QUESTION for my readers!

I have TWO questions for you today, dear readers!!

1. I am impressed every day when I log in to my blog and find out that I am being read on a daily basis by people around the world! According to my nifty "stats", I have readers on every continent and in dozens of countries including...

Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Germany, Algeria, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Canada, South America, Kenya, Liberia, and Iceland...to name a few!

Holy smokes!!

So Reader, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind commenting in response to this post to tell me where you're reading from and how you found out about the journey I'm on? :-)


2. My second question is, are any of you readers out there, international or otherwise, interested in being a part of my religious journey? I am in the midst of Catholicism, but I am still set to explore: Judaism, Scientology, Mormonism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Unitarianism. If you have any insight you would like to share about your own religion, I would be thrilled to hear from you!

...And THANKS for being my loyal readers and boosting my ego regularly!!

Remembering my Grandmother

Its hard to imagine a world without my Grandmama in it.
She became Grandmama not only to me, and my cousins, but to anyone who entered her home, welcoming all with open arms and a cup of re-warmed coffee.

She remembered birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries with cards and notes typed on her typewriter, and when she became too tired to type with arthritis disfiguring her hands, she chose cards with a message that she would have typed, and sent those instead with a carefully penned signature “Love, Grandmama and Granddaddy”

She was one of the wealthiest people I have ever known, if you count wealth by the amount of love in her life. Somehow, she kept track of every child, husband or wife, grandchild and their spouses, and great-grandchildren – her clan growing from 4 to… how many now? I don’t even know! My thirteen cousins and I grew up in an environment I knew as “normal” although as I have grown older and seen how other families function, I know now that it wasn’t normal to have 30-some people in a tiny house, having the time of their lives every Christmas and Thanksgiving. That wasn’t “normal” but it was heaven.

My grandmother taught us lessons growing up – not so much in a verbal way, but by her example. She taught us about waste – keeping things that we might need someday in the future: from junk mail, to loose screws, to film negatives, to letters. She taught us to never underestimate the amount of non-perishable food items and plastic ware one might need at any given time. I recall one Christmas, my cousins and I were peering in one of her closets and discovered dozens of rolls of tin foil and plastic wrap stashed in the top. When we laughingly confronted Grandmama about that, she said “It was on sale. You don’t know when you might need it!”
I was talking to Ericka Travis, who couldn’t be here today, and we were talking about memories of my grandmother. Ericka was her great-niece and they had a strong bond that didn’t fade no matter how many miles and oceans separated them. Ericka said “One thing I remember best about your grandmother is that she never rushed. She taught me a lot about the value of time, and the value of taking your time. She was never in a hurry – she always savored life.” And that is true. She savored every bite of every 2 hour meal. If you went to her house and any time of day in the past decade, you would probably have found her sitting at the kitchen table, sorting through mail and finishing whatever meal had come previous to that time.

My Grandmama and Grandaddy’s house was a place that everyone wanted to come. As kids, we took turns staying with them, and we would sit at the dining table, eating flower cookies and playing memory with her. She was good at memory. I think she let us win a few times though, because otherwise we wouldn’t have wanted to keep playing!

My Grandmama taught me some very important lessons about family, love and commitment.

One lesson she taught me through her example was of how to accept love. There are many people who show others how to love, but accepting love is something that can be even more challenging. My Grandmama gracefully accepted the love my Granddaddy poured on her every day for 69 years. She smiled her half smile, and lovingly scolded him when he was too flirtacious, and patted his hand, loving him back with every ounce of her being for the love he gave her. When she smiled about some little thing they did together during their marriage, I saw her grow thirty years younger and I knew in our hearts we never grow old.

My Grandmama taught me how to love, and that happily ever after happens one day at a time. She loved selflessly and plodded on through hard times and good ones, loving him (and us) every day with her whole heart.
A few weeks before she passed, I was at her house before Christmas. It was one of the few times I was ever at her house in my life without having Grandaddy nearby as well. I sat in his chair after dinner, and talked to her about love. I asked her the secret to marriage of 69 years, and how to make love last, and I asked her if they two were still in love. Something happens as you get older, and fairy tales seem further from the truth, and true love that lasts seems to be a mystery that is impossible to unlock under layers of cynicism and life experience. I said “Grandmama, what is the secret? Are you still in love, or is it just easier to be together than not? How do you do it all these years?”

She took her time, looked at me with bright eyes, smiled her half smile and said “Well, yes, Joni. We’re still in love. Every night before we go to bed, we kiss each other good night. That has happened almost every night for 70 years. Marriage is hard, you’re right. But it lasts through patience and fortitude. That’s how you make love last: patience and fortitude.”

I thought about that a lot in the weeks after, and especially when she passed. Fortitude was a word I had always associated with strength, but I wasn’t sure I had ever looked up the definition. When I looked up the definition, it could have had my grandmother’s picture printed next to it:
The American Heritage Dictionary describes fortitude as “the strength of mind that allows one to endure pain or adversity with courage.” For all my Grandmama’s life, she greeted every challenge that came her way with strength of mind. She didn’t complain and dwell on things that happened to her that were difficult or hard to bear with fear, she didn’t crumble in defeat or self-pity. She just squared her shoulders and taught us all that strong things come in small packages. Even in the end, she was not afraid or full of sadness, she just walked forward resolutely to her next phase.

My Grandmama never boarded a plane in her 88 years of life. She never felt a reason to fly, and she said that if God meant her to fly around the sky, he could have given her wings. Since he didn’t, she was perfectly fine on the ground. On January 20th, 2011, God finally gave her soul wings to fly up to be with him. I hope she had a good first flight. I’m sure she knows, but I want to say it anyway, if she’s listening:

Grandmama, we love you. We miss you, and you taught us so much in life. We are all better people because of you. And I am going to try to live my life with fortitude.

The Catholic View of Death

My Grandmama passed away on Thursday evening, January 20, 2011 at 6pm. She was a staunchly religious person with a strong faith and a lifelong commitment to the Baptist church. In our Baptists belief system, my Grandmama is now with Jesus in heaven, reunited with all of the believing souls that went before her, including my other Grandfather, her parents, her infant son, Stephen, who passed away before any of us knew him, and all those friends and relatives who already passed, believing, to the other side.

My Grandmother lived a righteous life, and prayed to God regularly. She was not frequently verbal about her faith, but her example taught all of us more than her words what she believed. She believed in love and commitment. That is evidenced by her 69 year marriage to my Grandfather. She believed in forgiveness. She believed in the power of prayer and in the power of worship. She believed in God's presence and she had faith that he knew more than we did, and therefore allowed things to happen that we didn't always understand, but that he did. She believed in Amazing Grace. She believed in generosity and giving - evidenced by the little checks she wrote for years to any number of organizations that asked for her support. She always gave. It might be $5, but she sent them money because they needed it and she had it to give. She will be missed greatly.

Her passing made me wonder what the Catholics believe about death. From what I gather, Catholics believe that there are some souls that are pure and sanctified at death - they have asked forvgiveness for all of their sins and have been forgiven at their death. They go to eternity pure, and those souls go straight to heaven to spend eternity with their Maker.
Others have not been forgiven or asked forgiveness for every sin they have committed - they may not have known to ask, they may not have expected to pass away in the moment they did, their death may have taken them by surprise and may not have had the opportunity to ask forgiveness. The majority of people, I believe, fall into this category, and end up in "Purgatory" which is, from what I gather, an "in-between" place, where they can wait until their souls are purified enough to go on to heaven. Hell is reserved for those souls who understood God existed and blasphemed and disrespected him in their lives. They were blatant in their direspect and they are the ones sent to Hell to live an eternity separated from God.

An interesting thing that is similar to Islam, is that Catholics believe that you can pray for the soul of the person in Purgatory or in Heaven. Catholicism gives those of us left on earth something to do when those loved ones depart. You can speed their arrival to heaven by praying that God's grace will forgive their sins, and asking forgiveness for what sins they did not confess. Praying to saints and lighting candles for them assists in this transition from Purgatory to Heaven.

The tradition and ritual in Catholicism is comforting in times like this when you are at a loss of what to do, in letting go of a loved one. I find myself praying more, and speaking to her, and Catholicism encourages this active grief - doing something useful with grief.

As I have, in American tradition, written a rememberance of my Grandmother, the things that stood out to me told me that my Grandmother, catholic or not, is with her Maker now. She was a good woman, who strove her whole life to be close to God and honor Him.

Rest in Peace, Grandmama.

Seeing another perspective

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field – I’ll meet you there."

- Rumi

What if each of us had a challenge, and a journey. What if we found someone in a group that we tend to negatively stereotype, and we took that person out to lunch? And what if we, instead of focussing on what separates us or makes us different, focussed on the other person's humanity? What if we actually got to KNOW someone from the "other side"?

This idea has, of course, been flitting around in my head for years now, a challenge I extended to myself, and one that I acted on publically last year when I started this journey. If you have been following my blog at all, you probably realize by now that the journey is not about the religions I'm examining, but about the people within those religions, and about how they relate to God.

Today, I heard a TED talk on this subject and wanted to share with you guys her challenge:

1. GOAL: Get to know someone from a group that you have previously negatively stereotyped. Ask them to lunch or to coffee.
2. Set some ground rules like: Don’t persuade, defend, or interrupt; be curious; be conversational; be real; and LISTEN.
3. Ask them questions, then hear the answer. She suggested three questions:
• Share some of your life experiences with me.
• What issues deeply concern you?
• What have you always wanted to ask someone from the "other side"?

If you can, check out this short talk where she shares her experience... and I challenge you all to take the other side out to lunch and see their humanity.

Dang, it feels good to be a Catholic! Errr... ok, maybe not?

Addressing the obvious.

A dark shadow has been on the Catholic Church, almost overwhelming it in the past few years. Because of the sex scandals in particular, they have been almost forced into church reform. The outcry of parishoners and victims, in combination with a generation that is more vocal than not about shameful and hidden things, forced The Church's hand in taking a position on reform, on priest abuse, on sexuality, and on the harm the church has done. It isn't, of course, the first time The Church has done more harm than good, but it is the first time in my first hand recollection.

Because of the sex scandal in the Catholic church, organizations like the Church in the 21st Century Center at Boston College have been formed. The Church in the 21st Century Center at Boston College seeks to be a catalyst and resource for the renewal of the Catholic Church in the United States by engaging critical issues facing the Catholic community. Drawing from both the Boston College community and others, its activities currently are focused on four challenges: <b>handing on and sharing the Catholic faith, especially with younger Catholics; fostering relationships built on mutual trust and support among lay men and women, vowed religious, deacons, priests, and bishops; developing an approach to sexuality mindful of human experience and reflective of Catholic tradition; and advancing contemporary reflection on the Catholic intellectual tradition.</b>

The Catholic Church and other churches, because of the example set by the Catholic church, have incorporated abuse prevention training, have educated their leaders and members, and have educated their children on what sexual abuse is; giving them for the first time, permission to speak and a voice to speak up about abuse. The Church is almost singlehandedly responsible for the recognition and programs that are now available to victims of sexual abuse - church and otherwise. They have made "Sexual abuse" a household term. While this isn't necessarily a good thing for the church, it is an excellent thing for those abuse victims. While certainly all sexual abuse victims might not have been abused by the church, the church's recognition of the abuse and thier action to correct it, has validated the abuse, not only for their own victims, but for sexual abuse vicitms from all background.

I wanted to address the issue of priest abuse at the beginning of this project so it would not be the elephant in the room, so to speak, for the duration of this segment of my project, so I would like to point out a few statistics, to put the abuse in perspective:

• More than 1.25 million children were abused in some way in 2006.


• 44% of those children were victims of physical abuse (including sexual).


• 135,000 of them were abused sexually.


• The John Jay report, commissioned in 2004 by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, ascertained that some 11,000 allegations of abuse had been made against 4,392 priests in the U.S. between 1950 and 2002, which constituted about 4% of the population of priests during that period.


• 6,700 of the allegations were substantiated.


• 78% of the abused that was substantiated occured to children  between the ages of 11 and 17


• If all of the allegations of abuse had occured in a single year, it will still add up to less than 10% of the total sexual abuse that occurs in the United States annually.


• As it is, sexual abuse by a priest within the Catholic Church occurs in less than 1% of cases of child sexual abuse yearly.

Bottom line: The Church is an easy target. It is easy to make The Church a villian, and, yes, they have had a disturbing history: beyond the priest abuse, you have witch trials, burnings at the stake, Irish car bombings and years of war in Belfast, the Crusades, politics and crime. But, lets be fair: every religious group older than 6 months is going to have a history of some sort; and the Catholic Church is among the oldest religious groups in the world.

As I approach this religion, I plan to address as many preconceptions as I can, but I also want to look at the religion as openly as possible, because, when it comes down to it, they are people like me and you, and they make mistakes, and they have issues with corruption and greed and controlling selfish desires... my point is, people make mistakes, but that only makes them more human.

But many Catholics aspire to more - they aspire to unselfishness, they aspire to love, they aspire to make a difference in the world around them. They have the Mother Theresa's, and Saint Augustines, and the St. Francises of the world. They have artists and writers and passion... and they are, above all Human.

Human like me.

Human like everyone I know.

Sources:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/exec.pdf

http://www.childhelp.org/

Catholicism Begins: The Rosary - Engaging the Mind and Body

Written Sunday, but my computer wasn't cooperating ;-)

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
Francis of Assisi

Saturday night I did my first Rosary. I guess I never knew exactly what a Rosary was, except, in generality, prayer. It is an interesting perspective on prayer, from another Christian group, to see the structure and thoroughness of Rosary. I recall that, as I was taught to pray, you simply start a conversation with God. I started a conversation with God more than 20 years ago, and my "Amen"s are more of a pause than an end. The Rosary is a beautiful celebration of structure, commitment, devotion. I thought Muslims devoted a lot of time to prayer, but I had no idea how long Catholic prayer takes.

In researching Catholicism over the past few weeks, I have learned that, even being sisters with my own Protestant religion, and even having the benefit of tradition and movie spotlight consistently over the years, I have much to learn about Catholicism, and I look forward to this portion of my journey, as I try to find that elusive love and devotion that sainted so many.

These things I know about Catholicism:1. Catholics own a lot of art and keep it at the Vatican. The Pope lives at the Vatican as well, and he's the top guy in the church. Also, the Pope can't be a woman.

2. Unlike Protestants, Catholics give a special reverence and position to the Holy Mother Mary. It's not that Protestants don't respect and cherish the position she had as the mother of Jesus, but its more that they don't believe that position carried on beyond her human life. Her matriarchy is overshadowed by her son's godship. (as a side note, I find this practice of almost ascribing deity to her both fascinating and touching... I wonder how my relationship with the Holy Mother will change as a result of this experiment.)

3. Confession and forgiveness of sins to one another is a central part of redemption in Catholicism. This is so central to the religion itself, and so different from the Protestant way I was brought up. To ascribe the ability of forgiveness to humans, and, further, forgiveness for wrongs that have not even been committed against us, makes the way we relate to each other so much more powerful. To think that going to a priest and asking forgiveness for something, and being absolved from that thing simply by asking, and not by asking God, but by asking a brother in humanity... It is very different from the Protestant approach of "confess your sins to God and God alone, he will forgive you." There is, even through anonymity, a sense of personal responsibility imbued upon the confessor when we speak of those things in the presence of another. At least, I would think there would be.

4. Catholics, though better known perhaps for their bloody past with the crusades, are probably almost entirely responsible for the survival and spread of Christianity and the survival of the written New Testament in history. They have a marked ability to cherish and preserve not only tradition, but the written word.

5. There is a lot of activity in a Catholic church service (based on what I've seen on TV and in movies). A lot of sitting, kneeling, standing, kneeling. I find the activity comforting - much like the ritual of prayer in Islam, it feels like you are engaging your body AND your soul in the quest to reach God.

Finally, I am still trying to get some Catholic women "sponsors" to help me as my Muslim friends did during my Islam period. I have looked online at the Catholic churches nearby and I am fascinated by how much you must do and know to get into the church, to become a member. Unlike the Protestant way that I grew up with, where the only thing required for membership was a trip to the front of the church at the end of a service, the Catholic membership procedure involves learning, speaking, confessing, and confirming. There are prescribed steps to follow and check points along the way. It is not a simple matter, and the challenge of that membership makes it more appealing to me, actually.

I'm looking forward to this portion of my journey!

For me prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look towards Heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.
St. Therese of Lisieux