other side of this pandemic with a streamlined Instagram that only follows a few friends, good news sites, dogs and small business owners.  I will gladly go down the internet rabbit hole of heart warming stories, videos and the like.  I have tried to silence my political voice on Facebook.  I have tried to share the good and kind and silly.  I have tried to smile with my eyes whenever I see someone that looks like they are struggling, and some days that feels like everyone.  And though I cannot undo my past, I can and do challenge myself to do better.  I believe, more than ever, that kindness is a real and vital tool in making this other side a worthy place to be. 

These Sneakers are made for Walking

 I've just returned from a 5.42 mile walk around town.  Well, not really around town, around the neighborhood and neighboring neighborhood.  It was a bit brisk at times, but as we like to say this time of year, not bad when you're in the sun.  

It's that time of year when I recommit to walking.  The snow has melted, there is more daylight and it is so good to be outside when spring is starting to push through.  I usually have earphones in, 80s pop playing.  It's fair to say that I am stuck, musically at least, in this era because it's the best.  No debate.  Today, Belinda Carlisle's Mad About You played and that is an immediate return to the summer of 1986 when I walked to Bever Park three or four evenings a week.  Up Grand Avenue, through the park to get in some hills and then back home by way of Blake Boulevard.  There's a fair chance that I had a really cool mixed tape in my Walkman.  Billy Idol certainly was on there as was Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys and OMD.  Walking was the only regular exercise I did.  When I had my long period of grounding, walking was the only activity that I could do other than work.  My dear dad took pity on me and let me have that.  Again, up Grand, through the park, back down Blake.  I never strayed from that route, knowing that if Dad came looking for me and I wasn't there, another few weeks would be tacked on, neither of us wanted that.

When Danny and I moved to Cali, we were a one car couple, Danny driving to work each day and I walked to the Home Depot, the strip mall stores and eventually the Carlsbad mall to get a job!  It amazed me at how unfriendly the area was to walkers.  Many streets did not have sidewalks, intersections were huge and getting across on a light was a challenge.  And air quality, not something I ever thought of in Iowa, was now a concern.  But my need for waking was short lived as Danny deployed and I had the car.  After the babies came, walking was less for exercise and walking became more strolling, looking at bugs, smelling flowers, picking up rocks.  We were primarily in Cedar Rapids then and we were back in walking friendly neighborhoods.

And then we moved to Europe where walking is made easy, is expected and is delightful.  Still not really walking for exercise, but pushing a stroller on cobblestone was exercise.  We lived up town and to get downtown, we walked down the hill.  The kinder were still in the waving phase so we either annoyed or delighted all the folks we passed.  We had ample opportunity for ice creams and gyros.  There were always fountains to stick hands in, dogs to see, rose gardens to wander through.  We were so spoiled that every city was at our feet.  I don't think we even realized the miles we covered on an average excursion, the girls often walking up the hills right along with us, Jacob, was either in me or on Danny's back.  Six weeks before Jacob was born, the girls, Danny and I climbed up the minor mountain at the site of the 1936 winter Olympics, luckily, I had an eager Rottweiler to pull me along.  Living in a world that encourages walking, that lays wide paths, has multiple snack stations, keeps nature clean was such a joy and it was difficult to return to a car dependent city.

Now I walk primarily for exercise and not as a means to go to the store etc.  I periodically will have no drive days and if I want to go out, I walk.  But to walk to the grocery store, I am required to cross several busy streets that have multiple turn lanes and walk lights that are not sufficient to get across.  There is sidewalk on only one side, it is hectic and not at all enjoyable.  Air quality comes to mind .  If I go in the opposite direction, I can walk to a small shopping center that is not on a congested path.  I wear a backpack and am limited to purchasing only what I can carry. I have yet to commit to a rolling pull bag that the shoppers in Germany used so many years ago, but I have considered it.  When we lived in Germany, we would go shopping with the double stroller, never buying more than we could push home!  

Now I walk primarily for clarity of mind.  Even with 80s hits playing in my ears, I can clear my mind.  I can sort through the day's and week's events.  I can clarify my thoughts, mold my opinions and qualify my emotions.  An average 5 mile walk takes me over an hour.  That is an hour that I cannot access social media, cannot scroll through the news, cannot read an email or text message or even answer the phone.  Sadly, I don't always have that kind of will power on my own, but the walk forces it from me.  I may replay conversations in my head, which is not particularly healthy, but I also have the power to literally walk away from that negative moment.  I can turn off my Pandora and repeat my own mantra that matches the steps I take.  I can switch to a jog or even a run to speed up my positivity or to outdistance the negativity.  

Walks are powerful places to escape as I did when I was grounded, to explore as we did in Europe or to bring me figuratively home as they do now.  With Nora, walks again have become less for exercise and more strolling, looking at bugs, smelling flowers, picking up rocks.  We can also add waving at planes, saying hi to the mail carrier, watching the boys play basketball, mooching a tree and pointing out the kitty tracks in the dried cement.  And these type of walks are equally good at providing clarity of mind.  What gets you out?  What clears your mind?  What keeps you moving?  I am grateful that I found one activity that provides all these benefits.  

Kind of Like Writing Revisited

 I have not written in months, almost a year now.  There really hasn't been a reason for the absence, I guess I didn't think I had anything to say.  But, when I look at my husband's face after I have not shut up for twenty straight minutes, I realized that I still have something to say.  I Started this blog so that if dementia ever caught me, there would still be a record for me to revisit, for my kinder or grandkinder to visit, to know me better.  This blog has been a safe place for me to say something.

I am fifty one now and I would like to address the new saying that 50 is the new 30.  It isn't. 50 is 50 and it is what ever it is for you.  It certainly isn't going to be bikini photos on the beach showing off my rock hard abs because I don't have rock hard abs. I have soft, pillow like abs.  All the better for Hattie to snuggle against!  It isn't going to be updating my Linkedin with new career opportunities, well, because I don't have a Linkedin.  It also isn't going to be me going through my closet getting rid of whatever clothes have been deemed too young, too trendy, too whatever, because I am going o wear whatever I want.  I never understood why women felt like they needed to cover up their legs as they got older.  I guess I am not flexible enough to see the spider veins running rampant on the backs of my knees.  I also know that I am not giving a damn.  Who has time or energy to care about the veins on someone's legs.  Or the size of their muffin top or the number of greys on their head?  If all of that comes with being older, I will take it over being dead.  That's not to say I won't try to avoid the muffin top or won't continue to color or style my hair.  It means that I am not interested in the views that someone else may hold that are meant to diminish me in some way.  

Also, I was a pretty frequent participant in the diminish someone else game and I would like to apologize for my petty behavior.  I will tell you that I made fun of, belittled and put down people because I was jealous of them, I had low self esteem and I was an asshole.  Mostly an asshole.  I still have low self esteem but am much less of an asshole so I can honestly say I was mostly as asshole.  There's no going back and fixing all of those hurtful, shitty words and deeds.  I actually spent some serious thought on that yesterday on my first walk of the year!  If I were still a church goer, I could go to confession.   I do miss confession.  Woolworth is long out of business so there's no paying them back for the striped mini skirt I stole.  The guy who lived in the first house on Park, he's long dead, I can't apologize to him for fucking with his decorative fence nearly every day.  These offences (and plenty more) just hang in my soul, using up energy.  How do I purge myself of the shittiness that I was?  

Speaking of shittiness, a few years ago, I had a huge falling out with someone that had always been in my life.  That's a weird thing to have happen.  It sucked at the time and took me a long time to reckon with it.  Ashlyn said to me that there are consequences for my actions.  Consequences aren't always negative. Those consequences included other people leaving my life as well but also me really acknowledging who I was and who I was pretending to be.  I think I am much more me now, and this is obviously where I am supposed to be in my fifty first year so it's all good.  The last thing I said to this person was kind.  For that I am glad.  One less amend I have to make, right!  

There is no reason to keep up a part of your life that is painful or hurtful or does not being you joy or fulfillment or whatever.  You can change your mind, your heart, your address, your career, your last name, your first name, your identity and you don't have to explain it.  Ashlyn reminded me of this as well.  When she said that, it hit me that I expect an explanation when people don't follow through.  And well, that's stupid.  I am not owed nor do I owe an explanation for almost anything.  I think about the times at my job that I was going to become an assistant manager or switch to the pharmacy and then something else happened or didn't happen and I didn't become an assistant manager and I didn't transition to the pharmacy.  And now, I work four hours a week at a place that once was my career.  And it's cool and no one needs to know more than that.  Almost all the decisions I make really don't affect anyone else except my husband and maybe my kinder.  

So, that all felt good.  It felt good to have a place to speak.  It feels good to put these thoughts down, like this blog is my diary.  Doogie Howser did it.  We all tuned in for that.  I don't expect anyone to tune in for this, but thanks if you do.  I know I am not alone in trying to figure out how to be 51, to be kind in an often hostile place, to be better than I was, to be at peace with my choices.  I know I am not alone in feeling like everyone else has it together, and is judging me because I don't.  But also, I know that is not the case.  Most of us are decent, we want people to be successful in life, to find joy, to be happy.  Maybe that is where this blog is headed, to focus on success, joy and happiness.  

Anyway, thanks for reading along, I appreciate you.