How I Left Organised Religion and Said Hi To God on the Way Out

This post comes after finishing this book by Rabbi Ruttenberg.

Earlier in the blog, I’ve certainly posted about my childhood, my faith, and my lifestyle in snippets for you to read your way through as I make my point on different things. But, after browsing Ruttenberg’s book I realized that a lot of the beats written by the Rabbi resonated with me. So, to illustrate how another person can find their faith while abandoning organised religion, I thought I’d contribute this long-form blog post for your reading pleasure.

[LONG READ]

I started life as a Good Catholic.
Raised in the type of family that contributed one priest per generation, I was a Good Catholic Girl. I memorized the prayers, I knew the appropriate holy days, and what was expected of me. I was baptized, confirmed, and contributed to my community as an Altar Server for the local priest for many years. I was on a first-name basis with a handful of bishops, knew all the important bible stories off by heart, and am confident that I understand the True Meaning of Christmas.

Being a Good Catholic Girl requires one to bite their tongue in the presence of elders, and to present themselves as modest and charming. I behaved in church, wore clothes that covered my chest and my knees, knew the order of mass almost as well as the celebrating clergy, and even had the privilege of assisting in sacred rites thanks to my reliable performance as an Altar Girl. I got to swing the thurible with the best of ’em, and I’ll admit I got a kick out of the traditions and routines that I participated in. I felt like I belonged in the vaulted halls of cathedrals and chapels; it’s where I spent a good portion of my upbringing, after all, and had nothing to fear from the eyes of Judgement.

My community elders, my local priest, even the visiting bishop could question my piety at any point from the ages of 0-12 and see nothing but an honest, sincere child that stared back unblinkingly in the face of the Sacred with an open heart. Sure, as all children were, I was occasionally ill-behaved, rude and inappropriate; but what child isn’t at times? I certainly didn’t behave that way due to malice or spite…even when I did, I was quick to confess with a contrite heart and a desire to improve. This isn’t just my ego talking – I believe that (with a few, rare exceptions) all children have the same purity of heart that is desired by older religious folk. Folk desperately try to find ways to get back to that stage of honest innocence that is so natural to our youngest. But, I believe that no amount of prayer or confessions can truly get you back to the unthinking kindness of a toddler who simply wants to share what they have with strangers. Adults have ulterior motive, hidden judgement, and prejudices that need to be set aside. Children don’t. Children can genuinely confess that the worst thing they’ve done is take a snack without permission.

But even when I was a child – a Good, Catholic child – I realized something wasn’t right. Something, somewhere, wasn’t ‘clicking’. It started as a mild suspicion when I was about 11, which swelled into a subconscious roar by the time I was 17.

It took me over six years to come to terms with the fact that, after everything, perhaps I wasn’t a Good Catholic after all. It took me yet another six years to accept the fact that, perhaps, I wasn’t even Christian.

I’ll get to that in a moment.

So, life started piously. Weekly mass escalated to daily mass leading up to Christmas and Easter every year until I turned 20. I prayed, sometimes sincerely, for divine guidance and strength.
As I grew older and learned more about the workings of the world, I started to realize that perhaps I was taking this whole religion thing more seriously than my family (priest-uncles excepted). I began to toy with the idea that, perhaps, my life was leading towards The Call. Perhaps I, like my uncle, was destined for Service and that I should start investigating nunneries. I prayed, asking God for a sign that They wanted me to follow the Call like my uncle before me. I wasn’t sure. Part of me still felt too wild, too liberal to commit to a life of piety and celibacy; but I was open to the possibility that I would mature into the role as I got older. I never voiced the thoughts I had on the matter as any serious discussion about religion or philosophy in my house either ended in ridicule or ridiculous under-stating of the facts.

For example, my father insisted that ‘You can think differently and still be a catholic! I’m no Puritan‘; which, as I was soon to learn, was actually not-true. The Catholic church is infamously strict on what practitioners should believe in order to qualify as a member of the Church, and fundamental disagreements on topics such as Abortion and Homosexuality tend to be the big-ticket indicators of where an individual ‘fits’ into the spectrum of Christian worship. My father, like the rest of the community, was a bigot. Homosexuals, Divorcees, fluid gender expression and non-Abrahamic faiths (Abrahamic = The Big 3; Christianity, Judaism and Islam) were as repulsive to him as flies in his soup. He was most certainly a ‘Puritan’, or as the rest of the world tends to call it, a Fundamentalist Catholic. And yet, despite that fundamentalism, there was very little that my parents used to support their stances. All they had was a sense of moral superiority that came with regular church attendance and proximity to clergy that fueled their judgement of the different and unfamiliar. Yet they never used their moral superiority for any sort of Common Good; they fearfully side-stepped homeless people on the street, warily approached non-Christians outside the church, and scoffed at non-practicing Christians as the latter attempted to navigate the emotional traditions of funerals at their loved ones’ request (Matthew 6:1-4).

Do I sound a bit harsh? Well, yes, I am.
I dislike a hypocrite, and my parents were among the best. It’s a well-known fact that Christians are supposed to be humble, welcoming to strangers, and charitable. How much of these basic premises were practiced during my childhood is different to the lip-service that these values were paid. I can speak frankly about it because children see the actions of adults far clearer than the adults do, and I was very observant. My observations weren’t clouded by moral relativism or the ‘benefit of the doubt’ often afforded to women who gossiped needlessly over other peoples’ affairs. I pointedly looked around me when the Priest told the parable of the man who ignored God in his rush to attend Synagogue, and was met with only blank stares.
They didn’t get the irony, and probably never will (Matthew 19:21-22/Matthew 13:13).

As Good Catholic Children go to Catholic School, Catholic High School, and Catholic University, I was surrounded with the teachings of scripture and Vatican 2 throughout the formative years of my life. I learned, definitively, what The Rules were. As I did so, less religious people began to enter my life. My experiences were a juxtaposition between learning about the Church’s view of homosexuality at the same time as my friends Came Out (of the proverbial closet).
I felt torn. Did I truly believe that my beloved friends were destined for hell just because they were attracted to the same gender identity as themselves? Were my hormonal, teenage friends inherently sinful for exploring their sexuality and their identity as independent from God, and their family? As I spoke to more individuals who questioned my beliefs, I started interrogating myself more and more. When asked if I believed that homosexuality was ‘unnatural’ my gut reaction was to explain ‘No!’, offended that it was even worth asking. Yet, when I questioned my parents about it, their uncomfortable responses regarding ‘the gays’ said everything I needed to know.

I was not a Catholic, and this shook up my entire world view.

I started working in a multicultural workplace for my part-time job. This exposed me to the traditions of different faiths, such as my Chinese coworkers requesting time off at what felt like an ‘odd’ time of year to celebrate something. I quickly learned that other faiths were just as rich and steeped in heritage as the one I was raised in; the Chinese New Year, the Moon Festival, Buddha’s Birthday, Holi, Diwali, Rosh Hashanah…it’s literally too many for me to memorize or list appropriately. It impacted who was available at what time of year as I politely asked what my coworkers were ‘up to this weekend’. Occasionally I was invited to join in. I wandered around Chinatown with wide-eyed wonderment at the unintelligible traditions and colourful celebrations surrounded me. I learned how to cook good, healthy food from the memories of grandmothers of all faiths and heritages, and – perhaps the most importantly – my respect and tolerance for things I didn’t understand grew tenfold. Just because my coworkers were celebrating something that didn’t center me or my experiences didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy it in the same way that non-Christians commercially enjoy post-Christmas sales. I could pick up a delicious snack at a Diwali festival, pick up a halal kebab, and thank my friendly local dragon dancers. I casually interacted with different beliefs about the world, and the nature of morality, as I politely minded my business.

In the meantime, my parents continued gossiping about those who weren’t performatively Christian enough, those who weren’t devout enough to attend Mass more than once a year, and those who questioned their devoutness – seemingly unaware that it was a great opportunity for self-reflection rather than snide defensiveness.

During this time I thought I was an incredibly liberal Christian. My religious interrogation of the facts and self-reflection dwindled as I admittedly became a bit pretentious about the Big Philosophical Questions like the nature of existence and the existence of God. I dabbled in attempting to answer these questions, convinced that in a big Catholic institution I was bound to find some book, some writings, that could open up a path of inquiry towards the truth. I began socializing with self-professed Atheists, sex workers, and groups of individuals that traditionally avoided the Church. I made a satisfying dent in my level of knowledge at the time, but quickly found myself in the quagmire that most budding philosophers encounter.

Realizing that I had temporarily allowed my ego to get the better of me, I shrugged off my philosophical hubris and finally admitted that I just don’t know. I don’t know for sure whether I think there is a God out there, but I do know that I send off prayers to…something. Out of habit or comfort, I don’t know – and I’m content in admitting that.

As I earned my first degree I periodically went back to the books. What did my beliefs align with? I took quizzes, tested my faith, and tried to measure myself against a spiritual yard stick. I dabbled with the idea that I could possibly be Jewish; Jewish principles just made a lot of sense to me during the times when Christianity didn’t.
At 17 I was told ‘Lutheran Protestantism’ or ‘Franciscan Christianity’. At 21 I was told ‘Liberal Christianity’ and ‘Non-Practicing Protestant’. By the time I was halfway done being 24, I received the update that somehow…somewhere along the line…I had become entirely disillusioned with Christianity and had fallen into Unitarian Universalism.

At first I felt offended. How dare an anonymous survey tell me what my own faith was!?

Then I felt somewhat guilty. Of course an anonymous survey could tell me what my own faith was; the more I read about Unitarian Universalism, the more it felt ‘right’. I wanted truth, and to live peacefully with my neighbours more than I wanted to ‘belong’ to a church. The catalyst for this decision occurred just after my 22nd birthday when I had spent a year living with my decidedly un-religious partner.

*

See, my husband and his family are decidedly and explicitly not Christian. It was one of the first things I learned about my partner. I learned that his mother hailed from an animist culture that practiced ancestor worship and the maintenance of various household spirits that protected and watched over family lineages. I learned that his father was a liberal mix of non-practicing Jew and non-practicing Anglican, deterred by the distaste of consumerist Christmases and the posturing that occurred at sermons. The outcome was an unimpressed disregard for organised religion and more of a focus on whether or not an individual was a good person. Were they kind? Were they honest? Were they sincere? Did they go out of their way to avoid hurting others?

The focus from faith to action opened my eyes and felt like a massive breath of fresh air. The irritation I had felt as a child over religious hypocrisy in the church was lifted as I surrounded myself with good people. People who weren’t prone to gossip or senseless discrimination based on skin colour or gender; I was beginning to find my place in the world, and it was firmly outside the boundaries of any particular place of worship.

At first it caused me a lot of distress. I spent many days crying over the fact that I had lost some precious element of my childhood. The surety of knowing what was what, and what I had to do in order to feel better while grieving or needing guidance. Once the tears dried and I stood outside the empty chapel on my home street, I felt a sense of melancholic peace.
The person I was at 23 was not the same person I was at 8.
8-year-old me was pure of heart but unquestioning about the rituals that surrounded me all year. 23-year-old-me questioned everything I did, and rejected anything that contradicted my moral code. As I did so, I became much more discerning and intolerant of mindless Christian activities that served no purpose other than to placate the disquieted mind so that an individual didn’t feel compelled to act on their guilt (James 2:17).

I moved to my partner’s state and decided I would try to find my faith without the use of Mass, or celebration. I would audit all of my traditions so that everything I did actually had meaning for me. No senseless Easter liturgy if I was doing out of obligation; My faith, and my practice, was about to become deeply personal. What I did or did not do was no business of anyone else’s, but a moral duty to myself and my conscience. I sat with the discomfort of realizing that I had a lot more charity work to do with all the extra time I gained skipping weekly mass. I would also have to become more immediately accountable for my personal flaws now I didn’t have a place to quietly shelve my weaknesses Monday to Saturday. There was no more confession or reconciliation, no rites of forgiveness or prayers to wipe clean my soul for a fresh new year. I’d have to live with the consequences of every decision, every belief, and every action I took from that point onwards. It felt confronting, but freeing, as I tentatively took those brave first steps into the world of secular accountability.

Then, a few months before I turned 25, the Pell case hit the Australian community like a freight train. A famous cardinal who led the church for decades was convicted of child sex offences, was now publicly held to account and the public reacted accordingly.

This opened a lot of old wounds for many who were raised Catholic, not least myself. The education I had been giving myself for five years in an attempt to distance myself from organised religion faltered as memories of my family church and their interactions with Pell were revisited. The nepotistic practices of whole families supporting parishes, the unpaid labor of women who single-handedly ran their local organisations, and those who protected men who abused their power while sporting the priest’s collar, were all fresh in my mind. The inherently sexist structure of the church, the vulnerability of its parishioners, and the corruption which no doubt continues to occur, became the topic of very public discussion. My husband, rightly horrified, thanked me profusely for all the work I’ve done to leave Catholicism and find greater inner meaning to my life.

Part of me felt like the work I’ve been doing to become more authentically spiritual doesn’t feel like enough in the face of the years of questions I was forced to not-ask. The implicit assumptions my whole family had about the clergy they supported. To this day, asking about my great-uncle’s innocence as a parish priest would cause an uproar. But as his grand-niece, wouldn’t I have the right to know? As his direct relative, don’t I have the responsibility to question? Alas, given the fact that my family ex-communicated me faster than my church did, the opportunity to ask these questions has long since passed. And instead I’m left with the haunted sensation that I was just one powerful relative away from abuse. One watchful elder away from lifelong trauma. That the oppressive structures my family raised me on put me at immense risk.

*

The response of church spokespeople have done nothing to make me feel better about any of this, either. If anything, it has reinforced my decision to leave. I feel incredibly vindicated that my decision six years ago was the right one. As a consequence of this decision I do not have to stand beside the Church as it clumsily attempts to dig itself out of this situation. I do not have to sit through an insincere sermon during Lent where priests attempt to distance themselves from the abusive structures they benefit from. I do not have to commiserate with individuals in the aisles as they wonder where it all went wrong, how their trust could be so betrayed, and what to do next. I emptied my pew years ago; what I did next was take ultimate responsibility for my moral development and seek independence from pre-scripted sermons on conveniently posed topics that will go ignored by the entire hall gathered to hear them. That the quality of my character will not be measured by a yardstick written centuries before I was born because I choose to remove abstract ‘I should’ with the concrete ‘I will’.

If I want to have a conversation with an eternal deity, I am perfectly capable of centering myself and saying hello on my own.

And you know what? I kind of did.

Cue a timely visit to my partner’s homeland, replete with temples and traditions which are just as inscrutable to Catholicism as Catholicism is to them. I was guided through the traditions and beliefs of my partner’s family – what animism means to them, rituals around birth and death and the milestones in between. The more I learned, the more it made sense. Sure, there were some historical practices I disagree with. Many of those practices are (obviously) out of vogue these days.

Given that I no longer identified as Christian, I decided to dip my toes into the faith and family which had welcomed me without hesitation. Without the judgement I was used to hearing from Christian parishioners growing up. I did some research on an appropriate temple and deity to visit, made my pilgrimage, and soaked in the sights. Then, I tossed a coin, clapped my hands, and said a little prayer.

In the moment I stood there, silent with my heart full of wishes, I felt the same connection I used to feel in church when I was small. Something listening to those wishes. Someone who inhabited that temple. They may not have gone by the name I was taught to use as a child but it felt like they responded to me nonetheless. I grabbed a fortune reading from a local stall, put it in my wallet as instructed, and went on my way. I felt an immense sense of peace and satisfaction after visiting that temple. I felt right…for the first time in years.

Was it the same deity I’d been praying to in my youth? I somehow doubt it. But, on the off-chance that it was, I wouldn’t need much convincing. It’s difficult to name the sensation of a familiar silence that lands on your shoulders as you pray. An overwhelming sense of peace as you stand there and reach out to the untouchable something in the cosmos. As I left the temple grounds and headed home I felt a sense of clarity that had been missing for a while. A confidence in myself – I didn’t have to shrink from calling myself a ‘pagan’ if it encompassed my experiences. It wasn’t a dirty word. I enjoy that feeling immensely.

It’s been over six years now and I haven’t set foot in a church other than to attend a family friend’s wedding. I did not receive communion. I opted out of the priest’s blessing. I didn’t need it. The buildings might be pretty but my faith and my spirituality doesn’t live in there anymore. It lives out there – in the mountains, in the air, in the quiet places that possess a certain sacredness instinctive to most of us, like big libraries or dense bush land.

The deity and spirits I send messages to don’t talk back – but they don’t need to. I’m content standing still for a moment with a wish in my heart and sending it out into the aether in the hopes it can come true. You can give it a go yourself, if you want. You can even tell Whoever’s Listening that I said hi.