My faith

I tend to ignore my faith a bit in the sense of writing, while acknowledging it instead more so in an observational respect. Therefore, I decided to base this entry on a subject I rarely speak of and to exhume hidden aspects of my life that I keep buried…
The limitedness of my present spiritual situation is quite short-ranging and events in my life have seemed to detach me from the religion I was raised under and the spirituality in which I’ve grown closer to. There are many beliefs I have that I have formed on my own, yet have been influenced by external factors that have led me to these spiritual convictions. These events include serious medical conditions that are both incurable and forever lasting in my life, marital problems between my parents, deaths, alcohol/drug abuse of immediate family members, my own addictions, and the unfairness I have felt at times life has delivered to me. I may have climbed the faith based mountain on a naive and almost superficial level because that’s what my parents told me to do, however, I can’t exactly say it has set the sturdiest foundation for my life as a result. At 22 years old my faith has been transformed by the life experiences I’ve gone through, and with my own open-mindedness to lead the way. This may not sound faith based to some, but my lack of religion seems to be made up by my emphasis on my own personal and unique spirituality that is fitting to me.
Since I was in elementary school, Church and Catechism were part of my Sunday mornings for as long as I can remember. Here I was taught the sacrifice Jesus had made for his followers, the stories surrounding his existence and other religious figures like the Virgin Mary. I learned the importance of religion in my life and the value it could hold for everyone capable of believing in a higher power. Entering High School, I felt close to God, but this feeling had eventually diminished as time passed. My sophomore year in High School I had made my Confirmation, which was done so after dedication to the Church where I attended, community service hours I fulfilled, and a religious weekend retreat to a campsite with other teenagers my age. At this time in my life religion served a significant part and had made me more moral and accepting to others, which is always beneficial in a High School environment. Soon I began to drift away from Catechism and the also began attending Church less frequently. I don’t think I truly realized at the time that my faith was soon to be lost, although, it occurred to me later as I enrolled in college that the events of my childhood largely contributed to this. These events led primarily to the deterioration of my religion.
My memory has always been strong and the first painful memory that played a role in my lack of faith was seeing my mother being abused by my father. The incredible hurtful recollections of my helpless mother getting physically abused will haunt me for the rest of my life. The screams my younger brother and I heard as we hid under our beds will never wane from our memories. As these events continued I began to accept them and moved on from one hardship in my life to the next. When I was eight years old I needed immediate heart surgery to implant an artificial pacemaker after being born with a heart block (congenital heart disease). The four days I stayed in the hospital felt like a lifetime and the scar that the surgery left me with was more of a mark of embarrassment than a sign of courage at this age. I hid the scar from people, always scared to take my shirt off and show any signs of being different from the rest of my friends. I look back on this and feel ridiculous that I could behave like this.
The next event occurred when I was 13 years old, just starting off as a teenager. After losing weight, experiencing fatigue, insatiable thirst, constant urination, and bizarre dreams, the doctors diagnosed me with Type One Juvenile Diabetes. They told me I would be living off needles for the rest of my life. Delivering this news to a thirteen year old boy was heart-wrenching, especially after already having a severe heart condition. Three years later I received my second heart surgery for a new pacemaker, which eliminated my varsity cross country career I had tirelessly trained for all that summer.
These personal events in my life had only been destructive to my individual self at this time and I don’t believe it had yet discredited any religious value I had learned from Church or Catechism thus far in my life, nonetheless, it wasn’t until I was much older that it had affected me in this way.
The biggest blow to my faith had been my first week in college when I had lost a close friend to a tragic accidental death. It literally shattered every part of my life and nothing anyone could say or do helped me to move on. It was mostly me that supported the sorrow and pain that filled my heart for the time following her death. When I read a eulogy at her memorial I felt closer to Rachel than I ever had, and this was the closest I had felt spiritually to anything or anyone in my life. From then on, I had associated death and more specifically Rachel’s death to my own spirituality. My entire sophomore year in college I had attended Church and prayed to Rachel. Church became an avenue for me to let out my emotions and share them with God and Rachel. Rachel had also influenced me to start writing, which I have done so constantly since her death. Many say when somebody close to them dies they blame God and/or move further away from religion, unlike me who moved closer. Perhaps this was because my religious faith wasn’t strong to begin with, but I rather become more involved with the Church and my own religion as a result of someone I love, rather than a higher power I’ve never met.
At the age of 22 I’d say I’m semi-religious and more spiritually inclined than anything. Part of me is a realist that believes in a more scientific and hard-based evidential form of thinking when relating experiences in life to connections with God. The other part connects people, places, and events with past loved ones, lost friends like Rachel, and painful experiences I’ve undergone. One of the most important people in my life is my 12 year old sister Hayley. She and I are more alike than we’d like to admit and she has always looked up to me. One day my mother had told me the most amazing thing and it really made me wonder. She said, "Chris, I never would of had Hayley had you been diagnosed with Diabetes before she was born." My mother believed the risks of another child getting Diabetes was too high and she didn’t want to risk it. My response was, "Mom, I much rather of had a sister than to not have my Diabetes." Perhaps there is a higher power at work with my sister and me considering we were both born at 6:20am on a Saturday.
Most of the decency of what I have learned in life and propriety that I display has come from my parents. Despite the pain my father caused me as a young boy and even more recently as a young adult, my mother and he have always taught my siblings to be respectful, responsible, mature, conscientious of others, thoughtful, caring, loving, and nurturing. I say with confidence that I do demonstrate these traits on a regular basis and I say with even more confidence that I have a good heart with ever better intentions. With this being said, there are other aspects of me that are completely contrary to these values I was brought up with, but I blame these traits more on the hardships I have endured and the consequences of elders in my life that influenced me negatively. Nobody is perfect and therefore my unfavorable personality and behavioral traits are more conditional to all humans, not just myself. My Catholic faith has taught me these values as well.
Factors such as Hollywood demoralizing and disproving the Catholic religion has affected me, the various child molestation charges against priests, the unfair hand that life has sometimes dealt me with, and the strict and rejecting ways the Bible preaches, have all greatly influenced by decision to stray away from the religion I was brought up on. As a result, I have lived life more so by observing spiritual encounters surrounding me and the occasional desperation I seek in praying to God. Praying used to be a daily and healthy relaxing ritual, now it serves more as a last resort. If I don’t exactly believe in a higher power (this is my realist side speaking) then who exactly am I praying to? It could be God sometimes, my friend Rachel other times. I guess this is the mystery behind religion, especially the Catholic religion. We don’t truly have hard evidence to prove the existence of a higher being, but instead scriptures and historical inclinations to base our beliefs off of. At times I have thought about journeying into other religions such as Atheism, although my drive and overall need to discover my religious placement isn’t high enough. Does this make me a bad person? Certainly not, rather it makes me who I am.
I guess when I truly take a deep look at my religion and my spirituality, I side more with the value and frequency of my spirituality rather than my religion. I find my spiritual life both unique and personal because of how I demystify beliefs that some Catholics have that I don’t agree with. Also, God is more of an impersonal force to me on a religious level, but spiritually I find symbols, fate-based coincidences, and events in my life powerful. Too many events occur in my life to be explained by coincidence, but rather by fate. So, I conclude by asking, was it fate that I wrote this the day after I underwent my third heart surgery for a new pacemaker? This was one of the most significant reasons for my lack of dedication to my religion. Yes, I believe it was fate.