Kids used to tell me I was going to hell. I never let it bother me, but they would flat out chant on the playground “Libba’s going to hell, Libba’s going to hell.” I told them I didn’t go to church and I didn’t pray. They said I was a sinner.
My grandfather is an Episcopalian minister. His wife, my grandmother, is an Atheist. My parents don’t believe in organized religion. My older two sisters and I were baptized, but I think my mom just did it to make my grandfather happy. My younger sister was not. I didn’t know much about church, prayer, or even the concept of religion as a young child; it wasn’t until we moved to a small town where all my friends went to church and Sunday school. I remember getting excited to dress up and wear tights on the Sundays after sleepovers when I’d go to church with my friend, Natalie. I went to the Lutheran church with her a few times, sat in the pews and doodled on notepads, while faintly picking up words from the sermon… “holy, father, divine, sacred.” I knew that everyone there believed in the same thing, and that the guy in the front preaching was talking about God the whole time. I thought God was a big silver head that floated above the clouds. He looked down on people and made them want to be better.
I would say I was brought up Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Taoist, Spiritist and any other religion that believes there is something bigger and greater in this world. When I was little I used to ask my dad why we didn’t go to church and pray to Jesus like my friends. He would hold up his hand and say: “if this is how many people there are on the planet,” and then he’d grab one finger and say: “this is how many people pray to Jesus.” I’d grab his other four fingers and ask “and what about these people?”
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Libba, great reflections here. It is interesting to read your response because I grew up practicing three religions all at once...my blog on religion is posted...let me know what you think.
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ReplyDeleteThis is great, especially, "I thought God was a big silver head that floated above the clouds. He looked down on people and made them want to be better."
ReplyDeleteI grew up Mennonite--a fairly personally conservative, but politically liberal denomination. Our school district was not. The youth pastor from a charismatic, conservative church attended school lunches, sat with students, chatted, was really "cool." In retrospect, I can't imagine that this was allowed.
well put, Libba. brings me back to a time...
ReplyDeleteI was raised catholic, but drifted away from formal religion at puberty and never went back.
My son was adopted. I was there for his birth, then the staff let me hold him and feed him in a tiny little room off of the nursery. It had one chair and a sink. On his second day of life, my mother came to visit and when she held him the first time she took him directly to that little sink and baptised him right then and there. "Just in case" she said.