Waffle House of Faith

Reading back over a previous post and comment I can't help but to laugh. Lets just say I've been down many a path when it comes to this, or to keep with the waffle pun, I've tried lots of different toppings on my waffle, there was the regular waffle with just butter and syrup, the sprinkling of sugar, and then the chocolat. Mmm, okie not sure where I was going with that one, but hey, I'm trying to be creative.

I was brought up in a house where my mother converted to Catholocism in the early 1970s when she married my dad. She had been raised Baptist, but felt that it would be good for the family to be 'one thing'. This is truly ironic, because it didn't turn out that way at all. My dad is a strict Roman Catholic, a pre-Vatican II baby. My early memories of going to church involve us leaving our house on Sunday evenings to atttend the 5:15 mass. For some reason I only remember going when it was cold, winter or fall, I don't know what we did in the summers. But it was cold, and always dark . The church, at the time, didn't have the same bright lights that it now has, there where tall candle like light fixtures that hung from the ceilings and cast shadows on the alter and down the isles, but it was never bright and cheerful. We would always sit in the same place. The church has a cross shape, with the altar at the head and wings of seats along the side. We always sat in front of the St. Joseph statue, the patron saint of families. The church was drafty, its a huge cathedral and actually gorgeous, despite the morbid picture I'm probably painting. I would sit in between my mom and dad and squirm around in the pew. There was singing, but not the clapping, swaying singing in my grandma's church, this singing was sharp and nasal-like, I remember wanting to know the words, but never quite figuring it out.
My mom would want me to sit up straight and listen, but it was hard for me to sit against the hard pews. My dad would tell her to not worry and let me sleep if I wanted to. At communion time, I'd either walk up with one of them, or stay in the pew. Wanting so badly to partake of the bread and wine, but still having no real idea what it was all about.
At home, I'd often pretend to be a priest. I would take my mom's silver plates out of the curio and put toasted bread on them, the host. Then I'd take a wine glass and get grape juice, the blood. I would pray over the bread and juice and then proceed to give myself communion over and over again until it was all gone.
Most Catholic kids take their first communion around 7 or 8. I didn't do mine until I was at least 10 or 11, I'm not sure why. I did it with my cousin, who was about 8 or 9. I don't know why my parents waited. But its funny because a couple of years ago my cousin laughed as she told me she remembered that when we went through the classes, I questioned everything. I don't remember that at all.

In high school I wanted to be different so to make myself seem like the 'minority' in a Catholic School I would just tell everyone I was Baptist. I wnet to church with my grandma and mom on the weekends (note here, my mom stopped going to Catholic church after I was about 8 or 9, though my bro and I were both Baptised there and had our first communions). I also enjoyed Vacation Bible school, there just seemed to be more fun involved and more kids my age at the Baptist Church. Spiritually, I don't think I was really growing, but my social life sure was.

Skip ahead a few more years, and in college I some how became a religous studies major. I took classes on Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and the philosophy of Eastern and Western Philosophy. My mom says thats when the trouble started because I began to question everything. I'd always gone to Catholic Schools and we were taught about other religions, so I wasn't ignorant about them, but I became increasingly more curious about other faiths, much to the dismay of my mother and grandmother. But what always confused me, was the fact that my mom converted to a sect of Christianity because she thought it would be 'easy' for the family, and it didn't really stick, she always felt more at home in her old church. What was so different from my questioning and learning about other faiths?

I don't think my faith has waffled- I have always maintained a belief in God, but the system or systems is what gets me sometimes.

At one point, I totally knew where I was going with this, but after eating 6 slices of Pizza Hut pizza, I'm too far gone.