My Relationship with Religion - "Trouble Started when the Word Was Made Flesh"
I wasn’t sure whether he was watching over me or staring with disappointment at my aversion for sacred statues. A clay Jesus was surrounded by the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Sorrow and all kinds of other figures - yet I couldn’t grasp why one would need to see their God in a fake physical form to feel a deeper connection to Him.
My dad walked past, raised his eyebrows and scoffed at the figurines. I signalled to him to shut up, terrified both the statues and the homeowners would hear him.
My mum’s aunt lived in that house with her two nieces, who were lay nuns, and we all went to visit every June 24th for her name-day.
That time Aunt Gianna was saying she had already donated her house to the church. Some make a vow of poverty, and often renounce their properties to give them to a Catholic institution.
All that my parish priest had done with people’s donations, though, is cover the crucifix in gold. I wasn’t quite sure how that would work, but probably Jesus would feel flattered and improve the fate of the poor around the world. So either Aunt Gianna really hoped for the best, or she liked to fool herself.
My mum said her Aunt had softened up over time. She told us about how my grandparents couldn’t afford any sweets when she was a child, yet Aunt Gianna could and she gave loads of them to the two who would become lay nuns, whilst limiting the amount of sweets my mum and her siblings could get. So my mum stole some for everyone, unleashing her Aunt’s fury.
We’re all humans and fragile, but Aunt’s Gianna ostentation of her credo in contrast with her actions left a eight-year-old child like me questioning what it meant to be religious.
Once we left her house, we could go back to being sinners who swore, didn’t go to church every Sunday, and talked and joked about sex in front of and with their kids.
At the time, I went to catechism, and my catechists were a couple who lived in my building.
They taught the parables of Jesus forgiving prostitutes and thieves, while not being able to peacefully share the same living space with others, and splitting us should we exchange a brief chat with the kid sitting next.
To make sure we were focused, they made us read in turn: they would call our name and we would have to start from the last sentence that had been read. The worry of being caught unengaged for a moment overcame the pleasure of learning and discussing about religion.
In the years that followed, they wouldn’t even acknowledge me when we bumped into each other, as if they weren’t supposed to be the people who got me closer to God – cause, indeed, they weren’t.
I got home one day and told my mum I didn’t want to go to catechism anymore.
Generally, I struggled with the fact that I felt I had to plunge into silence, fear and nothingness to be considered a true observer of God’s law.
My mum, instead, was herself all along; she talked to Jesus in her bedroom, and at times got mad at him. She admitted to being an imperfect believer, but she was ready for God’s judgment. She followed his law, yet she didn’t listen to the rules imposed by people in His name whenever those rules might have a bad impact on another human being.
Maybe she couldn’t do otherwise with a son who would obviously reveal his homosexuality one day, and a daughter who had been unconsciously practicing witchcraft since a young age.
I never saw my dad talk to God, and I knew he’d rather explore some new place on a Sunday morning than go to church. He claimed to be a believer with no faith in the Catholic institutions, but I wasn’t sure about his relationship with God either.
One Sunday he brought us to a convent a few miles from home. It was immersed in nature, and had a farm; nuns and monks stayed there together, living off their own products.
At the mass, they all sang joyous songs, danced and smiled. For the first time, I saw religion not as denial of self, but as communion with God through celebration of life, and I saw my dad happy to be in church.
I kept going to catechism, and received all my sacraments with the conviction each one would bring me closer to God. The Ten Commandments all made and still make sense to me.
I tried to capture the meanings of the sacred scriptures and to connect to God through the power of words said with intention, and He did hear me.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Trouble started when the Word was made flesh, and later had to be represented by common people who held sacred roles.
The attitude of the religious people I’d met, the Crusades, the Inquisition, sexual scandals and pedophilia inside the Vatican – growing up, the hypocrisy I spotted in those who claimed to be true believers and servants of God obscured His image and replaced it with that of people.
My mum always said I would lose faith if I focused on that. But that’s not why I lost faith. Deep down, I now know I never lost faith, I lost my religion.
Since I was a child, I felt not only the need but the constant presence of a connection between me and everything else. I instinctively knew I was born out of a blank space where I was one with the Universe.
I sensed things, I was fascinated by the symbolism of the occult, I cast luck spells on my family, and I was obsessed with Native American cultures; I felt something move inside me every time I listened to their music and chants on one of my dad’s old vinyl.
I also talked and wrote to my guardian angel, and he talked back through signs. Yet I’d never read or heard anything about angels before, except for a little medal I was given at birth depicting an angel watching over a baby in a cradle.
The human being has known he’s not alone in this world since day zero - that’s how myths came about. The Olympians, for instance, represent the different facets of all that is. They punish and reward, they get betrayed, they kill and curse, love and suffer, just like God. Yet, the monotheistic God is depicted as the one and only perfect being.
“Humans have always come up with stories to explain those invisible powers that make up the world” is what teachers said in school when talking about mythology, thus leaving me perplexed when they claimed The Bible was all a true story, and that God only did bad things for everyone’s good, while the Olympians were just fragile beings indulging in naughty activities for their own sake.
The disillusionment that comes with puberty pushed me away from “magic”, yet I could even believe in a story that seemed to have been rewritten in different sauces, but I couldn’t accept that all religions competed over the veracity of each other’s story for their own convenience.
Nonetheless, I was still in search of meaning. The answers, or better, the questions started coming when I got introduced to the study of philosophy in high school.
First thing my teacher did was warn us we could lose our faith through philosophy, and I remember being scared that I would lose my God once and for all.
The difference between religion and philosophy is that one gives answers as dogmas and the other poses questions.
At the time, though, I didn’t quite grasp the thoughts of some philosophers, because they, too, often fall in the trap of an absolute truth as the answer to their questions - yet I realised how important is to ask yourself those questions.
Many philosophies present God as a metaphysical being with no anthropomorphic features, and no stories of prophets, which is how I’d always imagined God to be.
So, they say, if we’re able to think about God, he can’t be something above, something separate, and with complete control over everything else - but that’s what my God appeared to be.
I gradually stopped going to church, then I stopped praying, and I stopped believing in a story that I considered equal to many others.
However, I never took leave from RE at school although it was optional. I claimed to be an atheist, and I was eager to understand why one would believe, so I asked my teacher, a priest, a thousand questions.
What I liked about him was his transparency in admitting that he didn’t always live as he taught, starting with his bad smoking habit. He answered my questions with patience, yet I was never convinced.
I believe those who lose faith in anything will lose their way at one point. And that’s how I ended up with depression, going to therapy at 18.
I was absorbed into terrestrial things, which could only make me feel whole up to a certain point. As an atheist, nothing is sacred. Looking back, I wonder if one can actually survive in a world where he considers nothing to be sacred.
A few years later, therapy was over and I was at a low point in my life, just dropped out of university and with no job or prospect. I packed my stuff and travelled to the UK within a fortnight.
In Windsor, I worked as a nanny for a Catholic family. Back then I felt guilty anytime someone with a strong faith asked me about mine. Yet I felt understood and, somehow, literally blessed when my hostess’ sister told me “I’m sure you’ll find God again”.
I used to take long walks in the moors around their house, where I could take my time to think.
Being distant from all that I loved the most, I was capable to finally appreciate it. I also felt privileged to be in a place where everything seemed to have been put there for me to contemplate it. I’d found something almost sacred, and all seemed to happen for a reason.
I felt the presence of a protective energy anytime I got lost or had to face something difficult by myself. It guided me, and sent helpers in the form of regular people, leaving me a bit incredulous - but that’s when I decided to entrust myself to it.
My mum said she prayed for me anytime she felt I was lost; for her it was Jesus, for me it was my guardian angel who had never left, but had stepped back to teach me that one can’t walk with no faith in the next step they’re putting forward.
I found my purpose again and started studying in London. If asked, I said I knew Something was out there, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to know its nature.
In London I heard about a new trend amongst Brits and Europeans: Nichiren Buddhism.
As with everything I deem to be a trend, I didn’t even look into it, until one day a friend asked me out while I was on holiday in Italy, and gave me a book on this branch of Buddhism. He said he knew I needed that, although we hadn’t been talking for a while.
I read the book on my way back to London. Subconsciously, I already knew we’re all one, I knew God is inside each and anyone of us, I knew we’re divine but that we’re made of layers we need to ascend - what I didn’t know is that religions which encompass all these beliefs existed.
I attended a few Buddhist meetings, and I started chanting and believing in the mystic law of the Lotus Sutra. There was something about that chanting, especially when done in a group, that lifted my spirit. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. By chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, humans pull out their inner god and connect with it and the whole. I truly felt it, and I still respect that.
But humans cast shadows even upon the brightest light. I saw a few Buddhists chant for more than work towards their goals, and I saw their eagerness in trying to convince others that theirs is the only practice that makes sense and the only way to live a good life. I saw religion often become a tool in human hands.
What’s more, I’m terrible at commitment and time management, hence why I find it hard to be part of a community with fixed rules, meetings and practices, and I’m against proselytism.
Yet, that’s what Nichiren Buddhists wanted me to do. I appreciated my friend opening that door for me because I now know I needed it in my journey to get to where I am today, but that never works unless you want to believe it, or unless your spirit is so weak in that moment that it gives in.
It happened to my mum, after my grandma died. My dad was going through depression, money was really tight, and my mum joined a Jehovah’s Witnesses community.
She left it when she realised “they were tryna brainwash” her, and that “they’re crazy”. She went back to the Catholic Church, but she distanced herself from the institution and tried to get closer to God by herself.
I kept sporadically practising Buddhism on my own for a bit, its philosophy made perfect sense to me, and I believed it to be at the basis of all religions, but I never attended another meeting.
Soon, I found myself meditating but no longer chanting.
At the time, I was studying Heidegger, the concept of interconnectedness and The Epic of Gilgamesh at university. The first establishes art and poetry as the gateway to the Open, to God. The second one tells you you’re one with God and all. The last is one of the first literary works of human history, and it’s crystal clear that the Bible took inspiration from it. Symbolism is at the base of it, as it is the foundation of every sacred text and religion.
Once you’ve deconstructed religion, you can’t go back. But when you’ve learned enough to be able to split religion from philosophy and spirituality, you can’t be an atheist anymore.
I read about Eastern religions and Western philosophies mixing up, Buddhism, Hinduism, Native American spirituality, Egyptian, Celtic and Sumerian beliefs, Wicca and witchcraft. All the pieces of the puzzle of myth, religion, philosophy and spirituality got together. Everything seemed to be, as I’d always thought, a mish mash of stories retold from different perspectives. I went back to using the Word as a means of manipulation of the energy that connects me with God.
I started seeing God in nature, in the others, in music, in symbols - I felt part of the Whole and not an infidel outsider anymore.
It took me a long journey to realise that humans need representation. For the Catholic Church, I was daughter of Eve, sinner of all sinners, mother of Evil, and I was on Earth to be judged by that one and only God above me.
Now I’m the harshest judge of myself, after having ventured into the shadows of being. I was able to step out of my body and look at me through god’s eyes. I came to believe his power is mine.
I understood the need for icons, although I’m still not a big fan, but I have a little altar of mixed up beliefs in my bedroom as my sacred space.
I feel empowered by all the energies inside, around and above me, because we’re one and all.
I now know I’m dark and light, all and nothing, and that’s perfectly fine because this nothingness doesn’t nullify me, but makes me part of the Whole.
I accepted that I contain multitudes, and that I can never wear the shackles of religion again, but that God is real, contains multitudes Itself, and those multitudes are us and all that surrounds us.
To have faith in God, you got to work on having faith in yourself first, because there’s really no difference between yourself and God.
God, for me, is the continuous expansion of mind and evolving of beliefs, because It is the Universe, and the Universe is mind.
My mum is still a strong Catholic believer, and yet we have conversations at night, when I’m home, in which she tells me she understands. And I know that’s true because she gets easily sick of looking at things always from the same perspective – hence why she continuously moves the furniture around.
I know there’s no one way to live a good life, no story truer than the other, but I know faith in Something is what we all need, so let each one have their own representation of the Whole.
Written by Prudenza Lacriola
Prudenza graduated in English Literature and Creative Writing, and she’s now completing her MA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She’s tried different jobs, but can’t stick to a 9 to 5, so at night you can find her serving beer at the pub. She spends her free time (over)thinking, taking walks in nature, and planning the next 5 projects she’s going to work on."
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