Early Religion

I was raised as a Roman Catholic. I attended a parochial grade school on the South side of Chicago in a blue collar, steel worker neighborhood. I owe a great debt to those Dominican Sisters who taught me. I was lazy, always looking for an easy way out. I soon learned that with the nuns, the easiest way was their way. Their authority was unquestionable and consistently enforced. I owe them a debt, because that was what I needed at the time to overcome my lazy ways.


With regard to religion, I was a good student. I was interested in God and Jesus and everything taught in our daily Catechism class. Looking back I spent 8 years of grade school with pretty much the same 39 or 40 other kids. I wasn't the smartest kid in the class, but looking back I was the one who had the most questions about religion. It wasn't that I was cynical or trying to prove the nuns and priests wrong. It was just that some things didn't make sense to me and I wanted to understand the spiritual side of life.

Around age ten in the fifth grade was when I first started questioning some of the teachings. I distinctly remember Sister Mario was teaching the story of the Garden of Eden. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. It made no sense to me that our Creator God, who loved us, the children of God and not only kicked his children Adam and Eve out of paradise for eating an apple, but he could be so mean and vindictive as to condemn all of their descendants to a life of strife, struggle, disease and war....forever! I raised my hand and when she acknowledged me I said, "Sister, you mean that if Adam and Eve hadn't eaten that apple, there would be no disease, no death, no war and we would all still be in paradise? When she affirmed what seemed to so clearly to me to be completely insane and utterly unbelievable, I just sat down and thought, "That is b.s. ". Looking back, I think, at ten years old what could have made me so sure to question a fundamental doctrine and a respected authority figure? Now I see that it was my inner teacher, my Christ-self (the Spirit of Truth) the Holy Spirit.

From there the questions continued, Like, "Sister, why should we pray? God is infallible and almighty, if we pray then aren't we who are imperfect asking God who is imperfect to change his mind"?  After eight years in grade school, there were plenty of questions, but no answers.

Then, as a teen I continued to go to church every Sunday, but my questions got deeper and I became more and more skeptical of the teachings of mainstream religion. I had questions like, if God is capable of creating the atom, the vast and intricately balanced universe and the amazing human body, why would such a being demand to be worshipped? And to me, it seemed that was primarily what religion was all about -- worshipping God, worshipping Jesus. I was taught that the Roman Catholic faith was the ultimate Christian faith and yet the teachings made little sense to me. I always had the sense that there was more, that I and everyone else was more than we were. But when I looked at mainstream religions and thought what would I be like if I dutifully followed all the rules all of my life, where would I be? I concluded that even after a lifetime there just wouldn't be much change.