Recently in my community, I have discovered people who call themselves Catholic, who seem to have been brought up with a different belief of what Catholic means. I was raised Catholic. My family always went to church on Sundays and I still do to this day. There was a period of time in my 20s when I didn’t go. But these days I have a family and there are certain beliefs that I learned in the Church that I would like to pass along to my child.
Being Catholic is not always what it is cracked up to be. Many people look at me and wonder how I can follow a faith with so many men in leadership who have said women aren’t allowed in leadership roles. However, I’m very aware that if all the women who work to keep the Church going, one day decided to step away, it would completely collapse. So who really is in leadership?
I have been taught that the Church itself is the people who make it up. Church means people. Without the people, there is no church. How we are those people is dictated by the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament of the Bible. At least this is how it is for Christians. A quick history lesson here. Jesus was Jewish. Those who didn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God stayed Jewish. His followers were Christian. Catholics figure Jesus asked Peter to lead when he left this world. Catholics see Peter as the first Pope. Other Christian religions which traditionally were Protestant, were started when someone disagreed with what the Catholic Church taught and broke off to form their own group; Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc. These days many churches start with someone with a Bible and their interpretation. Even other religions like Islam recognize Jesus, just not as “the savior”. Some Eastern religions do not like Buddhism. These faiths look more toward enlightenment vs. salvation. Tomato, tomahto but we all have our beliefs so I am very much live and let live in this area. But all of these faiths believe in some greater purpose or goal from this life.
In Christianity, many people don’t always like certain passages of the Bible. They pick and choose. However, to grow in any faith there is a similar line of thought. In Christianity, the main rules are “Love God your father (i.e. God) before all others” and “Love your neighbor as yourself”.
Now some people like to say that this means my God is more important than your God. I don’t see that written here. It just says, God. It doesn’t say “my Old Guy with a Beard God”. It doesn’t describe God. It merely says love God before all others. OK, I’ll get back to this in a second. The second part says “Love your neighbor as yourself”. It doesn’t say love your neighbor like a parent or a child or even a friend. But love your neighbor as yourself. To survive in this world we have to eat, work and hopefully love. This is what God is, in essence, telling us to do for ourselves and our neighbor. Would you put a roof over your head or would you choose to live on the street? Would you feed yourself food out of the garbage? Would you skip meals when you were hungry? Would you run around in filthy clothes? Would you choose to not bathe?
Some say God is this thing that is separate from us. The guy on a throne with a beard. I suspect people came to this conclusion long ago because Jesus would refer to his Father. People at the time of Jesus knew his “father” as Joseph and his mother as Mary. I suspect that Jesus used the term “father” due to the language of the time and the position of women at the time. But God, from my teachings, doesn’t have gender. It is neither male nor female. It is neither drawn to a particular gender but to all. From what I have learned growing up, I see God as light. Light is all colors combined. This is why I personally believe religion and science can coexist and guide one another. Science has shown us how a rainbow of colors when brought together is the brightest light. I believe this applies to us as human beings as well. When we bring together people who look different, black, white, brown, yellow, red, pink, purple, chartreuse, we have balance and wholeness in our society. When we limit a society to one color or even one belief we have an imbalance. We miss the brightness that all together can bring.
God is this light. God is present when we bring all these colors together. This is why I see God as light. A little piece of light we all carry around in each of us. If we go out and share that light, it gets brighter. If we try to box it in and limit it, it gets darker.
Now we are still human and we all make mistakes. We get angry and feel hurt. We think others are doing something to us or not doing something for us. When we go to this place we are not treating ourselves as we would want to be treated. We don’t love ourselves. We let the darkness grow. When we reach out though to others, ESPECIALLY those who are different than us, be it by beliefs, color, gender preferences, or even just who they are attracted to, we open ourselves to the light that is God.
Many “Christians” have forgotten the one rule that Jesus said was more important than any of the other Commandments. They go back and look at the words that limited. My God, is not a limiting God. My God gives me the tools to do the best I can in this world. How I use them is up to me. I can use them to help or harm. Expand or limit. I can use them to raise someone up or keep them down. But the tools I have been given need to be used to grow. If they aren’t used for good, then they will not grow well.
It is frustrating to me when on social media I see people who are of the same faith but interpret things differently and often times in limiting ways. It is hard to see past my own biases. It is important today though to reach out to those who are different and look for the similarities. There are always similarities, but I have to be willing to look for them. Look for the similarities and let go of the rest. From there, perhaps, we can heal the anger and grow to be more understanding and limitless. You don’t have to agree, but somedays, you do have to listen. Listen first. If you don’t hear what you need, move on. I will try to embrace this more myself. Or as Mr. Rogers once said, “Look for the helpers.” Or as another favorite writer, Anne Lamott, once said, “You can safely assume that you have created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”