religion is complicated
my father hasn't been Catholic since the early 1980s. he was raised Catholic, in a family that had been Catholic for centuries; in fact, he almost became a priest. and even after leaving that path, he didn't leave the Catholic church for a few more years. he left for many very valid social and theological reasons. he raised my sister and I in our mother's denomination, Presbyterianism (PCUSA), taught Sunday school, served multiple stints in church leadership, and was and remains generally very active in the church
a few years ago, he went back to mass for the first time in decades. he missed it, he said. he missed the familiar routines and rituals of his childhood and early adulthood
he went a few times, then stopped again, and hasn't tried since
I haven't been Christian since 2010 or thereabouts. I was raised going to church every Sunday, and to Sunday school, and praying at meals and bedtime. I did confirmation when I was 13. I didn't have any major quarrel with the theology or practices of the very progressive church in which I was raised; I still consider the example of Christ, if followed accurately, a good template for how to live and how to treat others. I just...didn't believe everything Christianity said. the way it had been used against people like me, as a woman and a gay person, made it hard for me to feel like I belonged
and. I miss it, sometimes. I miss the rituals. I miss the hymns (I LOVE hymns- all four verses and all the "thees" and "thous," please!). I miss most of all the feeling of tradition- not in the sense that conservatives say it today, to bludgeon people into an image of the past that harmed many and never really existed exactly as they claim, but just. the weight, comforting as a heavy blanket, of all the hands that had brushed the pews, all the lips that had said the words, all the eyes giving meaning to symbols or voices raised in the same ancient songs. history and the past are not just my career, but also huge parts of my spirituality
honestly, sometimes being in a religion that doesn't have that makes me feel adrift. there is no European pagan religion with an unbroken chain of practice, and I feel that acutely
but just like my father, I can't go back. I could, physically; Boston is the home of the Beautiful Old Church With Progress Pride And Black Lives Matter Flags paradigm, and I'm sure I'd be welcomed. but I would always feel, like I did in my teen years, that on some level I was lying when I repeated promises to submit myself to the will of a male deity alone. I would never be comfortable. and I can't deny either the fulfilling elements I HAVE found in revivalist paganism, which are many!
so I guess I'll just keep watching the Christmas Eve service on livestream with my family every year, feeling guilty for enjoying it because it makes me a Bad Pagan and guilty for repeating the prayers aloud with my family because it makes me a liar
