All those stories of lost faith, increasing skepticism and unanswered (unanswerable?) questions are almost as foreign to me as stories of faith, unquestioning belief, and how "Jesus is the answer"....simply because I never lived the transition. My parents...at some point....did the hard work for me (us...I suppose including my siblings). I think it's something I really need to ask them about. We've honestly not had any really in-depth conversations about faith....at least not since I've been an adult. About the closest we've come was last summer, when discussing plans for my youngest sister's funeral....when looking for an officiant, my father, specifying his preference, stated that "we're not very religious" and also made sure to insist that we had a "moment of reflection" and not a prayer.
I remember asking when we were kids why we didn't go to church...but I don't remember the answer.... and when I asked what the hell I was supposed to do when I started in a new school, in a new town, in a new province at the beginning of grade 6 and we started every day reciting the lord's prayer.....which I had never heard in my life (ok...I probably had...but I sure didn't notice it) my mother told me to just stand quietly.
So, I don't really know what happened to split my parents from the church, but for whatever reason they did. Maybe it was both my mom's parents dying when she was in her early twenties (about 6months apart, from unrelated causes)....maybe it was something else. I don't really know much about my mom's family, but I do know there's a fairly wide spectrum of religiosity on my dad's side that we lie at one extreme of. His mother was a very regular churchgoer and was quite involved in church activities. His twin brother still took my cousins to church when we were growing up. My aunt was a very regular and involved churchgoer who actually married a well-known (by Saskatchewan standards) anglican reverend in her later years. Some of my dad's cousins are very religious in the evangelical christian style. We used to sit around the campfire at family reunions with the more moderate folks enjoying a beer or two and joke that they were probably saying their bedtime prayers for us.
As a kid I always wondered what the big deal about church was. I remember having my weekends free to play with my friends and my brother, or to play sports.....but there were always friends that were busy at church on sunday mornings. Or even worse were my mormon friends that were doing "family time" all day on sundays and weren't allowed to play at all that day. Seemed like a big waste of quality kid-time to me. And it was inconvenient for my social calender as well. If I wanted to play with those kids on the weekend it had to be on Saturday. If you had a birthday party...and you wanted them to come....Saturday or nothing. And there were no sleep-overs on Saturday nights because they wouldn't be home Sunday morning, and that just wouldn't so. I really didn't understand what this designated family time was about..... I was available to play from breakfast until bedtime.... if I was home my dad would play with me....and if I wasn't...we caught up over supper....or the next day. Why were their parents so selfish?
When I was a teenager it became less of an issue. More activities on weekends (early morning hockey practice...yay!), and we'd moved so those particular mormon friends were long gone.... During my really (REALLY!!!) awkward loner phase I do remember being approached by a boy from my school and his "mentor" (?...fucking creepy older guy that helps you convert vulnerable teens to your creepy cult?...what do you call that?) about whether I'd accepted jesus and blah blah blah. I dodged their questions for a while and eventually they just left me alone. When it came down to it, this kid was probably even lower on the social ladder than me (at least I played hockey on top of my geekiness, shyness, scrawniness and general social outcast status)..... he was just a fat kid with asthma who wasn't even smart enough to get good grades....and he was hanging out with some dude twice his age. Being seen with him definitely wasn't going to make me the hip kid on the block.
I really think I started thinking of religious kids as losers around this time. I mean...I was a social outcast, I was bullied, I got picked on, beat up, teased, all of it....but I didn't need some club of churchy losers and their imaginary friend to make me feel better about myself.
Then when I went away to college it seemed to really disappear. I fell in with a crowd of really good friends and we tended to keep busy on the weekends with definite non-church activites. It's kinda funny. College is supposed to be the time for the discussing of ideas great and small and for really figuring out who you are....but I think pharmacy school is a little different. It's such a focused 4 years, with such a pre-determined class load that you don't really have time to take more than the bare minimum of "humanities". You were required to take a few elective classes, but these were mostly picked for their lack of difficulty and their relatively light course load. Given the choice between taking the easiest 101 level classes in 5 different things or following one pathway through more advanced courses you'd have to decide whether you really wanted to do pharmacy plus life, or pharmacy plus a bunch of time consuming essays and group projects. Nope....there was definitely not much incentive to get past the 101's and their 300 student class sizes and their multiple choice, same every year tests.
I definitely had friends and classmates who went to church. At least in the twice-a-year-catholic style.... but it never really got discussed. I really never knew what most of them were into until it started to become wedding and kids time. Then all of a sudden it's time to start taking the "classes" that their church offer so they can get married there. Gotta pick out the best bible verse about love.... fucking corinthians (I always laugh at the fact that assuming it's the bride that picks that verse out......they've obviously never read a few pages before and after that verse where there are all sorts of good old-fashioned nuggets about the rightful place of women....). And you've got to get the kids baptized. And you really should start going more often so the kids get a good moral foundation (you know....as long as they ignore pretty much the entire book the church holds up as its guiding document....)
So here I am, out of school almost 15 years now and starting to finally put a solid framework around all these things I always kinda knew....but were never more than a gut feeling. You could almost say that I used to believe I was an atheist but now I know it. I have to thank my parents for not indoctrinating me into any outdated immoral belief system, but I kinda wish they'd helped me a bit more with my skepticism. Part of that is my own fault. I've never been the type to publicly (or privately) ask questions if I think I can find the answer myself. Too much fear of ridicule (thanks teen years....) but, at the same time it's a good quality to have to a degree. I think when my little girl gets older I'm going to try to be a bit more forthcoming with the conversations about this kind of stuff. In the end it'll still be her choice what she decides, but when presented with the options I hope she picks the most logical one.
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