One of my favorite verses and prophets:

Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. –Jeremiah 31:33, The New Jerusalem Bible 

On this Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, I would like to talk about my choices. I have not gone back yet to the parish I left a year ago, but I have now went a few times to the parish I left 23 years ago. The latter actually closer to my home. I have returned there before in recent years – not a lot. My mother-in-law’s funeral was there. So, since around 2007 I returned there once or twice a year. A couple of times the offending priest was there filling in. I did not know it before going. He recognized me the first time but not the second. We all get older.

The thought in the attached picture expresses as best I can how service yesterday (Good Friday) felt for me. I went with my husband. I did not sing and say any prayers or responses out loud. Yet that restraint does not diminish what I feel inside. I cannot just let go of something I loved and trusted from a child even-though trust is gone. I must be sure. My husband thinks I will come around, but I do not. I will be able to go to Mass but never again participate fully.

My faith in God has always been in me. Parishes, prayers, priests, and nuns never effected my belief. From a young child I saw God the Father differently than others. I never saw a the figure of a person – yet, I rarely told anyone. I would listen to their ideas and silently disagree (even with Gramma). Gramma saw him as an old man with a white bread on a thrown. I remember about 10 years old hearing her tell someone that. I thought, “No. That’s not God, God is warm white light.” The picture in my mind was that warm white light all around me, and I was safe. I cannot know how God represents himself to everyone so they understand. That beginning core of my faith has never been shattered by anything. It is always where I turn. While it is more like a memory somehow, my heart holds on in that place of understanding. My dreams and poetry are only expressions. I could lose them and still believe. I can lose my church and still believe.

I have decide to tell you an experience of mine that will hint at the reason for my stand with the Catholic Church. My issue is not with the people of the parishes I have been in. My first year teaching when 26 years old I taught morning kindergarten and an hour of 6th grade religion after it. Being the kindergarten teacher and young made 6th grade religion almost impossible. Inexperienced me and their tween attitudes made for a horrible experience. One day, I picked up my stack of stuff and slammed it on the table saying, “Damn you.” I did not look at them. I looked down. It was as if I was talking to something else. I walked out and went to Sr. BettyAnn and told her to deal with it. At a Catholic, this did not go over well. I apologized to students and parents. Students took their share of the blame and sincerely apologized to me. It was a couple lesson later when something usual happened. We were having a prayer time in a circle on the floor, and I could feel an energy that seemed to come from me.  A precocious young man, Joey, looked at me and made a fist saying, “Sometimes you have so much power.” I did not know what to say because I was thinking similarly. I made a choice in that surprising moment.  I chose not to let that happen again. They were not feeling God. That kind of influence should not be done. Everyone must find their own way not someone else’s. I call it “undue influence” over a person or group. It feels like hypnosis or a trance like state. It feels good but that does not make it right. So, I began to restrain my faith even more. One should guide not influence in that manner. I did not talk about this with anyone to help me understand. I just seemed to know what I needed to do.  Not everyone in positions of, small or great, power and influence make my decision.

It only happened that once. So – if I have any influence in that way, it goes into my poetry and pictures with thoughts. When you read them, you can make you own decisions on them. Blessed Easter to you.