I’m touched by J’s post about psychology and religion.
My sister tells me priests (West Coast Jesuits) now teach high school students that since God gave them a brain, it’s okay to think about and question their religious beliefs. That’s not what I learned. When I was a young teenager, I felt deeply spiritual, but lots of things about Catholicism didn’t make sense to me. I had questions. I wanted to ponder and talk it all over. My religious education classes weren’t the place for discussion. They were a place to show how much you had memorized.
When I tried to talk to my mother, she told me I could not pick and choose what to believe. I admired her faith in God and the Church. It seemed to serve her well, and I longed for the kind of peace her faith gave her. But she told me, flat out, end of discussion: belief was an all or nothing deal. And I just couldn’t accept the whole package. I had to question parts of it. (Okay, I had to question all of it.) So at age 15 I decided if my questions, if the way my mind worked, was not welcome, I would have none of it. I gave up on religion and I gave up on God, because at that time I didn’t know the difference between the two.
In or out of the Church, though, I felt there was something wrong with me, because I had this mind, this fritzy mind, cluttered with thoughts and wonderments and it wouldn’t allow me to have the kind of unquestioning faith I had been told God required of me.
It would be a long time before I could connec spirituality with what went on in my mind and understand that they are not separate or at odds, but one.