Catholic Guilt, the Spiritual Experience

In 6th grade I went on a church retreat with my best friend at the time, Kelsey Wise. The retreat was held in a large ballroom in a comfortable hotel with a water park in the vast expanse of hotels-with-water-parks that is Wisconsin Dells. I guess the idea was that the kids (like me) could come to the retreat, learn about Jesus, but also go on water slides. Dope.

I don't remember much from the retreat, besides a lot of standing around and listening to Christian rock bands. But one thing has always stood out to me from this weekend. The woman who hosted the retreat spoke on the first night. She was a tall, heavy-set woman with long, bleach-blonde hair, and a kind of voice that is so expressive that it’s a little cheesy. In her speech, she went through the whole "God loves everybody" spiel and talked for a bit about the Bible, and to be honest I wasn’t listening very carefully. But then she said this: "I can feel God in this room with us tonight." Maybe I was religiously deprived before this, or maybe I had just never noticed anyone ever saying this before. She can feel God? How do you feel God? Holding my composure, I slowly began to panic on the inside. I read the Bible, I went to church, I went to "Jesus camp," I did my religion homework, and yet all this time I was supposed to be feeling something? What was I doing wrong?

The collection of memories and church functions that altogether make up my “religious journey” has been more of a frustrating series of struggles than a fulfilling series of "spiritual experiences." Maybe struggle is not the right word, so much as a giant attempt, an unsuccessful endeavor, a test that I didn’t pass. Even the experiences themselves should probably not be described as religious, unless of course you’re talking about the fact that I may have been inside a church at the time and there may have been some kind of religious leader there. And they definitely should not be described as spiritual.

Because aside from a couple of awe-inspired moments in grandiose European churches and cathedrals (that were, of course, built by human beings) and feelings of intense guilt that Catholicism has a way of inducing, I have never really "felt" God the way so many others say they do. And it has always made me feel bad and kind of out of place at church events and ceremonies, and I never knew how many other people there felt the same way. And this is not really something you just ask.

I always enjoyed religion classes in elementary school. My teacher was one of those people who spoke about everything related to God as if it was the most intense and important thing in the world, and his giant gray mustache helped to make every lesson quite dramatic. His lecture about the night before Jesus was hung on the cross- “he was literally sweating blood”- was pretty life-changing, except that it did more to freak me out[1] than it did to make me appreciate Jesus dying for my sins. Once we started growing up and they started giving us work to do and philosophical questions to answer, I began to dislike it. The problem was, I was a really good student. I got all A’s (or all “3’s” and “4’s” in the time before letter grades). I never got in trouble, and I rarely had the wrong answer. Which is why religion class got me all mixed up. This was a class, and that there was homework with “right” and “wrong” answers. But wait, wasn’t your relationship with God supposed to be personal? Well, yes, of course, it was, but I didn’t actually have a personal relationship with God and thus did not have the answers to their questions. When we got around to talking about our personal spiritual experiences I said (or wrote) what I knew they wanted to hear. I gave them the right answers like I did in school, because that was what I was used to and because there was no way I was about to bring up something that went against the church, that didn’t fit the Catholic mold.

I started to get it, that I wasn’t fostering real spirituality, that I was just going through the motions. I got it but this also made it much more confusing. I was going to church, teaching Sunday school[2], getting confirmed in the Catholic Church, going to Bible camp. But was I building any sort of relationship with God, finding any sort of purpose in all of it? Life was so much easier when my Sunday School teacher was telling me God would love me no matter what, that I was doing a really good job at cutting a Christmas tree from a template and pouring glitter glue all over it. I thought all I had to do was follow the Golden Rule and obey my parents and I would go to Heaven.[3] Now I couldn’t support a woman’s right to get an abortion, I couldn’t support gay marriage, I couldn’t gossip, and I actually was supposed to talk to God every morning and every night, not to ask Him for things but to thank Him for everything he’s given me.[4] I was supposed to change my opinions into God’s opinions (or what the Catholic church thinks God’s opinions are) and then thank Him for it. There was no way this was happening.

The trouble was, it was just too easy to fake. Sure, I could’ve sat down with my family and told them I didn’t believe this shit and that I quit.[5] But it was much easier not to deal with the emotion of having a serious talk with my parents- of telling them I don’t believe in something they’ve spent their whole lives worshipping. Well, maybe not they’re whole lives. I’ve actually always been a little unsure as to the extent of my parents’ religiosity. They both grew up Catholic, my mother is in a church choir, we celebrate Christian holidays, etc. but after a childhood of Sunday school and religion classes, we became strictly Christmas and Easter church-goers, we stopped praying before meals, and the word God itself was rarely heard around the house. But I highly doubt the “this is bullshit and I’m done with it” spiel would’ve gone over well with my extended family.

My grandmother’s nickname is “The Saint.” She goes to church every day, and never fails to remind me that she prays for me every time she goes (which, even though I have found no personal fulfillment in prayer, I still think is a very nice gesture). My aunt and uncle, unlike my parents, go to church every Sunday, and my cousin’s wedding was like, 90 percent Mass.[6] Obviously keeping the family happy and living up to their expectations is important to me. Maybe less because I respect their opinion and love them above all else and more because I do everything in my power to avoid awkward family reunions, but it’s important nonetheless.[9] So I decided to keep doing the religious thing. And this got easier after a while, partially because I got really good at it with practice, and partially because, unless you’re trying to become a priest or something, your responsibilities as a Catholic dramatically decrease after you’ve been confirmed.[10] So my religious history since that fateful day of Confirmation goes a little something like this: 1. Going to church on Christmas Eve with my family 2. This one time I got way too drunk and begged God to please, please, please, just let me throw up so I could feel better[11]. 3. Pretending I still don’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent when I’m around my extended family. And that’s about it.

One issue that always plagued me was prayer. In fact, after middle school, I gave up on prayer. My religion teacher told the class to pray every night before we went to sleep, which, because I prided myself on being a very good student both in school and in church, is something I tried to do for years. But every time I started, my mind would wander off or I would fall asleep. There were various solutions for this, of course: "write out your prayers,” Mrs. Hunt would say, or “choose a couple of prayers you like and say those." I suppose I tried everything, and some nights when I really wanted something I would furrow my eyebrows and clasp my hands so tightly together that my intertwined fingers would turn to white, as if these arbitrary actions would somehow catapult my wishes up to Heaven and funnel them directly into God's ear. Surprisingly[12], this didn’t seem to work.

Studies show that deep prayer and mediation show strong activation in the frontal lobe- which handles concentration and attention- and the limbic system-which deals with intense feelings such as rapture. People that consistently pray or mediate for years have bigger frontal lobes (which improves memory) than those that don’t. Prayer is also associated with a lack of activity in the parietal lobe. The parietal lobe handles your orientation in time and space- it gives your body a set of boundaries. Reducing activity in this part of the brain produces feelings of being “at one with the universe” as you lose your sense of time and space. These three areas working together create a powerful spiritual experience. So there could’ve been a variety of issues; my frontal lobe was not fully developed (and wouldn't be until 25 or so), and this limited my ability to pray “deeply.” Maybe my parietal lobe was too active. I did always feel like I was very aware of my surroundings when I tried to pray. It’s entirely possible that there is something off with the wiring in my brain, but I think I stopped praying because it made me feel crazy. I was lying there, whispering to myself and getting no answer. Not that I was expecting a deep booming voice to respond from above (that would mean I was actually crazy, right?), but I was expecting something more. Something more than the darkness and nothingness that I prayed to.

The third Google result for “religion,” with 11 million views on YouTube, is George Carlin’s “Religion is bullshit.”  He says, “When it comes to bullshit, big time major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe, in awe, of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion.” The crowd erupts into cheers and applause. Sometimes I think when I tell someone I’m not religious, this rather abrasive take on religion is how they think I see religion.[13] But I’m not one of those people who hates religion and everything it stands for. Sure, I don’t enjoy the fact that it has started countless wars and people use it as an excuse to kill other people. But I’m not going to sit here and deny that it gives people comfort and it can give people a purpose to live. And what am I, a religious scholar? I don’t know if God exists. Just because I’ve never “felt him in a room” doesn’t mean he’s a big fake. And I don’t agree with the I-don’t-believe-in-God-because-I-can’t-see-Him thing. Sure, it’s a dent in His credibility, but the fact that you can’t actually see him means you can’t prove he doesn’t exist just like you can’t really prove he does. I am under the very strong belief[14] that God might exist and maybe religious people have it all figured out, or that he may not exist and religious people have it all completely wrong. I believe this classifies me as “agnostic”; I don’t have anything against religion itself. In fact, religion has quite a few benefits, especially health-wise. Here is a list of examples:

·      Highly religious people have a life expectancy of seven years longer than non-religious people. (My mom likes to pull this one out every once in a while as if she’s happy that we, as Christians, are part of some exclusive club of expanded life span).

·      Higher amounts of prayer leads to lower pain levels

·      People that attend religious services have less chance of dying within a year 

·      People that believe in God have better success with treating illnesses and overcoming disease (My grandma, The Saint, has beaten cancer on three separate occasions).

·      Religion is also good for mental health: highly religious people have higher self-esteem, are more optimistic, have more sense of purpose, they feel positive emotions more frequently and are more satisfied with their life.

·      They are better prepared to deal with stress, including various stressors such as disease, divorce, and grief.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to be religious? The problem is, this could be a completely false sense of happiness- an illusion that someone is making things right. But then again, if that's how you beat cancer, then, great. Amazing, actually. There’s nothing wrong with it, except… your happiness and healthiness could be based on a lie. Is that a problem, or not? [15]

Sociologist Robert Hummer says the health benefits could be explained by the fact that people in religious communities are “more likely to rely on one another for friendship, support, rides to doctor’s appointments.” Also, the act of even walking into a church or house of worship, with pleasant sights, particular smells, friendly faces, and calming music set up the brain and body for healing (not to mention many churches promote healthy diet and exercise).

There have been thousands of studies of the effect of prayer on illness, most of which say more prayer equals less illness: people get over the illness faster, have a lower chance from dying from it, etc. To me, there are explanations for this as well; the first being having a social group to rely on. A form of support, through social connections is always comforting and makes people feel calm, and important. Believing that a higher being is watching out for you is also key; at the end of the day, if you have lost everything, and you still believe there is a God that loves you and will make things right again, this most definitely cause for hope and optimism. Acts of charity (which are often church-related) also connect people to their communities and make them feel good about themselves. And if you get sick, a paradise-like life after death wouldn’t seem so bad. Losing a friend or family member to this paradise is also a comforting thought.

In every study, a crucial detail is whether or not you have told the participants whether or not they’re being prayed for. If they know whether they are in the control group or the prayer group, the placebo effect will make the data completely useless. People that think (or know) that others are praying for them will fare much better, which reinforces the idea that treating illness is can be very mind over matter- and religion does help out the “mind” part.

            My last-ditch effort at spirituality came with Confirmation. I figured that as long as I was committing myself to the Catholic church for life[16] I would make some attempt to try and find a relationship with God. I looked around the Cathedral at all the other kids my age, most of whom went to my high school, many of whom I knew did things on weekends no good Catholic would approve of. They, like me, were probably there because their parents had signed them up for Confirmation classes in the 5th grade, and this was the expected trajectory for youth that regularly attend St. Odilia Church. I sat in the pew in between my parents in my new tan-and-black Banana Republic dress, my hair teased and re-brushed into a messy half-pony[17] and I silently prayed for one last time. I asked that just once, He would make His presence known to me, that when I walked up to the priest and committed the rest of my life to Him (at least ceremonially), that would feel something. So yes, I asked for a sign from God, which I have never admitted to anyone.[18] I walked up the aisle with my Confirmation sponsor, my older sister Jill, half-anticipating a blinding light, or a rush of overwhelming emotions, or maybe a vision, Joan-of-Arc style? I reached the priest. He said some words, which I have since forgotten, and put some ashes on my forehead in the shape of a cross, and I walked back to my pew. I watched my classmates get herded up to the priest like cattle where they would do exact same thing. It began to sink in that my religious awakening wasn’t coming today. Just like everything else having to do with religion, I did what I was supposed to do.

"Humans, for better or worse, require meaning and purpose in their lives, and religion address that fundamental need.” People have asked for thousands of years what the meaning of life is, and why humans are on earth. Religion answers these questions and even gives meaning the mundane and tiny details of everyday life, but also the hardships and rare disasters. Everything happens for a reason if there is a God and he has a plan.[19]

This is why I think religion is such an emotional experience- it deals with fear. People fear death, and people fear spiders, but most of all, what people fear is the unknown. And the world is so big, and the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, no one knows why, and what is dark matter? Nobody knows. Maybe the reason that people have faith, belief in something they can’t touch or see, is because there have always been unknowns and there always will be unknowns, and God fills this unknown. Belief in the unknown is nothing remarkable- and when you turn that unknown into something good, into something divine, into Heaven, well that is just peachy. In fact, it’s safe. Why worry about something you can’t change when you believe that it is part of God’s plan? That’s always been my view on why people are religious.

But this still doesn’t explain my predicament. I’m no more knowledgeable about the ways of the world or the happenings of the future than anyone else, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of death. So why hasn’t religion offered me any comfort?

A molecular biologist named Dean Hamer at the National Cancer Institute may have an answer for me. He claims that spirituality is in our genes. Not only is it genetic, but it is also adaptive, meaning that it maximizes our reproductive success. He tested this using surveys of participants level of spirituality or “self-transcendence,” which consists of self-forgetfulness- “getting lost” in the experience, transpersonal identification- feeling connected the universe, and mysticism- feeling open to the supernatural or unbelievable. According to Hamer, the combination of these three things allows “kind of experience described as religious ecstasy.”

In the gene he suspects is responsible for human spirituality, a gene known as VMAT2 (which also codes for production of the neurotransmitters that regulate mood), variations in nucleic acids directly correlated to the results of the self-transcendence test. People with cytosine in a certain base pair corresponded to high levels of spirituality, people with adenine in this same base pair were less likely to feel self-transcendence.[20] The ability to feel spiritual was not always paired with active religiosity, but it was much more likely.

Hamer is not the only scientist who believes in a genetic relation to religion. Studies of identical twins show that they are twice as likely to be similar in their spiritual beliefs than fraternal twins. Most interestingly, in both these studies, belief about spirituality or feelings of transcendence were not always linked with active religiosity- observing rituals, attending services, etc. To me, this shows that the practice of organized religion is mostly based on our community, our upbringing, our family’s observance of these practices, our culture, and our influences from peers and friends- in other words- our environment.

So yes, I was brought up in an environment in which I attended church, I made it through four of the seven Sacraments of the Catholic religion (57 percent isn’t bad), I’ve seen the Pope in person at the Vatican, for Christ’s sake (no pun intended)[21]. But I’ve never felt a thing. And this has always made me feel bad, and less moral, and I’ve always felt like I was just going through the motions, faking my relationship with God. But just like the way people take comfort in knowing God loves them, I now take comfort in knowing that I was never doing anything wrong, I’m not morally hindered in some way; I could just have adenine on one of the base pairs in my VMAT2 gene instead of cytosine.

There are somewhere around 4,200 religions in the world. Depending on different experts' estimates, 77 to 99 percent of the world's population is religious, with Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism attracting the most followers. Some languages do not even have a word for religion because it is so ingrained in their culture that they do not consider it to be a distinct aspect of the human experience. There are millions many priests, pastors, spiritual leaders, nuns, monks, bishops, not to mention churches, cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, temples, that have been built by thousands of men for thousands of years. I've personally walked through rooms of world-famous museums with an endless number of religious paintings, sculptures, tapestries, and artifacts. Religion is so big, so widespread, it’s almost too much to comprehend.

And this has bothered me, it has gnawed at the inside of my soul for my entire life; every time I pass a church or see a Jesus bumper sticker I think about it and I have cringed. Because what if it’s all for nothing? What is there is no God, there are no gods, what if this whole thing is a scam? All these people that have sacrificed everything, spent their whole lives devoting all their time and passion to their religion. What if they’re all wrong? And I know, I know, there’s that thing called faith. Growing up Catholic, no one ever questioned God’s existence, and I certainly wasn’t about to. Faith was always there to fill the gap that is physical evidence of God’s existence. I guess my faith was just never big enough to fill the hole.

This used to make me feel inadequate. It used to drive me a little crazy. But I’ve now come to the very intellectual and eloquent conclusion of so what? So what if some people are religious and I’m not? I mean, the presidential candidates who try way too hard to prove that they are more Christian than their opponent, that they are more Christian that anyone else on Earth[22] and the fact that religion continues to be such an important factor the way we vote and in the way our government runs (despite the fact that it is supposed to be separated from the church) will always bother me. The people that use religion as an excuse to hate gay people and to blow up buildings or even to put themselves on a pedestal will always bother me. But I don’t see this changing any time soon, and I don’t see myself devoting my life to God any time soon. So until I have some kind of religious hallucination and decide that I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and start my own religious cult,[23] I’m completely content to keep living my life without religion. I don’t go to church, I don’t pray, and a belief in a higher being does not give me any sort of added validation or meaning to my life. I base my actions on what I think is moral and what I think is right, not on a numbered list of commandments or a Bible passage, and this seems to be working out for me. I acknowledge religion’s existence and its legitimacy and I will support my friends and family who look to God for comfort and purpose (or any reason they want). I just don’t need it, and I don’t feel any sort of Catholic guilt about that (anymore).

[1] Sweating blood? People can sweat blood?

[2] I guess I somehow mastered the spiritual proficiency to pass on some kind of religious knowledge to a class of tiny, malleable minds, via construction-paper “Jesus Loves You” candy canes and 30-second Jesus songs during which about 20 percent of the class actually sang.

[3] That is at least the way I understood it.

[4] I haven’t been to Confirmation in almost five years, but I can’t not capitalize “him” when referring to God. This may go back to the “good student” thing I talked about earlier.

[5] Hopefully not exactly like that, though, because if it rhymed it would just be tacky.

[6] Which made it awkward for the non-Catholics in attendance. Mental note to not ever let my wedding become overly religious.

[7] We don’t.

[8] I’m a notoriously bad liar.

[9] This sentence makes me feel like a horrible person.

[10] A little ironic, right? You’ve committed your life to the Church, now do whatever the fuck you want. (Okay, it’s not really like that, but that’s how I took it.)

[11] That is one prayer I can confidently say was answered.

[12] This is one of those times that “sarcasm font” would be very useful.

[13] Especially if they are particularly religious themselves.

[14] And by “very strong” I of course mean “very ambivalent.”

[15] As you can probably tell.

[16] Which is something that back in the day, elementary-schoolers used to do. Can you believe that? Committing yourself to a religion for life probably isn’t the best idea for a 15-year-old, let alone an 8-year-old, but I guess that’s the Church for you.

[17] Which now seems a very odd hairstyle for the Cathedral.

[18] And, aside from the readers of this essay, I will probably never tell anyone, ever.

[19] Which he should, right? Being God and all?

[20] I’m so happy I took Intro to Genetics last year.

[21] Actually, pun totally intended.

[22] Cough, Rick Perry, cough.

[23] I am still waiting for my “sign” I asked for at my Confirmation. The ball’s in your court, God.