I go from dreaming about a kissing a girl to actually kissing a girl. Unconscious thoughts to conscious action. Exercising my “free will” to sin as God’s creation. And that can only mean one thing for this Catholic raised girl. Hell. Eternal damnation. A one-way ticket to the fiery pit of Dante’s inferno. Do not stop by Heaven’s gates. Do not collect angel wings. Upon death, go immediately to hell. Eternal separation from God.

Confessions of THIS Catholic School Girl

I stare at the confessional booth in St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Fishkill, New York. How many Hail Marys’ and Our Fathers’ will be part of the penance package delivered to me in my church’s confessional booth for sharing my sexual sins? Kissing my girlfriend feels so good that it must be bad. Really bad. Right? In that case, a lot of penance is coming my way. Maybe even an entire Rosary.

But who has that much time to spend on their knees in prayer? I feel guilty about what I’ve done. The church does a good job of getting that Pavlovian response out of me, but I’m not sorry for what I’ve done. So, if I’m not sorry then my penance will be wasted. And if I am not sorry and repentant than this whole concept of confession, penance and forgiveness won’t help me.

I stop going to church.

Sampling the Buffet of Christianity

Most of my friends growing up are Catholic. I go to Catholic school at St. John’s The Evangelist in White Plains, New York. This is where the perpetually rigid Sister Mary Richards yanks a loose tooth out of my mouth. I don’t want an extraction; I just want to show Sister Mary Richards my loose tooth as she makes her morning rounds up down the aisles of our first grade class. “Look, my tooth is loose.” She’s on my wiggly tooth like a fish on a baited hook. Before I know it, I’m handed a bloody baby tooth. The Tooth Fairy will come earlier than I anticipated

Sister Mary Richards isn’t impressed with my Mickey Mouse watch either when I show it to her. But she doesn’t rip it off my wrist. But rip she does when I don’t put my pencil down fast enough after a quiz. She flies from her desk faster than a witch on a broom, grabs my quiz paper and shreds it. I survive her in first-grade and go onto second and then to third grade at the same school. When we move “upstate” to Dutchess County midway through third grade, my parents ask if I want to go to Catholic school or public school. My response is instant.

Once in public school, most of my friends have the same faith background as Catholics. In college, I meet people of other Christian faiths, but my closet friends claim a Catholic heritage. I can’t shake the guilt of not going to church, so I try finding another one to my liking. Or one that might like me. Maybe even love me. Accept me?

I explore different churches with a college girlfriend. We are both looking to be a part of the same thing, a community of believers. It’s what I know; what I’ve grown up doing. Go to church. Get right with God. Go to heaven. Three easy steps. But now with the full awareness of being Elaine the Sinner, this faith walk is an elusive map. How do I get from down here to up there?

In college, I enroll in The Bible as History. Dr. William Cook teaches it. His course permanently changes how I view the WORD of God. We study the Old Testament through the lens of history and the evolving relationship of the Jewish people with God, set against the backdrop of what was happening historically with the Jewish people. That I could read the Bible as more than just pure dictation from the mouth of God to the scribe’s pen, is a revelation to me. I will go on to study the Bible and other religious sources extensively.

Southern Exposure – Faux Christians and Real Christians

I move to Florida right out of college in 1985. There are churches everywhere in the south. I can’t help but notice how many churches of varying denominations there are other than Catholic. I’m not a practicing Catholic but I still identify with the religion of my youth. Living in the south exposes me to another religious revelation. I learn that there are Christian denominations that do not believe Catholics are “real” Christians. And by now, we know what that means. According to them, no heaven for Catholics.

This is like being stuck in one of those corn mazes. How does one even get out? Every turn is a dead end…well, not a dead end but leads to hell. I was screwed. Even if I am not gay, even if I can “overcome my sexuality,” I cannot be a good Catholic because they are not going to heaven either. And besides that, the ONE thing many “Christians” agree on is that homosexuality is a sin. After all, Leviticus 18:22 says “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Never mind that the Levitical Code also forbids tattoos, eating pork…I could go on. There are 613 commandments to follow in the Old Testament. Not ten. Leviticus 18:22 is cherry picked out of context and used to condemn others by people who are breaking many other Levitical Codes daily.

I find the Metropolitan Community Church, founded by Reverend Elder Troy Perry, a gay man who teaches that you can be gay and you can be a Christian. His aptly titled biography is “The Lord is My Shepherd and Knows I’m Gay”. While in the pews of the MCC of St. Petersburg, Florida, Reverend Elder Frieda Smith visits and tells a story about The Good Shepherd. She tells us about the 99 sheep grazing mindlessly in the fields, nary a thought about the green grass they’re masticating. They raise a woolen head, look around and their appetite for green grass is affirmed by the sea of white woolen backs of their brethren surrounding them as they munch away.

But there is one sheep different from the 99. That sheep likes purple grass. Of course, eating purple grass is wrong, so the one is rejected by the 99. And what does the Good Shepherd do about the rejected sheep? Build a fence to keep them out? Tell that sheep he won’t bake a cake for them? Refuse that one sheep communion? NO. The Good Shepherd LEAVES the 99 to go FIND the one.

For as much time as I spent learning about what the Bible says and doesn’t say and its various authors and translations, I was missing something especially important. What it says about LOVE. Love = The Good Shepherd. Love is a verb. Love = The Good Samaritan. Love = the most important commandment.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Mathew 22:36-40, New International Version

For many years I had a complicated relationship with God. Yes, I tried to “pray the gay away.” At some point, I realized it wasn’t God who was complicating our relationship. It was man. God’s creation. Religion. Religion is man-made, not God-made.

The Epilogue…But Not Really

How did the Prince of Peace end up with followers who weaponize the Bible against one another? For as much effort as Christians have invested in demonizing homosexuality, you would think Jesus had a lot to say on the subject. But no, Jesus never said one thing about homosexuality. Not a peep. ZERO.

However, Jesus had a lot to say about divorce. Know any divorced people? Think they are going to hell because they are divorced? So why aren’t Evangelicals showing up at courthouse to stop these “sinful” divorces? I recognize that this inconvenient truth will not cause someone who proclaims to be a Christian to change their mind about the sinfulness of homosexuality if that is what their church teaches. This requires an unraveling of a belief system built on years of teaching a social construct they have bought into and aligned their lives around. (And for the record, I don’t believe that divorce = eternal damnation.)

Sandwiched between where I am today and my younger self listening to the Reverend Elder Frieda Smith, is the journey of a woman who went from ardent believer to atheist, to agnostic. Not enough space to cover that here. I lost my belief in anything for a long time. But I have experienced things I cannot explain that eventually coaxed me out of my agnosticism.

I am no longer up for debating faith, what is sin, what is not sin. I am no longer worried about the state of my soul. These days, my focus is more inward on my spiritual journey so that my outward expression reflects love. And during Pride Month, I’m reminded that means loving thyself as well.

Featured Photo by Maria Thalassinou on Unsplash

Sampling the Buffet of Christianity

Most of my friends growing up are Catholic. I go to Catholic school at St. John’s The Evangelist in White Plains, New York. This is where the perpetually rigid Sister Mary Richards yanks a loose tooth out of my mouth. I don’t want an extraction; I just want to show Sister Mary Richards my loose tooth as she makes her morning rounds up down the aisles of our first grade class. “Look, my tooth is loose.” She’s on my wiggly tooth like a fish on a baited hook. Before I know it, I’m handed a bloody baby tooth. The Tooth Fairy will come earlier than I anticipated

Sister Mary Richards isn’t impressed with my Mickey Mouse watch either when I show it to her. But she doesn’t rip it off my wrist. But rip she does when I don’t put my pencil down fast enough after a quiz. She flies from her desk faster than a witch on a broom, grabs my quiz paper and shreds it. I survive her in first grade and go onto second and then to third grade at the same school. When we move “upstate” to Dutchess County midway through third grade, my parents ask if I want to go to Catholic school or public school. My response is instant.

Once in public school, most of my friends have the same faith background as Catholics. In college, I meet people of other Christian faiths, but my closet friends claim a Catholic heritage. I can’t shake the guilt of not going to church, so I try finding another one to my liking. Or one that might like me. Maybe even love me. Accept me?

I explore different churches with a college girlfriend. We are both looking to be a part of the same thing, a community of believers. It’s what I know; what I’ve grown up doing. Go to church. Get right with God. Go to heaven. Three easy steps. But now with the full awareness of being Elaine the Sinner, this faith walk is an elusive map. How do I get from down here to up there?

In college, I enroll in The Bible as History. Dr. William Cook teaches it. His course permanently changes how I view the WORD of God. We study the Old Testament through the lens of history and the evolving relationship of the Jewish people with God, set against the backdrop of what was happening historically with the Jewish people. That I could read the Bible as more than just pure dictation from the mouth of God to the scribe’s pen, is a revelation to me. I will go on to study the Bible and other religious sources extensively.

Southern Exposure — Faux Christians and Real Christians

I move to Florida right out of college in 1985. There are churches everywhere in the south. I can’t help but notice how many churches of varying denominations there are other than Catholic. I’m not a practicing Catholic but I still identify with the religion of my youth. Living in the south exposes me to another religious revelation. I learn that there are Christian denominations that do not believe Catholics are “real” Christians. And by now, we know what that means. According to them, no heaven for the Catholics.

This is like being stuck in one of those corn mazes. How does one even get out? Every turn is a dead end…well, not a dead end but leads to hell. I was screwed. Even if I am not gay, even if I can “overcome my sexuality,” I cannot be a good Catholic because they are not going to heaven either. And besides that, the ONE thing many “Christians” agree on is that homosexuality is a sin. After all, Leviticus 18:22 says “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Never mind that the Levitical Code also forbids tattoos, eating pork…I could go on. There are 613 commandments to follow in the Old Testament. Not ten. Leviticus 18:22 is cherry picked out of context and used to condemn others by people who are breaking many other Levitical Codes daily.

I find the Metropolitan Community Church, founded by Reverend Elder Troy Perry, a gay man who teaches that you can be gay and you can be a Christian. His aptly titled biography is “The Lord is My Shepherd and Knows I’m Gay”. While in the pews of the MCC of St. Petersburg, Florida, Reverend Elder Frieda Smith visits and tells a story about The Good Shepherd. She tells us about the 99 sheep grazing mindlessly in the fields, nary a thought about the green grass they’re masticating. They raise a woolen head, look around and their appetite for green grass is affirmed by the sea of white woolen backs of their brethren surrounding them as they munch away.

But there is one sheep different from the 99. That sheep likes purple grass. Of course, eating purple grass is wrong, so the one is rejected by the 99. And what does the Good Shepherd do about the rejected sheep? Build a fence to keep them out? Tell that sheep he won’t bake a cake for them? Refuse that one sheep communion? NO. The Good Shepherd LEAVES the 99 to go FIND the one.

For as much time as I spent learning about what the Bible says and doesn’t say and its various authors and translations, I was missing something especially important. What it says about LOVE. Love = The Good Shepherd. Love is a verb. Love =The Good Samaritan. Love = the most important commandment.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Mathew 22:36–40, New International Version

For many years I had a complicated relationship with God. Yes, I tried to “pray the gay away.” At some point, I realized it wasn’t God who was complicating our relationship. It was man. God’s creation. Religion. Religion is man-made, not God-made.

The Epilogue…But Not Really

How did the Prince of Peace end up with followers who weaponize the Bible against one another? For as much effort as Christians have invested in demonizing homosexuality, you would think Jesus had a lot to say on the subject. But no, Jesus never said one thing about homosexuality. Not a peep. ZERO.

However, Jesus had a lot to say about divorce. Know any divorced people? Think they are going to hell because they are divorced? So why aren’t Evangelicals showing up at courthouse to stop these “sinful” divorces? I recognize that this inconvenient truth will not cause someone who proclaims to be a Christian to change their mind about the sinfulness of homosexuality if that is what their church teaches. This requires an unraveling of a belief system built on years of teaching a social construct they have bought into and aligned their lives around. (And for the record, I don’t believe that divorce = eternal damnation.)

Sandwiched between where I am today and my younger self listening to the Reverend Elder Frieda Smith, is the journey of a woman who went from ardent believer to atheist, to agnostic. Not enough space to cover that here. I lost my belief in anything for a long time. But I have experienced things I cannot explain that eventually coaxed me out of my agnosticism.

I am no longer up for debating faith, what is sin, what is not sin. I am no longer worried about the state of my soul. These days, my focus is more inward on my spiritual journey so that my outward expression reflects love. And during Pride Month, I’m reminded that means loving thyself as well.

Featured photo by Maria Thalassinou on Unsplash

You can also find my writings on Prism & Pen, a publication of Medium, amplifying LGBTQ voices through the art of storytelling. Elaine D Walsh @ Medium