Panic
Fr. Super-Newb sent me a Facebook message 3 1/2 weeks ago.
Hey Jessica, super official message via Facebook. I was just wondering how you have been doing--I hope great! God bless you and have a great day.
This filled me with panic. I get updates from Facebook in my email, and I read this one on my phone as I was leaving the kids' fall festival at school. I immediately felt like I had been caught, that the jig was up. Someone noticed I wasn't keeping Catholic. Guilt! Panic!
I waited a few hours before responding, mulling over exactly what I should say, and then I wrote this:
Thanks for writing! I am doing well, and I hope you are, too.
You may have noticed my absence from St. P's [his parish--Catholic] over the last several months. I have been attending CC [Episcopal] and considering becoming an Episcopalian again. I haven't made any decisions yet, but I am really enjoying CC, and there is a lot I like about Anglicanism. So we'll see.
Facebook is about as official as it gets!
I wondered what he would say in reply, when he might reply. And he ended up not replying at all.
But the anxiety I felt in response to his message has not fully left me. Things had been going pretty well until that point: I had canceled my membership at St. P's so that I would stop receiving offering envelopes and newsletters. The person on the phone who took my request to take my name off the books did not question me. I had been going to the adult Sunday school class at CC, the theme of which (Hell, from an Episcopalian--ie, not terrifying--perspective) seemed especially suited to me. People at CC are starting to recognize us and say hello. Everything was feeling quite comfortable and usual, progressing at an even pace. And now, things are confusing and nerve-wracking again, packed with shrill questioning. First, the message from Fr. Super-Newb. Then, I started letting myself switch the radio dial to AM and the Catholic channel again. Then, these feelings of self-doubt started following me to church again. And now, even as I write this, there is a pit in my stomach, and I feel nervous.
Listening to Catholic radio--that is a negative, self-destructive, self-injurious behavior for me, and I should not let myself do it. It is almost a patholigical action. I know it will hurt me, but I do it anyway; I almost can't stop myself.
Why should it be that way? What is the matter with me that just hearing the voice of Mother Angelica for a few minutes actually unravels my sense of well-being? Why should listening to ads for local parish suppers cause me to question my decisions and my motivations for coming to those decisions?
Stepping back from all of this, it really all seems quite disordered and possibly delusional. The Catholic radio thing is a side effect, but of what? I need to understand this about myself. If I can figure out why I am this way, or what made me this way, or where this all comes from, then maybe I can fix it. Until I can fix it--whatever it is--I will always be in this limbo. This panic will always be somewhere below the surface. I will waste the rest of my life on this question of whether I should be a Catholic or an Episcopalian, when I know there is so much more I am meant to do.
Hey Jessica, super official message via Facebook. I was just wondering how you have been doing--I hope great! God bless you and have a great day.
This filled me with panic. I get updates from Facebook in my email, and I read this one on my phone as I was leaving the kids' fall festival at school. I immediately felt like I had been caught, that the jig was up. Someone noticed I wasn't keeping Catholic. Guilt! Panic!
I waited a few hours before responding, mulling over exactly what I should say, and then I wrote this:
Thanks for writing! I am doing well, and I hope you are, too.
You may have noticed my absence from St. P's [his parish--Catholic] over the last several months. I have been attending CC [Episcopal] and considering becoming an Episcopalian again. I haven't made any decisions yet, but I am really enjoying CC, and there is a lot I like about Anglicanism. So we'll see.
Facebook is about as official as it gets!
I wondered what he would say in reply, when he might reply. And he ended up not replying at all.
But the anxiety I felt in response to his message has not fully left me. Things had been going pretty well until that point: I had canceled my membership at St. P's so that I would stop receiving offering envelopes and newsletters. The person on the phone who took my request to take my name off the books did not question me. I had been going to the adult Sunday school class at CC, the theme of which (Hell, from an Episcopalian--ie, not terrifying--perspective) seemed especially suited to me. People at CC are starting to recognize us and say hello. Everything was feeling quite comfortable and usual, progressing at an even pace. And now, things are confusing and nerve-wracking again, packed with shrill questioning. First, the message from Fr. Super-Newb. Then, I started letting myself switch the radio dial to AM and the Catholic channel again. Then, these feelings of self-doubt started following me to church again. And now, even as I write this, there is a pit in my stomach, and I feel nervous.
Listening to Catholic radio--that is a negative, self-destructive, self-injurious behavior for me, and I should not let myself do it. It is almost a patholigical action. I know it will hurt me, but I do it anyway; I almost can't stop myself.
Why should it be that way? What is the matter with me that just hearing the voice of Mother Angelica for a few minutes actually unravels my sense of well-being? Why should listening to ads for local parish suppers cause me to question my decisions and my motivations for coming to those decisions?
Stepping back from all of this, it really all seems quite disordered and possibly delusional. The Catholic radio thing is a side effect, but of what? I need to understand this about myself. If I can figure out why I am this way, or what made me this way, or where this all comes from, then maybe I can fix it. Until I can fix it--whatever it is--I will always be in this limbo. This panic will always be somewhere below the surface. I will waste the rest of my life on this question of whether I should be a Catholic or an Episcopalian, when I know there is so much more I am meant to do.