Ordinary time – not so much

July 18, 2010 at 7:36 PM (Uncategorized) (Disability, Personal, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism)

Crossposted @ Street Prophets.

Twenty years ago, I was a reluctant evangelical Baptist, married to a Baptist preacher. (I loved the guy, so I had to be there and actually walk that walk, not fake it, to support his decision and position even though the doctrine made me profoundly uncomfortable…no offense to people who are, I just wasn’t.)

When he passed in ’93, I ditched religion. For a good long while…

I converted to Roman Catholicism in 2009.
I didn’t intend to…it began as a very practical journey…
I’ve lived in the Mountain West for many years, and made very few social connections…I realized I would need some sort of “support system” to stay afloat, so to speak….I wanted an accessible building, didn’t want to necessarily ‘member up’ because at that time I was unsure about God and myself…Were we talking?  Did I have any connection?  I doubted it, and didn’t even really want to pursue it.

But I had real trouble finding an accessible church building with doctrine that I agreed with. So I shrugged and figured accessibility had to trump doctrine in my life now.

I first went to an accessible Charismatic megachurch.
…and was told that obviously my renewed faith couldn’t be as strong as it needed to be or I’d have been healed by now. Needless to say, I fled. Looking back I feel it may have even been rather Dominonist, so, I was pleased to be gone.

There are lovely, lovely downtown churches with good social justice leanings…but no parking…and the ramps are sometimes not enough…or slightly misaligned (one pulled a wheel off my chair….)  Small churches that are actually too minimalist in doctrine for me personally…

In the south suburbs I found a beautiful and wholly accessible Catholic Church sanctuary. (I’m learning about self denial because I sing well, and the choir loft is completely inaccessible).  The sanctuary made me get quiet when I got in…I suffer with anxiety, and it just…began to calm down when I sat in that sanctuary.  I investigated, worked the nine months of learning the Catholic theology…because I like learning, and found three pieces of doctrine that still make me nuts.  But the rest…I began to have a spiritual journey almost in spite of myself. “You’re here to meet and commune with God,” I said to myself, “…not to condemn  the humans in the pews or to blindly commend the priesthood.” And so, I met with God, and mystery…and rediscovered faith…and decided to convert.

In my opinion, I’ve lost nothing of the profound commitment I have to activism, nothing of my left-of-McCain political stance.

What really makes me angry is many friends and family conservatives and liberals alike (!) in my former mainline Protestant traditions…who were appalled at my conversion, (I sincerely did not expect their reaction) began to lecture me on the Church’s many flaws,  as if I was stupid, and not someone with a Master’s degree, holding me personally accountable for every word from the Vatican, every deplorable action ever committed by a priest, and the doctrines that I groove on, as well as the ones that make me nuts.

There’s even been discussion of me  “living a lie.”

I’ve had it. Just had it.  Apparently reconnecting with one’s higher power is now a sin.

Don’t misunderstand.  I completely get opposing viewpoints and people’s reasons for leaving.  I just don’t get why people get all up in my case about my staying.  It makes it difficult, and right now…I’ve got all the difficult I can manage.