In the Beginning

They say that getting there is half the fun. I'm here to tell you that it has been interesting but not so sure about the fun. Being on a faith journey may be edifying to some but I have always found it to be frustrating, confusing and sometimes annoying. I felt like the little kid going on a vacation with their parents who keeps asking "Are we there yet?" Various stops along the way may be enjoyable. They may make new friends and have pleasant experiences that they will remember for a lifetime but they know they’re “not there yet”



64 years ago, I was born into a family that that was Christian but not all of the same denomination. Mom had been raised Catholic and dad was Anglican (Episcopal for you American readers). When they married, she became an Anglican for him and spent all of her adult life as an Anglican even teaching Sunday school for many years. She took me to church and made sure I was baptized and confirmed in her adopted religion (not to be confused with faith) but, at the same time, she sent me to a catholic girls’ school and encouraged me to attend mass whenever I expressed interest. That’s probably where the religious confusion began.



There are different denominations of Christianity for a reason. Although there was only one when it all began over 2,000 years ago, somewhere along the line, religious differences started to occur which resulted in schisms and new churches. So here I am in a Catholic school voluntarily taking religious education while attending an Anglican church regularly. That can mess with a person’s religious identity to the point that a person can have trouble deciding which pew they belong in.



I think secretly my mother always hoped that one of her four children would convert and become a Catholic. Although she never had a bad word to say about the Anglican church, when I got old enough, I could see that she had some regrets and never totally gave up her beliefs and practices. In her last years, she had Alzheimer’s and didn’t know who many of her family were or would think that her adult children were young children come to play with her. Despite all that, I had a dear Anglican minister visit her to bring her communion and, when he finished his prayers, she made the sign of the cross. That’s not an Anglican practice.




So, here I am as a sweet young thing of 64 and finally realizing some things about who I am, who God is, where I belong and where I need to go from here. Not everyone’s life journey will follow the same path. In some ways, my life experiences have damaged my faith in ways that they shouldn’t have and sent me in directions that have not been faith building.



I hope that you will follow my rambling journey home. The thing about feeling you’re home is that home can have it’s own set of issues but deep down you know it’s home, you’re happy to be there and you think that any bumps in the road are worth working on.