Day Sixteen: Religion

I love being Catholic.

Religion is always one of those dicey things that seem to either elate people or make them hate you. You know, one of the three things you never talk about at dinner: religion, politics, and money. Or in my house: Politics, money and the Red Socks. For me Religion is something I didn’t just grow up with, I grew up in it.

I have been surrounded by the Catholic Church my whole life. I was baptized Catholic, first communion, reconciliation, confirmation and all that jazz. If everything goes according to plan, I want to be married by a Catholic priest. (It doesn’t have to be in a Catholic church because I want to get married on a beach. I know, cliché enough for you?)

It took me a long time to be proud of my religion. When I was in high school, I had a lot of friends who made fun of organized religion as a whole. They made me believe that by choosing to practice my religion, I was some kind of idiot who clearly had no understanding of the way the world works. I have been called ten kinds of ignorant, fascist, sexist, stupid and just about every other insult under the sun because of my Godly devotion. I know there are some parts of my religion that even I don’t agree with; the way they treat women, the way they treat homosexuality, their hypocrisy and the whole sex-with-little-boys thing are all kind of a shit show. I also very much don’t like our pope. But overall, I believe that the Catholic religion is a warm and welcoming place where I have always felt at home.

I am not one of those nut jobs that give religion a bad name. (I’m looking at you, Fred Guaranteed-Spot-In-Hell Phelps.) I believe that God manifests himself/herself/itself in many ways. Every religion I know of preaches peace, love and harmony, and I believe that all Gods or Goddesses or Shamans or Spirits or Orisha all spread the same message. I think the strife between religions comes from human interpretation, not divine plan.

Last Christmas, CeeLo Green (the giant midget) sang John Lennon’s classic “Imagine” in Times Square. He changed the lyrics from “No religion too” to “All religion’s true.” Twitter blew a gasket because people thought it was super disrespectful or something, that CeeLo was trying to appease people of varying religions, etc, etc, etc. But I think his twist on the lyrics was a positive change. A world without religion makes me kind of sad, because I like my religion; I like what it stands for and I like what it does for my soul. But a world where all religion is true, where everyone understands that people all see things and express things differently is not only a fabulous idea, it’s actually an achievable one. Our world could very easily be a world where all religion is true if we would just stop fighting with each other over translation errors in a ten thousand year old book.

Challenge to my Readers:

Believe in something. Maybe it’s God, or the Great Goddess, maybe it’s mother earth. Maybe you just believe in yourself. Believe in humankind. Believe in the goodness in others. Believe in Santa. Believe in a thing called love. Whatever you do today, take some time to believe.