New Beginnings – Part 1

For you to understand my present, I must tell you of my past.

My mother is Catholic and my father is a Jain. They decided to raise me in the Catholic Church and so I was baptized, I took my First Communion, and even went through my Confirmation. However, coming from a home where my parents were different religions exposed me to many ideas outside of Catholicism. Additionally, one cannot grow up in Bombay and be religiously isolated – I had the great fortune of being surrounded by friends from many different religions. I grew up in an environment where people respected the religious differences of friends and religious holidays were celebrated by all – it was a time to get together, eat, drink, and give thanks for family and friends, regardless of religion.

Although I was raised Catholic, even as a child, I didn’t agree with all the teachings of the Church. I would refuse to say parts of the Mass because they just didn’t sit right with me. And yet, I loved singing and so I loved that aspect of Mass. I also enjoyed quiet prayer and meditation, and I briefly considered joining a convent. However, I realized that was not the path for me. As I grew into my teenage years, I was still rather dissatisfied with the Church, but continued to attend Mass partly because of my Mom, but mostly because I loved participating in the choir.

My college years started out tumultuously in the context of religion. I tried making connections with other Catholics through the Newman Center and tried attending services weekly, but my heart wasn’t in it. So I drifted away from the Church but I wasn’t looking for a replacement religion either. I tried talking to a priest about what I was going through, but his answer was to trust in the teachings of the Church and use them as a base to explore other teachings. It sounded rather oxymoronic to me. Freshman year of college, I called it quits and left the Church. Leaving the Church didn’t bring me the absolute peace I thought it would. I was still spiritually lost.

As I went through my academic career in science, I learned quickly that religion and spirituality were not to be taken seriously. If I was to become a scientist, I really shouldn’t dwell on these topics, nor should I discuss them where I may be overheard. Heaven forbid my reputation be damaged by a belief in imaginary beings that can’t be quantified and analyzed! Anyone who broached the topic of spirituality was met with derision. So I kept my inner turmoil to myself. In fact, I buried it so deep that I almost forgot the spiritual aspect of myself.

Leaving the Church left a hole in me. No matter how much I tried to ignore the feelings of loss and uncertainty, they would occasionally bubble to the surface and cause me a lot of anxiety and confusion. Mind you, I never considered myself an atheist. I would sometimes joke that some days I felt like I was an atheist, other days I was still a Catholic, but sometimes I was an agnostic. It was my way of dealing with the hole. I took a class about Women in Eastern Religions. And for a while I embraced Buddhism. But it never really stuck – the hole was now pretty large, and I was tired of trying to fill it. So I continued to ignore it.

By this time I was in the middle of my master’s thesis. I finally met the man who is now my husband. He is a Hindu, a Kashmir Shavite to be specific. My husband has a very strong sense of who he is and of his religious beliefs without ever imposing them on others. I truly admire this aspect of him. I also recognized that this facet of him resembled my parents and their relationship with religion. You can’t be married to someone of a different religion and be overbearing and close minded about other religions! I am supremely thankful for having parents who were so open to the other’s religion. My husband was certainly not bothered by the fact that I was not the same religion as him. When we married, our ceremony was pretty neutral and didn’t mention any specific deity. It was lovely!

After I graduated with my masters, I still felt the void, which was now quite staggering in proportions. I considered Buddhism again and then I considered Wicca, but every time I tried to find a new belief system to fill the hole, it just didn’t fit. I would occasionally consider returning to the Catholic Church, but I didn’t see how returning to a belief system that seemed so very wrong to me, would fix anything. I felt like I would never find something that would make me whole again. So I carried on, me and the hole in my soul.

To be continued…