Religion, faith and life

Part 1 of ## My background and brief thoughts on my current state

As you know, I was raised Christian, and we go to church every week as a family. You also may remember that I do not believe in it in the way that grandma and grandpa do, nor your cousins. I say you may remember, because I have no idea what the future holds, and if you had told me a decade ago that I would actively participate in church every week, I would have assumed you were delusional.

I had a wonderful childhood, all things considered. Sure, we were poor for a while, but my parents always had time for us, even when working horrible jobs and going to school full time. This is a direct result of them belonging to a church that teaches family is the most important thing. A quote I always loved was “No success out of the home will ever make up for failure in the home.” Of course it won't. No one will be on their deathbed thinking, “I am glad I have millions in the bank. A little bummed my kids are in jail or overdosed, but that is life.”

My parents are believers. It is the core feature of their being, the foundation upon which they built their lives around. Grandpa was the head of a congregation from middle school through my time in college. From there he became the head of the region in which we lived.

My attitude tended to be something along the lines of, “They say it is true, I don't know it is, but I trust them, and life is good. Even if it is not true, it isn’t harming anyone” It worked fairly well for me through high school. As my friends started drinking, doing drugs and risking fatherhood at much too young an age, I drove them home as a DD, making sure they were safe. I tested limits and tried to play in gray areas, but I had strict lines not to cross.

Unfortunately, those strict lines allowed me to feel justified in plenty of embarrassing behavior, so long as I didn't cross the threshold. My ethics had been outsourced, allowing me to justify mistreating others, and doing things I should not have. Hey, I didn't officially break the rules.

Eventually I went to college and, as so often happens, stopped practicing at all. I didn't stop outright, I just was not motivated. In that time, some big things happened. Specifically, the church got very political about a topic near and dear to my heart- whether people should be able to marry whom they love, regardless of their sex. Being from a west coast city, many of my friends were in the group impacted. More importantly to me, your uncle is married to a man, though he wasn’t at the time. He ended up marrying a good friend of mine from high school, and we are extremely close.

When my younger brother told me he was gay, it was clear the pain religion had caused him, being told that he was wrong for loving who he loves. That happened about a year before the church got involved in attempts to affect the law, and I was angry when they did. I no longer felt whether it was true or not was irrelevant, it was harming people. People that I love.

Whatever anger I had at the church, I was more angry with my family for donating money to keep equal rights from my brother.

The break was complete, and I spent a long time angry. I was at a religious college, and if my views were known, I would have been kicked out. So I hid them and faked it, and grew to resent myself for doing so. College was not a happy time for me, although it was a fun one, in a hedonistic sense. I was determined to cut and run once school was done and I had my diploma.

Once out of college, I believe I sat in church a total of 4 or 5 times, generally because of some family commitment. I never enjoyed going, and was still angry about the feelings of being lied to. In my mind, people had to know certain things were false, how could they not? This carried me through my twenties, although the anger faded.

At 30, your Mom and I started having kids. This is later than I would recommend, but you will live your own lives. I am well aware of the statistics around families in which Dad goes to church, and kids participate. To quickly run down them, those children are less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol as teens, less likely to be sexually promiscuous or have a baby in their teens, less depressed, less likely to get divorced, more likely to attend college, have a higher GPA, etc. I think you get the point; going to church produces better outcomes. Well, as you know, I tend to be fairly outcome driven, and generally rational. I looked at the numbers on these, and thought, “I can sit through church once a week for those results.”

We spent a while bouncing between churches, back when it was just me, thinking sampling a variety might be nice. Eventually I realized there was no settling in and establishing bonds doing that, which probably negated the benefits. I also came to feel that I was better off in a religion I knew quite well. Better the devil you know, and all that. It seemed like knowing what you all were being taught would help to mitigate some of the possible consequences. Potential negative ramifications to avoid include shame over normal human exploration, guilt over mistakes for fear of eternal consequences, and believing you’re very existence is wrong if you happen to be gay.

Thus, I find myself regularly attending a church I had sworn off. You kids seem to love it, and the older you get, the more I find myself explaining that some people believe “X” while others believe “Y”. I then explain what I believe, and end with a statement along the lines of, “But you can weigh the evidence, ponder the ideas, and decide for yourself what you believe.”

I enjoy it, and have enjoyed working with the youth, specifically the young men. It has been a wonderful experience, and has caused me to be less certain of what I know. I hope the teenagers have learned from me, but I am sure I have learned a lot more.

Eventually, your Mom started attending with us, despite never going to church in her life. She now sings in the choir, and is the assistant to the choir director. It cracks me up, I spent my whole life trying not to date within my church, only to have come almost full circle. She takes great joy in singing, and I think has come to realize that there is a different level of kindness and mutual, community support to be found there.

Is this path the correct one? I have absolutely no idea; I am finding my way through life with a trial and error process, just like everyone else. For now, it seems to be working, but ultimately, we will not know how successful we were until you are adults yourselves. I do know that we have made great friends, have a wonderful support system, and that you kids all have wonderful friends to play with. It seems to me that for now, that is enough.

Love,
Dad