(no subject)
My sister is fasting today. I spent sixteen years as a Catholic and I don't know of anything that requires a Christmas Eve fast. When I asked her about it, she gave me a "I just wanted to" answer, and when I asked why she was fasting until one (most Easter fasts are to noon or three, if one takes part in them; when I did I went until three) my father got irritated at me, asking why it mattered why she was doing it. I told him I was just curious. He said "I asked too, but then I dropped it," like I was badgering my sister or something with one follow up question.
I think he's just glad that one of his daughters is still religious. I know he thinks I'm as good as atheist since I identified with Deism after a World Studies West class in my junior year of high school. When I'm home from college, he nor my sister ever ask me to accompany them to church because they know I sit there awkwardly, uncomfortable, knowing that that's not where I belong, but I know around the holidays he wishes more than the rest of the year that I was the same little girl who took her rosary to mass every Sunday, feared that missing church, even to illness, would damn me to Hell, and would be brought to tears every Easter when the story of Christ rising from the dead would be told.
But I'm not that girl anymore, Dad. I'm sorry. I just wish you could be as accepting of that as Mom is. For the most part you are, but around Christmas and Easter I always get the impression that you're a little bit ashamed of me, as if not going to church, not believing in every little thing that comes out of the Priest's mouth, and not transforming from depressed to overjoyed with the snap of the fingers and the words "Jesus still loves you" somehow makes me someone to be less proud of.
The day I told my father I was a Deist, only to have him respond with an angry "what, so I've raised an atheist?" as if that is the same thing which it is not remains one of the worst days of my life. It was like he was looking at someone who he didn't know. And whenever he and my sister leave for church, or whenever she tells him about praying the rosary or texting Bible verses to our cousin or whatever, I always get the same uncomfortable, awkward feeling that I do when I'm in church.
It's different around my friends. I have friends that range from Atheist to resorting to What Would Jesus Do when it comes to picking something off a fast food menu. Last year I lived with a missionary, this year I live with a girl who went to Catholic school and is dating a boy from Catholic school and talks of Heaven and angels in everyday life. I'm not uncomfortable, I don't feel inadequate. Because these people did not raise me. I don't need them to be proud of me. I do need that from my parents, and only one - oddly enough, the one who went to Catholic school herself - honestly doesn't care what my religious beliefs are, as long as I am a good person and conduct myself with maturity and responsibility.
I think he's just glad that one of his daughters is still religious. I know he thinks I'm as good as atheist since I identified with Deism after a World Studies West class in my junior year of high school. When I'm home from college, he nor my sister ever ask me to accompany them to church because they know I sit there awkwardly, uncomfortable, knowing that that's not where I belong, but I know around the holidays he wishes more than the rest of the year that I was the same little girl who took her rosary to mass every Sunday, feared that missing church, even to illness, would damn me to Hell, and would be brought to tears every Easter when the story of Christ rising from the dead would be told.
But I'm not that girl anymore, Dad. I'm sorry. I just wish you could be as accepting of that as Mom is. For the most part you are, but around Christmas and Easter I always get the impression that you're a little bit ashamed of me, as if not going to church, not believing in every little thing that comes out of the Priest's mouth, and not transforming from depressed to overjoyed with the snap of the fingers and the words "Jesus still loves you" somehow makes me someone to be less proud of.
The day I told my father I was a Deist, only to have him respond with an angry "what, so I've raised an atheist?" as if that is the same thing which it is not remains one of the worst days of my life. It was like he was looking at someone who he didn't know. And whenever he and my sister leave for church, or whenever she tells him about praying the rosary or texting Bible verses to our cousin or whatever, I always get the same uncomfortable, awkward feeling that I do when I'm in church.
It's different around my friends. I have friends that range from Atheist to resorting to What Would Jesus Do when it comes to picking something off a fast food menu. Last year I lived with a missionary, this year I live with a girl who went to Catholic school and is dating a boy from Catholic school and talks of Heaven and angels in everyday life. I'm not uncomfortable, I don't feel inadequate. Because these people did not raise me. I don't need them to be proud of me. I do need that from my parents, and only one - oddly enough, the one who went to Catholic school herself - honestly doesn't care what my religious beliefs are, as long as I am a good person and conduct myself with maturity and responsibility.