This has been a painful weekend for me. It started on Friday when I delivered a written message to my mother. Rather than mailing her this letter, which I thought would be cold, I had a nice visit with her and then as I was winding up to leave, I told her I had written her a response to her request that I "prayerfully read" a book she had given me. She asked, "Did you read it?" I replied, honestly, "No." She welled up with tears.
My history with mom is 42 years long. She's a dear woman and a good mother. But she's perennially disappointed in anyone who does not tow the line of her making. Control is such a part of her nature that she mistakes it for love. She doesn't really know how to love without control. Imagine her disappointment when, after a lifetime of Presbyterian Church (including Presbyterian college), I challenged my religion and found it lacking. Fortunately, I was able to salvage it by reimagining it in a Catholic skin. So I'm in the process of becoming a Catholic.
Since revealing this to my parents, my mom (she's more of the controller of the two) has gone to my friends, my children, my husband....anyone... to try to talk me out of this. She's given me a book ("Traditional Protestantism") and has left anti-Catholic books conveniently scattered throughout her house. At first, she believed that I was being influenced by someone to do this. Now she's changed her tune and she's sure that I'm "enamored" with all the liturgy and ritual and finery of the Catholic Church. But her provincial view is that one CANNOT be led by God into the Catholic Church. In fact, Friday she swore she would go to her grave convinced that I was rebelling against the Truth.
I think to myself how grateful she should be that I'm a Catholic. I could have lost my faith entirely....I've watched some of my friends at the same juncture and this IS what happened to them. Or I could have cobbled together a faith that was very liberal (in mom's parlance), something that her sisters did and she never got over. Or I could have found faith outside of Christianity. But, grateful she is not.
Interestingly, during the conversation Friday she admitted that she had been praying for me and God had told her to 'humble yourself and in due time, you will be lifted up'. I think she imagines this "lifting up" meaning that I would come to my senses and re-embrace her version of faith. But I wonder....maybe humbling means coming to a place of admitting that maybe the Presbyterians don't have the corner on the truth that she imagines. But far be it from me to speak for God!
Among the things my mother told me were:
-in her life, her greatest sorrows were her brother (who molested her) and my turn to Catholicism. So I'm up there with a pervert in causing my mother sorrow. Gee, I even beat out my brother, who abused drugs for 15 years before being run over and killed by a bus.
- I'm rebelling not only against her (when is it OK to just be an adult, I must wonder?) I'm rebelling against the Truth. I wonder how she is so sure her version is the Truth....is it because it is Her version? Would her world crack and shatter if she leared that another religion had it right? Isn't this just a tinge of spiritual pride? I mean, I don't want to accuse, but it sure seems a bit confident to say that one's little denomination is the last bastion on earth of the Truth.
- Catholics are corrupt ("The Church is corrupt! It has ALWAYS been corrupt!") and they are idolators. Therefore, what could possibly be the eternal destiny of someone who wants to join up with such ilk??
Anyway. I held it together pretty well the rest of Friday, but Friday night the dam broke, and I felt the isolation that her words conveyed. I'm not the same inside. It is amazing how much, no matter one's age, one wants validation, blessing, affirmation from one's parents. Steeling myself for such rejection took all my emotional resources so Saturday I walked around with puffy eyes, and just wanted to be left alone. Thank God my husband is supportive of me. I am not sure without him I'd be able to swim upstream to find a faith that really works for me. In fact, he told me that I should try to avoid any conversations about the matter without him there to back me up. He's pretty good at unvarnished communication.
My bottom line is, mom and dad need to accept and respect my faith, whether they agree with it or not. Mom needs to lay off trying to manipulate and control the outcome to her desired ends. If she has faith in God anyway, why not just leave it in His hands? Unless they can make this attitude adjustment, there is going to be a lot more distance in the relationship than there is now. I am not willing to live awaiting her approbation.
Unless something comes up, I'll be joining the Catholic Church at Easter vigil this year. And it's likely my husband will join me.
Where I can let down my hair, observe my ordinary life in all its mundane beauty and everyday pain, and say what I think.
2 comments:
So Bill Burgess will join you in conversion... now what will your mother do?
Beth, I'm genuinely happy for you and for Bill, but more for you. This has been such a honest search and one that's brought you deep joy. I'll never forget the Easter Vigil I attended with you. I'll be imagining it this year with you being baptized.
I have no advice at all about your mom, but it did occur to me that you are unwittingly forcing her to open herself to the possibility that her faith is not the only true one. It's pretty hard to face that her prayers and advice, books and conversations aren't effective... She will have to decide a way to interpret your choice "against" her faith that will not invalidate her acts within the faith. Does that make sense?
It may not appear so outwardly, but it reminds me a bit of when a gay person comes out. The family must deal with the reality in the flesh, not just theoretically. I hope your mom can see you as a human being, not as an extension of her body and soul.
Your comment, "When does one get to be an adult?" really tweaked. That's such a good question vis a vis her attitude toward you.
Anyway, thinking of and yes, even praying for you.
Julie
---So Bill Burgess will join you in conversion... now what will your mother do?---
Isn't that wild? That part of this has really taken me by surprise. I mean, I knew he'd been going with me, but it's not like we hash through doctrines together and figure things out that way. So I half-assumed he was curiously humoring me. But when I asked him directly the other day, he really seems to be personally on board. He knows perfectly well that I didn't try to make it happen. The way he phrased it was nice...."I'm at peace with following through on this."
---This has been such a honest search and one that's brought you deep joy.---
It has been long and satisfying. Yet there's a temptations to say, OK, I've joined. Check. But there is a part of me that feels a bit that way. As I was explaining to Claire and Cynthia the other day, since I came to the conclusion about the "authority" issue (that is, that the CC is the only group that has a legitimate claim to authority in the Christian world), it's been easier to allow it to be [i]their[/i] problem. "If JPII says he speaks authoritatively for God (and all his predecessors) then if I follow him and he's wrong, well, I've done the best I can before God to understand and follow." I DO have conviction of heart about some things, but there are others I don't, because I just don't think I CAN be sure about them. So I set my doubts at the doorstep of the Church, and let it be their problem.
The Church only makes six demands of people in order to be Catholic: attend Mass each Sunday, take the Eucharist at least during Easter season, go to confession once a year, give as I'm able to support the Church, observe the holy days of obligation, and observe the fasts and abstinences of the Church (which aren't that stringent anyway). That's a doable list for me.
---you are unwittingly forcing her to open herself to the possibility that her faith is not the only true one. It's pretty hard to face that her prayers and advice, books and conversations aren't effective... She will have to decide a way to interpret your choice "against" her faith that will not invalidate her acts within the faith. Does that make sense?---
Precisely. If you construct Box A to make sense of your world, to tame it, to explain it, to give meaning to it, and then someone you love opens it up and finds it doesn't fit them....that's pretty threatening. More is at stake than my eternal destiny!!
Post a Comment