The Seas of Change :: Let it go, Let it die // Recovering from a Catholic Upbringing

Life is temporary… You will die… then something else will happen.  I am not asinine enough to pretend to know what that will be.

Being raised Catholic in a working class family, it was ‘important’ to follow rules, play it safe, and not challenge the status quo.  Well, at least that is what my parents, teachers, coaches, and caretakers would have liked ((I’ve always been a little different)).

At the age of 15, I realized that something was very wrong with the fabric on which my community had been built.  There were secrets, dark ones… there was abuse, traumatic abuse… there was racism, self hatred, violence, addiction, delusion….  Basically, I realized that everyone around me was flawed, and there wasn’t a damn thing odd about any of it.

The veil of niceties and pretend world of politeness was gone, washed away much like the fake ‘sins’ of all the parishioners who ate Jesus’ body and drank Jesus’ blood every Sunday.  That parish in Baltimore City was a travesty of human disempowerment.  Individuals and families following some sort of archaic routine that no longer served me and seemed as false as the actors in my mother’s favorite soap operas.

I saw that there were lies and deceit and attending church was making people feel better so that they could go back home, cheat on their wives, gamble away their money, use their hard drugs and physically abuse their children ((this was my perception, and it was based on what I heard and knew through the small tight knit community)) It was at this time, still enrolled in a Franciscan all-male high school, I told my mother “I don’t think the god these people believe in would appreciate me being here and judging them all.”

I had been baptized, reconciled, had a first communion, I was even confirmed ((whatever the heck that was supposed to mean)).  Never did this process serve my evolution as a person.  There was no true investment in that small and judgmental sense of God.  The fact is I always felt resentful towards this ‘God’ portrayed to me as a selfish maniacal prick in heaven, a heaven that was always held over my head as some sort of reward for being ‘good’.

Good, however, didn’t really mean much.  It didn’t mean being nice to other people, it didn’t mean being a humanitarian at all.  It never talked about gratitude, it never talked about animal rights, it never talked about being accepting of others or about loving yourself.  This religion that I had been brought up in was utter bullshit.

As someone who has now found a sense of peace and happiness, I cannot imagine a lifestyle more inclined to being in chaotic unrelenting self-judgement then that of the Catholic faith.

Not long after I stopped attending church ((which I was really just doing to appease my mother and help with my sense of guilt which was fostered by the church SMH)) there was an incredibly widespread scandal involving pedophilia and child abuse being carried out by the leaders of the parishes.  UGH, sickening right?

What is my point here?  Why am I drudging up all of this dark and twisted stuff?

EMBRACE THE UNCERTAINTY

This was the backbone of my life, my mother had converted to Catholicism when she met my father.  I was in Catholic schools for 12 years and took part in the sacraments.  I trusted priests with my deepest secrets out of a belief that they could guide me towards salvation.  And, in the end, none of this works for me today.  I have gratitude for my path and all of the teachers along the way, to each their own.  However, everything I believed to be at the core of existence was taken away, and for good reason.  I thought I knew, about the man on the cloud with the beard, about the story of creation and the snake and the apple.

I thought I knew, now twice in my life, that I had found the only person that I would spend the rest of my life with, but alas, things continue to change.  The most challenging aspect of all of it has not been the changes, but my unwillingness to allow the ground to transform beneath my feet.

In the end, you must let go of everything, your body will return to the Earth.

Your best and brightest ideas will be stolen, shared, or lost in time.

Emotions will change, memories will fade,

All vibrations echo out into the vast expanses of nothingness, blending back into the universal whole.

WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF AT ODDS WITH THE SEAS OF CHANGE, REMEMBER THIS…

Time is an illusion, you are experiencing death and rebirth in every moment.  Your breath, your heartbeat, your emotions are all clear and present symbols of this.  To hold onto one breath, or one moment, no matter how beautiful and magical, would be the end of existence itself, it would be to place your being into a frame and hang it on an ever crumbling wall.

Give yourself permission to die to the experience of life, for it is the only way to move on with your life.

To resist the death of the past is to sacrifice the present and condemn the future to hell.

Relationships, jobs, homes, careers, attachments, addictions, they all must die at some point.  Ideally, as we attest in wedding vows, our most meaningful relationship deaths will occur at the time of our physical demise ((to anyone who has made this vow, I wish you the best and send you love)).  However, for most every other experience in life, the physical demise is in no way a demarcation or checkpoint, so expect some part of yourself, your experience to die everyday.

Much like that moment where you knowingly or unknowingly take your last breath, steer clear of regret and be grateful, show grace in the passing of that which you have been blessed to experience.  Somewhere, something is waiting, to fill that beautiful, cultured, loving space with a new and expansive experience.

Don’t expect to know what it is, that would take away the fun…

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James Ray is a gifted Astrologer, Psychic, and Empath with a way of seeing directly into the souls of his clients through the lens of his own heart. Using the clarity of his Aquarian mind he can pinpoint areas that may be problematic for you; and offer grounded and practical advice for looking at these issues.