There is very little I remember about growing up, but the significant moments are frozen in my mind, and each and every one of them-the good and the bad- make up who I am today. As I use those words, "good" and "bad," I realize that there really is no such thing. They are only words we assign to moments in time while they are happening. However, if we look more deeply, we will almost always find that in hindsight, regardless of our initial impression, there was something to be learned from what we've experienced. When we are able to set aside our judgment of the experience, we can oftentimes see exactly how it was conducive to our growth, awareness, understanding, and personal development, and if we look even more deeply, we can see how each event is interconnected and fundamental.
When I was eight years old, I found my four year old brother throwing up violently in the front yard. I began screaming for my mom, and she came running down from our deck. She picked up a bottle laying next to my brother and asked him, panic in her voice, "did you drink this?" He nodded his little head as he continued to vomit, and my mom started crying. Her whirlwind actions are barely a blur in my mind as she packed my brother and I in the car and drove to the hospital. Not long after we arrived, my dad, who had been at work, came through the door. I saw my mom hug him, sobbing, and then whisper something in his ear, and I watched his face fall in horror.
In the best way they could, my parents set about attempting to explain to an eight year old that her only sibling, her baby brother, was not going to live through the night. My brother, while playing outside on a hot summer day, had gotten thirsty and consumed the remainder of a bottle of lighter fluid. The end result-chemical pneumonia. The recommendation from the doctors-call your Minister, your son will not live through the night. What happened over the next 24 hours has shaped and molded my spiritual journey to this day.
My mother was raised in a specific religion that I will not name- as we live in a small town and I would like to keep some identities private- and she did her very best to raise my brother and I the same way. We attended church most Sundays, and my brother and I attended Sunday school. My dad stayed home, jokingly telling my mom that if he attended church, the walls would crumble. He had no interest in religion of any sort.
Try as she might, my mother was never able to get me beyond the point of mildly interested in this religion about which she herself felt so passionate. Of course as a child, I did what I was told, and I went through the motions, but I had so many questions that I am certain I was a thorn in the Sunday school teacher's side. It just never made sense to me so I resigned myself to take pleasure in the social aspects and the juice and cookies, and when I realized no one was going to answer, to my satisfaction, my many and varied questions about God, I stopped asking.
After hearing my brother's dire prognosis, my parents went to sit by his bedside and hold his tiny hand through the protective bubble that was to be the last place he would experience. My mom had tried unsuccessfully to reach our Minister by phone, and while she was in the waiting room on the payphone, making one more attempt, our Minister walked by my brother's room. He stepped inside when he saw my dad and asked what was going on. My dad explained that my brother was dying of chemical pneumonia and would not be alive to see the sun rise. I will not repeat the conversation that took place after, but suffice it to say, our Minister chose not to say a final prayer for my brother, nor did he offer to pray with our family.
I might have been on the planet a mere eight years, but I knew there was something deeply wrong with this situation. My mom upon returning to the room and learning of the Minister's refusal was devastated. Sadly, there was a little boy in the room next to my brother's, and he was dying as well. His family called their Priest, and he came to give the little boy what Catholics refer to as Last Rights. When the Catholic Priest exited the boy's room, he stopped to give condolences to our family and asked if he could say a prayer for my brother and pray with us. My mom accepted his offer without resignation, and the Catholic Priest prayed with our non-Catholic family and said a final prayer for my non-Catholic brother. I will never forget the gratitude and relief on my mom's face at the gift she received from the Priest.
My brother did not die that night. In the morning he was bright eyed and asking why he couldn't go home and play in the yard. Some said it was a miracle. Some said he lived because the Priest prayed for him and God spared a child's life. However, the curious eight year old wants to know why, if the the Priest prayed for the little boy in the next room, God did not spare his life as well. The curious eight year old wants to know why the Minister she, not so patiently, listened to so many Sundays of her life did not spend time praying with her family?
We never went back to church again. Of course my mom did not abandon her God or her faith, but she gave up her place in the congregation. I was of course thrilled that I did not have to go back there, and I spent the next 16 years with no desire to be a part of any religion. At eight years old, I stopped believing in God, if I ever believed at all, and I went about my life feeling no significant loss as a result of my choice.
At the age of 24, I went through a very personal crisis when I began having memories of being sexually abused, as a child, by a close and trusted family friend. As the memories flooded through me, I found myself unable to process the pictures in my mind. I was sitting in my apartment, and it felt as if the walls were closing in on me. I lived alone and had no one with whom I could share my overwhelming pain. I had called my mom to tell her, and she told me in no uncertain terms, "it never happened." Her response, that I was either mistaken or lying, broke my heart. I called my dad and his response was, "you are seriously going to jump on the sexual abuse bandwagon to justify your fucked up life?"
I can still remember literally attempting to escape from the onslaught of memories, unleashed on my psyche after a series of dreams, and the heartless remarks from those I thought would not only offer some explanation as to how this had been allowed to happen, but would grieve with me in my time of need. It was then that I found myself running aimlessly, in the pouring down rain, from my apartment in downtown Portland through block after block of the city. When I could run no more, I looked up and saw a Catholic church.
For the first time in years, I thought about the Priest who prayed at my brother's bedside and I walked into the church. As I was going in, the Priest was firmly but politely asking a soaking wet, potent smelling homeless man to leave. The man was protesting, begging for just a moment inside to dry off and warm his bones. The Priest adamantly stated the man had to leave and escorted him out the door. As I am watching this all take place, the curious 8 year old, silent for so many years, is making an appearance once again.
Once the priest had successfully rid himself of the homeless man, he turned and asked if there was something I needed. I replied that I was not Catholic, but I really needed someone to talk to and didn't know where else to go. He spent a 1/2 hour with me listening to my words, with minimal interest, and periodically checking the time on his Rolex as a hint that it was time for me to go. When that didn't work, he told me he had an appointment and needed to leave.
We exited through the back door as that was where he was parked. As I walked away, I realized that I had accomplished next to nothing by reaching out-to the Priest, to my parents-and I glanced back at the young Priest one last time and saw him get into his Mercedes. By that point, my confusion and disappointment at what I had experienced, my parents lack of support, the homeless man being thrown out of a church, and the Priest sporting a Rolex and a Mercedes, was overwhelming. However, as a result of that confusion and disappointment, I set out to learn everything I could about as many religions as possible- the history, the differences, the similarities, the hypocrisy, the benefits, and the drawbacks. I was compelled to find the path that not only resonated with MY spirit, but provided some context for, some understanding of, my life and my experiences.
This part of my journey would lead me to various churches, months of therapy, thousands of hours of research, and a degree in Psychology, but the lesson I learned that day, and the path it set me on, would provide the foundation and strength for the many crises I would eventually face in my life. That day I understood that a church is just a building, a Minister or Priest is just a human being, and religion, in it's varied beauty, and occasional ugliness, is just a perception. No particular religion is either good or bad, it is chosen based on our upbringing, our culture, our experience. The truth is, the first Catholic Priest was a kind and compassionate man who provided comfort in my family's time of need. Our minister was a man who chose not to do the same. The second Priest was a man who had some lessons to learn about compassion, empathy and humanity (and maybe a reminder of his vow of poverty.) None were good or bad-they all played a part in my growth, my awareness, my understanding, my development of my own spiritual beliefs, and for that, I have only immense gratitude.
Thank you Father Hazen for your compassion and for reaching outside the boundaries of your faith to comfort a family in need, so many years ago, and for being such an integral part of my own spiritual journey.
By the way, it wasn't until several years later, long after I had forgiven my parents for not believing me when I disclosed the horror of my childhood, that I received a validating call, and profound apology, from my mom. She told me that day, when she returned from lunch to her job at the Courthouse, she ran into the ex-wife of the man who molested me. This woman had long since moved away, and my mom stopped briefly on the Courthouse steps to say hello to an old friend and ask what brought her to town. The woman's response was that she was there because her ex-husband was on trial for molesting their daughters and several of their daughter's female friends.
That phone call from my mom taught me that parents, not unlike Ministers, Priests, and so many others to whom we assign so much power over our sense of well-being, our sense of self, are human too. Not one of us on this planet is perfect, and as I said in the beginning-if we look deeply enough, we can find strength, growth, awareness, understanding, personal development, and maybe even the innocent and wondrous curiosity of an eight year old, in almost any situation- if we so choose.......................
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