Full Circle

Every day my mother says the rosary for me.

And everyday she prays for the salvation of my soul ~ for my return to the "one true faith."

I did not accidentally stray from the path, but deliberately walked off it to blaze my own spiritual trail. In fact, I blazed different trails until I found the one that felt most comfortable on my feet.

Spirituality is a very important part of my life ~ something that I do not take very lightly. Yet, the questioning and adventurous part of me felt the gnawing need to see what was out there, especially when I had grown dissatisfied with the questions I was asking.

I was born in a very strict Roman Catholic family. We're not just talking about your regular, run-of-the-mill strict Catholics, but your "Old World" Catholics. For some reason, "Old World" Catholics have this natural predilection for taking strictness to the next highest level ~ perhaps even beyond.

For the longest of time, I accepted the religion of my birth, even though as a child often wished that I was a cat so that I would not have to go to church, or school for that matter.

There were even times when I militantly identified with being a Catholic. I remember one time being greatly offended by a TV commercial that advertised Certs Breath Mints "with the miracle drop Retsin."

"Only Jesus does miracles!" I shouted at the TV in great indignation.

However, when I was in high school, I was exposed to a great number of kids who weren't Catholics ~ and to Catholic kids who asked a lot of questions that could not be answered to their satisfaction.

I became one of those kids.

But at home I had to be silent in my rejection of Catholicism. Not that I hadn't tried to break the news to my parents ~ I did, but with quite the cataclysmic results.

That disastrous unfolding of the truth had shown me that insisting upon maintaining honesty and integrity did NOT serve in my best interest while still living at home. I may have been going to hell according to my mother, but I most certainly had no desire to experience a practice run while still on this planet.

So, swallowing back the bitter gall of dishonesty, I "confessed" to my mother that I had made a mistake ~ that I was deeply confused. Whether she truly believed me or not, I cannot say. But it was a statement that she could not argue with.

So, if I rejected Catholicism, what was I?

I couldn't call myself a Christian because the only Christianity I knew was through Catholicism.

I couldn't call myself an atheist because I did not agree with the absolute denial of God. Yet, I did not really feel comfortable with calling myself an agnostic either.

So, for awhile years I was a "nothing" ~ having no spiritual path whatsoever.

Yet this yearning for spiritual expression never left.

I was searching for a spiritual identity; but nothing seemed to fit.

My Sufi friends intrigued me; but what seemed right for them did not feel right to me.

My roommate converted to Judaism and became "more Jewish" then her Jewish husband.

And a Unitarian minister was someone that you went to when you wanted to have a church wedding without getting married in a Catholic church.

Paganism and Wicca were an interesting experiment. The high degree of leading an ethical life and maintaining personal responsibility agreed with my own set of values.

Because I was a Witch at a time when Witches were still in danger of losing their children and jobs because of their religion, the Christian-bashing that was common then fed my still-festering resentment of Christianity.

At the time, Paganism and Witchcraft also seemed to be natural choices that reflected my ancestral and cultural heritage.

Even though the majority of Lithuanians are fiercely devoted Catholics, they are also extremely proud of their Pagan heritage. Even my mother would proudly proclaim that Lithuania was the last European country to accept Christianity (which in those days came only in one flavor).

So my becoming a Witch seemed to be a natural extension of my Lithuanian pride and heritage.

However, a funny thing happened while I was a Witch.

I became very interested in learning about other religions.

No wanting to do to other religions what I saw being done to Witchcraft ~ i.e., having some very vocal Christian groups spread damaging misconceptions about Wicca ~ I made it a point to learn about those different religions.

Thus, a life-long love of comparative religious study was born.

And it was this love of learning about new faiths that gradually led me to explore other spiritual avenues.

Besides, I could never really warm up to Zeus.

Shortly after Ariana was born, I tried Unitarian-Universalism. The sermons were amazing. They appealed to my intellectual side. I actually felt that I was attending a college lecture. But there was something missing ~ something that did not speak to my spiritual side.

When Ariana became three, my mother wanted me to start bringing her to church so that she would know what God was and for her to get a spiritual foundation. While I was all for getting to know God and having a spiritual foundation, I simply could not consider going back to a Catholic church.

At the time, however, I had a friend and co-worker who was a Bahá'í. Even though I wasn't planning on becoming a Bahá'í I felt that a Bahá'í religious education would be appropriate for Ariana.

With the Bahá'ís she would learn to know God and receive a spiritual foundation. Also, because the Baha'is believed that all religions are one, Ariana would also learn about different religions.

Of course, as a parent I realized that for religious education to "stick" a child needs to see her parent engaging in that religion. So, in order to facilitate Ariana's spiritual education, I started going to Bahá'í firesides and holy day observations.

I was learning about the Bahá'í Faith and starting to absorb it myself. It wasn't that much longer before I made my declaration as a Bahá'í.

For three or four years, I found deep spiritual meaning as a Bahá'í. I drank in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and the Báb like an intoxicating perfume.

Yet, there was this niggling feeling in the back of my brain of a hunger that was not quite satisfied.

Not feeling that I could be true to the Bahá'í Faith, I left to become a spiritual free-lancer.

My journey took me to Star of the Sea, a tiny non-denominational and metaphysical Christian church in the next town over from mine. The minister and I became fast friends.

The circle was now starting to close.

While I am still considered to be a member of that tiny little church, I have not been there for a couple of years. Its services were during Sunday afternoons; and with an active teenager in the house, it was getting more and more difficult for me to go to services.

Still, I needed to go somewhere.

Because I have heard wonderful things about Good Shepherd, a small Episcopalian church in the same town as Star of the Sea, I decided to check it out.

I am glad I did.

The very first time I set foot in that church, the people immediately made me feel welcome. Because the Episcopalian liturgy is very similar to that of the Catholic Church, there were many prayers and responses that I already knew by heart ~ despite two decades of disuse.

Maybe it's the baby-boomer in me that seeks comfort in the familiarity of past rituals. And comfort is what I found when going to Good Shepherd.

Good Shepherd is my spiritual family. That is where I belong.

It is at Good Shepherd where I received my desire to serve others. It is there where that desire expressed itself through my serving both as a reader and as a lay Eucharistic minister.

My dear, devoted mother will never be able to be a priest in her church. But I am fortunate that I do have that possibility with my church.