I was raised a Catholic, pretty much like every other Italian in America, but never had a chance to become “devout”. At the ripe age of seven, I remember walking into St. Ignatius Loyola church, stopping to gaze up at the depictions adorning the arched columns, the murals adorning the walls and stained glass, silent and beautiful, and the only word I kept hearing in my head was “lies, lies, lies”. I didn’t understand what that meant in terms of the structure I had entered nor what it meant to me personally, until much, much later, but I remember every detail of that experience and knew, innately, to remain vigil.
My mother pushed the church agenda on all of her kids, although she rarely attended Sunday mass herself, and as many times as I would express my desire not to go, her same response to me was, “You’re going. When you’re eighteen, you can do whatever you want but until then, you’re going to church”. Well alrighty then, looking forward to eighteen.
I do not remember my communion at all but I know I made it because I have seen pictures. My confirmation, however, is indelibly etched in my brain; I was terrified. Before you made your confirmation, you had to go to your first confession, a very big deal, and relay to the priest your sins so that he could absolve you in order for you to be confirmed. Well what sins had I committed as a young subservient and very responsible child who always did what she was told, did what was expected and pretty much remained as invisible as possible. So here I am trying to figure out what I was going to say, because as the priest made sure to tell all of us wide eyed children standing before him, we all had sinned and we’d better confess. So on what was to be a monumental day on my path forward under the Catholic dome, I made a few things up, knowing all along that I was actually sinning to gain access to this ceremonial milestone. Uh oh.
If I was quicker in thinking out the strategy, I would have told him the made up sins and then told him I lied which was the real sin, which should have earned me points, but alas, the moment had passed. I was now a sinner. Sigh.
The day I turned eighteen, I made the conscious decision to refrain from the house of the lord.
My mother, until the day she died, would always make disapproving comments to me regarding my absence from service. As far as I was concerned, and I would tell her, “I do not need to be sitting in a church, reciting the same words over and over, (I knew them in my head, reciting like a parrot, in both Latin and English, but they weren’t in my heart), and listening to a priest telling me I couldn’t talk to God. I can talk to God whenever I want and wherever I am”. Now to be fair, when my mother retired, my parents attended church every week and holidays. However, the walk and talk of my mother did not line up to the tenet of the holy one so I felt no guilt in pretty much discounting anything that she had to say about God or anything else.
As I got older and with no holy house of my own, I would accept any and all invitations from the universe as well as my diverse and unique friends to accompany them to their houses of worship. And so it was to be that I studied Judaism, to convert as a result of getting engaged to my Jewish fiance. (No, we didn’t make it down the aisle but religion was not a factor.) I studied Eastern philosophies and ideologies such as Buddhism and Hinduism. I attended Baptist and Protestant services and had friends who were Jehovah’s witnesses and came to understand their beliefs and way of living that life. I learned and sang Mantras. I attended the new-age Christian churches with live bands, stadium seats, and video sermons and participated in my girlfriend’s women's group ministry. And not to snub any form of divine practice, I revisited Catholicism, purchased a Bible, and tried to read it three times but could not get past the first two or three pages. It seems that when they were mentioning all of the men, the fathers and they begot all of these children, not once did they “begot” the mother. And of course, my reaction to that was if all of these women were having all of these children and you can mention the father’s name and the child's name, why couldn’t you mention there was a female involved, let alone their names; If you couldn’t even tell that basic truth right out of the starting gate, my logical brain told me, there was really no need to go any further.
I learned about different religions because I had a very personal relationship with God and was curious to see what these various religions were saying and if they all shared the same beliefs. I wanted to know why religions spoke ill of one another and also believed they were the sole heir to the kingdom of Heaven or hereafter. Wasn’t religion supposed to be about loving each other, forgiveness, compassion, and inclusion? Are we not all sisters and brothers? Well, you could imagine my reaction when sitting with my friends down in Florida at a Born Again Christian church where the Minister was telling his flock that they should restrict their relationships to fellow members of their particular faith because all others were evil. What?
This man just called me evil……..
Well, I was on the edge of my seat listening to this man of God describe me and how I am unholy to the point of being evil, different because I don’t attend their church, and therefore needed to be shunned. Apparently, I was going to hell and I respectively waited until after the service when we were in the car to ask my dear friends if they thought I was evil. Trust me, we had a very long discussion in which I expressed how dangerous and irresponsible it was for a leader, especially a voice of the divine, leading a flock of the faithful, to label people as evil and differentiate them as bad because they were not one of them and then tell them not to socialize with them or only do so if absolutely necessary. I then asked, “Is that Christian?”
I do not want to give anyone the impression that in my quest to answer my own questions and feed my curiosity, I only found questionable experiences. Quite the opposite. I listened to sermons that spoke to and inspired me and everyone else, services that brought out joy and celebration in wonderful songs, fellowships that touched my heart and made me cry, stories of simply being that connected me to a higher dimension. The one thing that I did find to be pretty universal among all religions is that there is an afterlife, a divine Kingdom, however, I found it quite amusing that it starts to break out the “uni” from the “versal” when you start getting into who gets to go to Heaven and what, if any, is the alternative.
I respect a person’s beliefs as their own personal choice and do not pass any judgment or opinion to challenge them; My mantra, “Accept and Allow”. Except, of course, in cases of heinous acts where I am a witness or when I am personally being attacked. However there is one debate that I will have, with anyone, until the “cows come home”, and that is, I do not believe there is any Hell or other unholy dimension in where you would be assigned when not subscribing to the rules of the other flocks. We are all here together and we all go “on” together.
My dear friend Jim, who is more Italian than me and more Catholic as well, called me the other day and among the things we discussed was my last blog, the Rainbow Connection. He had a question and asked me if everyone crossed over on the Rainbow Bridge? Which, after some clarification, he wanted to know if that was only for some people and whatever criteria they completed to earn this beautiful passage. I had to apologize to him because I just started laughing. And, as I quickly explained, I wasn’t laughing at him at all, but at this notion that I have been witnessing through my Religion 101 course, but, great question.
And so, before I handed over the simple yes and no answer, I shared this with him.
I have been praying to God to be at the Service Desk when everyone crosses over into Heaven, the afterlife, or whatever you are claiming dibs on. I want to be that person or angelic being sitting behind that desk when everyone from the various religious groups arrives in that lobby. I want to be there to witness the expression on each and every one of their faces when they realize that they are not the only ones that are being received there; that everyone that they believed was being passed on to hell or worse, is standing right there beside them and it is not a mistake; that Heaven is not any one’s monopoly.
That moment of realization; Priceless.
So yes Jim, everyone crosses over on the Rainbow Bridge.
Point of Interest: I wrote this blog on Saturday evening and was still editing it, knowing full well I didn’t have you on faith alone, when, on Monday morning, I happened upon the following gem posted on the internet. I love Science and Synchronicity! However, this gives no one permission to act like it doesn’t matter - it still matters. There is an accounting process people!
“What’s Going on in Hell? An old Chemistry Problem Revisited.
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet… :
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over! The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is, therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'”
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+
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