I woke up extra early this morning to take my mom into town so she could get her car from the mechanics before she headed into work. Yesterday I really wasn't excited about waking up at 5:45am, but within 10 minutes of waking up, I was ready to start the day.
As most of you know, I have worked in the marine biology field since I was 11 years old, which meant I've been waking up typically between 5:30-6am most of my life...exept the past 6 months. Being unemployed I have started to finally learn and appreciate the art of "sleeping in". Granted I consider sleeping in to be about 7 or 8am...I will never be one of those people that somehow pass out till noon.
Waking up so early this morning was super refreshing, and it really started my day out on a good path, a groggy squinty eyed path, but great nonetheless!
Driving back home this morning I took the long way home, which consists of primarily really long dusty gravel roads in the middle of nowhere. I had all the windows in my car open and the temperature outside was a perfect 62 degrees (At 7:30am that is crazy for Oregon this time of year!) I had good tunes playing, my hair was whipping around, my hand out the window. It was bliss. The smell of the air outside in the country was so sweet and ripe smelling. I could of drove that drive for hours. I love when the unexpected happens like that...where everything lines up perfectly and you cannot help but just revel in the beauty that is around you and how amazing your life really is.
Which brings me ultimately to the topic of this post...my relationship with God and with religion.
For those that know me, you know I have a very personal relationship with God...to the point where I barely talk about it. To those that SUPER know me, you know that I do occasionally talk about God and religion, and my desire to have more of a relationship with God in my life.
I guess I should fill you in on my past first...this will all come together in the end I swear.
I was raised Catholic. Baptised when I was an infant, received communion in a puffy white dress when I was little, was confirmed when I was a teenager, went to Sunday school weekly, went to mass a minimum of one time a week, and practiced all the traditions of being a Catholic including things like confession and lent.
When I was younger I felt like the church was my second home (that smelled like incense and old people), but I never felt like I truly belonged in it. Even at a young age I felt really awkward being there, and I really wanted to fit in, but something just wasn't lining up. I knew that being with my family at church meant the world to my parents though, and plus I was like...9, so I couldn't drive or really choose to not participate. It wasn't that I didnt have a relationship with God or that I thought it was a joke at a young age or something..I just felt weird about it. I wanted to be a part of it all SO bad though.
Fast forward to when I was in high school and I started going to this non denominational youth group in my small town called The Hub. This was really my first introduction to a youth group type setting where we didn't have to have certain facts memorized, and where you weren't the best kid in the group because you could recite Biblical facts or certain prayers from memory (Who had time for that when you could memorize latin names of super cool aquatic animals?!..not young Jamie.)
I was introduced to this youth group through a high school friend of mine, and I instantly felt accepted at this place of worship. It wasn't really a service or a mass or anything of the sort, just a weekly gathering of young people to sing praise songs and to confide in each other if needed. I loved it, and there were so many instances where we would all be singing and I would just crumple back into my seat and cry. I think those instances were the first moments where I actually FELT God as a presence in my life, not God as just words or rules.
At that point in my life, the early high school years, I was "on fire" for Jesus. I still have countless Christian rock cd's stuffed away in my closet and I think even a few really old school Relient K t-shirts somewhere. I had the fire in my heart and it wasn't going anywhere.
While going to the Hub, I'm not 100% sure my parents were excited about the idea of it. Being raised Catholic pretty much means you ARE Catholic...you don't to just pick and chose parts of denominations that work for you...or at least I was under that impression. If you are Catholic, you are just Catholic. No loud singing, no drums, and not many young people that I wanted to really connect with. And for a younger person, the Catholic religion as I grew up, just became more and more rules to me.
Fast forward to me graduation high school in 2004 (holy crap almost 10 years ago?? shut up.)
I was just turning 18 and really starting to figure out my life as an individual. It was really hard though because of wanting to make my parents happy, yet staying true to myself. This is actually a theme that I struggle with on a daily basis to this day.
At this point I was completely immersed in scuba diving and marine biology and volunteering every spare hour I had at the Oregon Coast Aquarium..this went on for many years. All throughout college, my main focus and priority was to work with aquatic animals. I moved out of my parents house what felt like right away and started to figure out life independently. I had my first legit boyfriend when I was 20, I had a circle of classmates I hung out with, and none of them were religious at all. I hadn't given up on God at all, I still had a personal relationship with him, but I no longer went to mass every Sunday. In fact, this was the point in my life where I really started to look at my religion, and decided ultimately that I no longer wanted to be a part of the Catholic religion. I know to this day, my parents are still very affected by this decision and with every last breath of theirs want me to go back to the Catholic church. In my world, this is honestly probably never going to happen. I love the tradition of the Catholic church, I love the community of it, and the people are very very kind...but....
There are many things I don't agree with when it comes to the Catholic faith. And THAT IS OK! I used to guilt myself constantly for feeling these feelings and thinking these thoughts, but no longer. I am still a fantastic person with a relationship with God that I keep very close to myself.
For those wondering, the primary issues I had with the Catholic religion (and these are my opinions and feelings. these things do not make me any less or more of a person) was first and foremost the sacrament of confession. WHY do I have to go to another mortal human being, to be able to talk to God and confess my wrongs and find guidance? This man is no different than I am besides the fact that through traditional elements, he is now considered a priest. Why do I have to channel through him in order to talk to God? God is in my heart, God is all around, and in my mind he is always there when you need to pray or call on him for help in your time of need. I truly believe I shouldn't have to talk to a man that I really don't know, tell him all my problems, just so he can relay the message to God in my behalf. Rather, I can sit in the middle of a forest, or lay in my bed, and pray and talk to God for hours on end. No rules, no middle men.
There are many other reasons that I don't particularly want to get into because I DO infact want to respect my parents and my other family members when it comes to their faith in the Catholic church.
Ok where was I...ok now fast forward to when I was 23, out of college, broken up with my first boyfriend because he was cheating on me for years..awesome. Whatever. I had lived in Orlando Florida for 9 months and worked for Walt Disney World at their aquarium, and now am living up in NYC working at the New York Aquarium. At this point, I haven't been to mass in years besides the main holidays where I go just to be a part of my family and support them. My faith in God is still present, but is no where near as strong as it once was. Life has gotten in the way at this point, and the hustle and bustle of living in a city like New York City pretty much consumed me. February 19th 2009 passed when my boyfriend committed suicide, and that is officially when my relationship with God completely ended.
In my mind, oh man, you cannot imagine the anger and hate I had towards God. I would curse him...I would yell at my ceiling in my apartment to him, screaming at him "why did you do this?". In my mind at that point, if God was who everyone makes him out to be, he wouldn't of allowed Chris to commit suicide. God took the most important thing away from me, so suddenly and drastically. I despised him for it. I completely pushed God out of my life, I didn't want his help or his guidance. I wanted him gone. And so for years, I lived a completely Godless existence And I really thought I had it all figured out. I was the master of my own universe, not some imaginary man on some imaginary cloud with an imaginary beard.
----continue to Part 2
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