Starting Again
By Tammy Grim
Happy 2005 everyone! It’s funny, as I write that sentence, one that is generally befitting at the beginning of a new year; I can’t help but feel that I am not so happy. I would categorize my feelings of this New Year more…empathy. Wow, that word does not capture the emotion I feel either. I looked up the word “empathy” in Webster’s and the actual definition says “Identification with and understanding of the thoughts and feelings of another.” That is not quite what I feel for the many people affected by the devastation of the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Like many other people around the world, I find myself completely immersed in the pain and sorrow of the collective human soul. Let me explain.
This January newsletter is focusing on renewal. I am a person on a pathway of not only renewal of Spirit, but total reconstruction of Spirit. I am in the process of tearing down the whole structure and starting all over again. I am sifting through the rubble and deciding what is worth keeping and what needs to be thrown away or retooled. In the past, when something as harrowing as this force of nature happened, I would have felt great empathy, done what I could financially, said some prayers, gone to Church, talked to my children about this tragedy and gone on with life. All good, but somehow removed and set apart from the pain.
I was born Catholic but not raised that way, per se. Yes, I went through all the sacraments, went to Mass on special holidays (Christmas and Easter) and I attended parochial schools. My mother was, thankfully, more open to allowing me to feel out other religions. I was allowed to go to church with my non-Catholic friends and free to believe non-Catholic beliefs. However, there was not a lot of room for non-Christian thought. I don’t think that was because she was against non-Christian thought, but more because of pure lack of knowledge.
Once I had children of my own I began to feel the need to raise them with traditional “good ole American values” and that meant among other things, church on a regular basis. I had to decide how “Church” was going to fit into my family life. I began to study Catholicism and found myself in love with the Church and all its teachings. It fed me in so many ways, some of them not good.
I was a very good Catholic and did the guilt thing exceptionally well. I found myself going to confession almost every week confessing the same sins over and over again because of my unshakable guilt. I was drowning in guilt. I looked forward to suffering and offered it all up to God for the penance of my sins and the sins of others. I knew that I would never be able to do enough penance on earth to pay for my sins and thanked God for the gift of Purgatory. That cleansing fire would save my soul and I would be able to be with Him in heaven some day.
I was also very good at the arrogance game. I had read and studied so much that I began to think I had it all figured out. I knew the path to heaven. I began to feel sorry for anyone who was not a Catholic. I tried relentlessly to convert my husband (who was a teen born again Christian, non-denominational) so that we could all be true believers of the one true Church of Christ together. I surrounded myself with others who believed my way. These staunch religious beliefs lead me to be politically ultra conservative. Arrogance surrounded not only my spiritual life but my political views as well. I was in the zone and narrowing in on what I thought was the perfect belief system. Little did I know, I was not narrowing in on the perfect system, I was just narrowing my own mind and heart. I could not understand how other people could not see this truth staring them right in the face. I was on the top of my righteous mountain! And do you know what happens to people who are on top of the righteous mountain? They have a very long way to fall.
Fall, I did. I happened to pick up a book called The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. I am sure many of you have read it. Now, you have to know two things about me. 1) I can’t not finish a book. 2) I am a research freak. I have to be able to put two and two together and it add up to four. I am also the type of person who is either in the library or the bookstore several times a week. So, I saw this book when it arrived at the book store. I looked at it, felt almost drawn to it for months before I picked it up. For any of you who have read it you will understand how I could have been so deeply disturbed by the book. It was not the idea that Jesus might not have been the way I was taught, but more the idea that the Church might not be what I had come to believe. Suddenly, I was in the middle of my own personal Tsunami. My perfectly perfected spiritual world was being washed away and all I could do was sit in shock and watch it all disappear. I was falling off my mountain.
For about a year, I could not pray, could not talk to God or talk about politics or religion. God waited for me patiently and lovingly. He handed me the tools to rebuild my spiritual world. I began to open up my mind. Little by little I understood there were other valid ways of thinking. I was not going to hell because I did not follow the path of the Catholic Church. The God I believed in could not be that cruel. He does not exclude people because they don’t follow a particular faith. One does not make the other wrong. It is all about perspective. I was on my way to viewing life and the afterlife with a much broader and more forgiving scope.
I am still growing and maybe I will be learning and evolving my belief systems for the rest of my life. Throughout this process, I have been fortunate to have a good friend of mine who had been going through the same spiritual quest for much longer than I have and is much farther down the road to understanding. She is my earthly “spiritual guide.” She listens as I rant and continues to help me to piece together what I believe. The one thing that seems to continue to stand out in my mind when we talk is that we are all one. We are all connected in this immense universe. Even those half way around the globe are part of who we are. No matter how different our personal belief or political systems may be, no matter how different our perspective heritages and cultures may be, we are undeniably connected. To spend time judging each other is futile. My judgment of others said more about me than about those I was judging.
So maybe the better word to describe how I feel for those who have been affected by the Tsunami is “sympathy- a relationship between individuals in which whatever effects one effects the other in a similar way. Mutual understanding and affection. The capacity to share another’s feelings. A feeling or expression of sorrow for another’s distress or loss. Compassion. Today, my need to pray for the victims is more than just a prayer for them and the souls that have been lost. It is a prayer for all of us. That we all play our parts knowing that we are one connected people. Every tragedy gives each one of us an opportunity to grow and be better than we were before. This is my prayer this 2005. Let us all come together in compassion, mutual understanding and affection for our fellow world mates this year. Let us renew our commitment to peace and make a concerted effort to understand each other instead of judging each other for our religious, cultural, or political views. May this be a Happy 2005 for all!