My Religious Background

Today was another day where I sat down to write my blog and thought "this will be really boring if I just talk about my day". I don't slosh through my days in a shell of monotony and tedium, but if I talked about work stuff, it would bore you, the reader. This has been especially true in May Session because things do focus around end-of-the-year events like orientations/open houses, final competitions, and of course the graduation family of events.

Now that I think about it, I could see the monotony as a reason why I wasn't blogging for long stretches of time. I feel like it was a mix between not wanting "here are my classes, here are my personal endeavors done" monotony but also "it's been so long since I last blogged, insert info dump that's broad and doesn't have random fun happenings" monotony. So, to break that monotony, I'm not going to focus on what I did as an RC today.

TC

One of today's holidays is Pentecost and as a Catholic, it was what I celebrated. Outside of mentioning going to church, I don't think I talk about religion that much here. I'm pretty sure that I haven't mentioned it so far in my daily blogging endeavor. Two reasons come to mind as to why that is. One is that I don't want my blog to become this platform for someone to constantly rant on a soapbox about religion or politics because the Internet seems to be an ideal platform for things that aren't mature discourse on those subjects. The other reason is that I believe that religion should be a personal journey, which again isn't prone to long monologues on the Internet. (I'm cool with the '-logues' part, but it's the 'mono-' that seems less than ideal.)

I mentioned this in the previous paragraph, but I identify as Catholic and I was raised Catholic in northern Minnesota, which is typically seen as a place for Catholics and Lutherans. In fact, my family is made up of one side being Catholic and one side being Lutheran. Growing up, I've been to many Lutheran services and when I visit my grandparents on my mom's side, the Lutheran church is the only church that I feel any connection to in that town. I've went to a public school all my life, but based on where my parents lived, my elementary school was kitty corner to my church. (Random story - the 4th and 5th grade choirs would go over to the church to perform in front of the Catholic school students there and that's the first memory one of my good hometown friends has of me.)

I was in the Religious Education courses and I was a server at the 7:30am mass for many years, but I do feel like things changed for me in high school. I was part of the Life Teen program and our program was going out and doing stuff. There were food drives and outings to a ranch out of town. We had Super Bowl parties and more importantly, we went to retreats and conferences.

From all that I can remember, my parents were never adamant about outwardly showcasing their religious beliefs. Yes, we all went to church religiously (heh) and would stay after Mass to have coffee and donuts with other families, but they never waved a Bible in someone's face or started a conversation with "well, this is what God wants me to do". It's not like the subject was off-limits, but my moral compass was formed more by the principles of hard work and acceptance.

So, when I went to retreats and conferences in high school, I was taken aback by seeing so many people who were wearing their religion on their sleeve for everyone to see. It was encouraging to see not only adults talk about Scripture passages, but also my peers. The biggest conference I went to by far was the Stuebenville North conference, which was the Midwest "affiliate" (for lack of better words) of a bunch of conferences across the country that all originated at Stuebenville University in Ohio. The main events were in full gymnasiums and the contemporary songs got everyone on their feet jumping, dancing, and praising God. It was quite awe-inspiring. Once again, there were great moments in the small group discussions and the quieter times. After attending the conference, I volunteered to be a student leader for the following summer. The conference itself is just a 2-3 day weekend, but the student leaders come in for an extra 3-4 days and it included some wonderful moments, like the daily prayers, but also going out and cleaning a homeless shelter or a random scavenger hunt. I kept in touch with a handful of the 25-or-so other student leaders for years, although things have slipped since after college (similar to other hometown and college friends).

In college, I was involved in the Newman Center choir and did a couple of the in-house retreats, but my time was much more focused in my building, either with my peer social circle, or my residents as a CA. At the Academy, I've continued to go to church religiously (heh again), either at the Newman Center or the church in town and while I've done some activities with the Newman Center (like volunteering at Worlds of Fun during the Halloween season one year), I consider myself more of a bit part, rather than a main or supporting character. In my defense, I'm at a disadvantage with the Newman Center because a lot of their activities and trips are on the evenings and weekends, and more likely than not, I'm working.

Since high school, I've also internalized my religion and took time to sort some things out. My roommate and I went to the Campus Crusade for a little bit freshman year, but after a few meetings, something felt off. Nowadays, I feel like I've created the beliefs that I hold dear, and some of them do conflict with the Catholic church. The biggest example is in regards to marriage equality. To avoid getting political and rant-y, I'll just state the facts: I believe that any two consenting able-minded people should be able to share in a lifelong union with the benefits and responsibilities therein, and the Catholic church wants to reserve this union to be solely between a man and a woman. Now, a core belief between my stance is equality and acceptance for all, but I know that how I apply those principles has a different outcome than the Church's.

I also strive to keep equality and acceptance as forefront principles in my daily life. Yes, I do have "Catholic friends" that I would go to church with, but every other group was always a mixture of religious views - Christian, Agnostic, Buddhist, Muslim, or simply put "not caring". I set out to see people as people rather than make judgments by what/who/when/where/if they practiced a religion. My best friend for the past 6-8 years is agnostic and there are few things that I value above our friendship. The fun times (like playing through various LEGO video games) and the difficult times (like figuring out where to go past college or if a girl liked one of us) brought us together as friends and it didn't matter that he and I had different opinions on church, because he was there for me when I needed a friend and hopefully he could say the same about me.

So, even with my incompatibilities, I do still call myself Catholic, even if other people label me as a "bad Catholic". It's more important that I do what I feel is right with God rather than what I do to please others, in that respect. I do hope that wherever I end up after the Academy, I can find a religious community that accepts me and pushes me to extend beyond myself. At the same time, I want to have a community that doesn't focus on church and just exists as friends. What can I say, variety is the spice of life and I can choose to avoid a bland soup.

TC

I wasn't expecting my story to be that long, but hey, at least it's not boring work stuff for another day in a row. :-P This does seem like a good time to wrap. Tomorrow will feel like my last full day off before June 2nd, so I will definitely make sure it feels off-y. Not off, but off-like. *Pause* You know what I mean.

 Take care and DFTBA!