I grew up reciting at mass at least once each week
I am not worthy to receive you, only say the word and I shall be healed.
This phrase, more than any other, formed my early understanding about my place in the world. Repeating it each week I came to believe not only that was I unworthy, but also that I was at the mercy of an agent outside myself to heal from this state. I had paid attention, so I was well aware that this agent was capricious and difficult to appease. I knew he had sent his son to help me out. His son had died for me and for my sins, and because of that I should be on my best behavior.
Making my first reconciliation further solidified my beliefs. In this sacrament I learned that by sharing a few of my sins with a priest and doing whatever he prescribed as penance, this agent would forgive me of all my sins; my soul would be pure. I remember confessing, reciting the assigned prayers, and then quickly fucking it all up in an altercation with my younger siblings. I remember thinking my soul’s cleanliness was an all-or-nothing situation and that I was dark with sin once again. I wonder now if this transactional encounter with a God-broker was the beginning of my black and white thinking. I wonder if it was the beginning of my perceived lack of agency. I wonder if this was when I began to back away from the magic of the feminine.
By seven, I had already formed a habit of reciting multiple Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Be’s each night, and I added my own version of prayer:
Please God help me to….
Please God let so and so do ….
Please God, Please God, Please God…
To this day I find myself in a knee-jerk reaction reciting a Hail Mary whenever I hear a siren. When I’m super stressed I’ll throw out an unconscious Please God as well, but other than that, my relationship with my childhood god dwindled to almost nothing by my twenties.
This lack of relationship saddened me when I allowed myself to reflect on it, so mostly I didn’t. But the birth of my first child forced the issue. Would we baptize? Would we raise him in a spiritual community? Would we celebrate Christian holidays? All signals from my body and conversations with my husband led to no. The no man-god-in-the-sky decision was mostly okay, except when I was feeling cultural guilt about not teaching my children about him, or when I was wanting community on a Sunday morning.
Over the years, I’ve let the sadness and guilt fade pretty much into the background, finding my connection and spiritual nourishment on the yoga mat and in circle, the outdoors and sacred ceremony. I’ve cultivated a serious gratitude practice as well as a deep relationship with intention-setting. It wasn’t until I was preparing for a recent circle that I made the connection:
Setting an intention is prayer (but without the guilt of unworthiness, nor the belief in dependency)
This may seem like a major DUH, like most bumper-sticker realizations, but it was a huge opening to me— realizing that I haven’t turned away from God over the years, but rather I have turned toward her—- simply from a place that resonates more profoundly. I have found a way to engage with the divine in a more mature, trusting and less co-dependent manner, a more playful manner. Instead of begging a father figure to grant me what I believe I need, I have been sending desired wishes (prayers it turns out!) into the universe to be used as guiding stars as I act on my own behalf, making decisions aligned with my intentions and following gut instincts and the universe’s winks to lead me in the direction I want to go. As author Liz Gilbert would say, I am a co-conspiring with the universe.
As I say, I am dancing with her!