When I was five or six, old enough to attend CCD on Saturday
mornings, I could never sit still in the drafty classrooms, and I had a hard time being interested in the workbook lessons, which were all about honesty and obedience. I just wanted the tightlipped teacher to shut up so we could go down to Mass. In the perpetually cold
church, I tucked my hands into my armpits for warmth and waited on
the edge of the pew for Communion, the best part. The priest in his billowing
white robes would step down from behind the altar to shake the aspergillum at
the congregation, and my heart kicked when sprinkles of holy water adorned my upturned face. Because I knew that any
second, the choir would begin to sing, their voices plunging out from somewhere
high up behind me, the pipe organ wheezing along, and it was in those
moments that I felt a god.
I am an uneducated, uninformed spiritual being. I admit I know nothing, really. I have always searched for answers; I have an entire "religious" bookshelf containing all the texts of the world's major religions, including The Idiot's Guide to Understanding Catholicism. I have a staggering amount of guilt embedded in my very DNA. I have a goddaughter who was baptized in the Wiccan faith, and it was probably the most beautiful ceremony I've ever witnessed.
Much of what I believe comes from what I feel. Music and nature have always moved me to ethereal planes, much more than dogma. I have gone down many spiritual paths, including Buddhism, but I disagree with one fundamental belief of that faith. I know I have a soul. I know because I can feel it in a summer wind, in a quiet snowfall, on a drowsy evening as I sit on the couch with my cat on my lap, my husband snoring in the next room, and the sense of possibility all around me.
I know there is a higher power. I know that this is a journey.
