Religion

My mother took me to summer bible school at the Presbyterian Church in Omak as a social net working activity. I got to know many of the kids my age during those days and I loved watching the movies they would show about the early disciples of Jesus going out to teach the mission of the Holy Spirit. I remember one poignant moment in one of the films where Paul was struck down by God on the road to Damascus and how he was blinded and then became a disciple of Jesus. I loved those period movies with the ancient settings and the donkeys and goats. The women flocking to Jesus were powerful messages of spiritual attraction.

One summer the teachers started a contest where whoever could memorize the chapters of the bible would win a day-glow Jesus sticker. You had to memorize not only the New Testament chapters but the Old Testament chapters as well. I was absolutely determined to win this contest and I studied the names of the chapters all the time and drove my family crazy trying to get them to help me memorize them. Finally my mother took an interest in this contest and sat with me and helped me memorize each and every chapter name perfectly.

I trotted into the school the next day and stood up in front of the class and dazzled everyone with my ability to memorize names. I was so excited to win the day glow Jesus I hadn’t thought through what I was going to do with it. As I was leaving school that day my teacher suggested that I put it on the wall over my bed so that Jesus would always be with me. I thought great that’s what I’ll do with it. I ran home and pasted Jesus on the wall near my bed and then went out and played baseball with the neighbor kids. That night as the light was turned off in my room there was an eerie light hovering over my bed. It was Jesus looking down on me and I was scared to death. What was Jesus doing in my room? It frightened me to death. For the next few months Jesus would haunt me as I lay in my bed afraid to go to sleep. I think I was scared because I knew I wasn’t a great example of what a Christian was supposed to be. Even then I had a broader view of what spirituality meant to me and I was not going to grow up and be a Presbyterian. So I was bothered because of that guilt and I was also bothered by the fact that having a day glow Jesus in your room was just spooky. I was troubled about what to do and so one day I went to my Mother and told her my feelings about the day glow Jesus and she said all you need to do son is go up and tear Jesus down off the wall and he will stop bothering you. It was as if an evangelical minister had hit me with a bolt of lightning. I was so happy to hear this I ran up to my room and ripped Jesus off the wall and I was never bothered again by the guilt of not measuring up to Jesus.

We were a religiously blended family. My McClean grandparents were always suspicious of my siblings and I because it was a little unclear if we were Presbyterians or Catholics. I guess they thought that if we were Catholics that might be the end of us. On the contrary I believe this question of religious allegiance made my family far more tolerant to other people and their religions than most people in the Okanogan.

My mother would trot us off to Presbyterian Sunday school on Sunday mornings and then my father would pick my brother and I up at 11 am and then drive us over to the Catholic Church for a little diversity. We would pop into the Catholic Church relatively unnoticed and sit in the back. My father’s favorite thing to do on Sunday was to pass out the collection plate which was on a long pole that could reach all the way to the end of the row. He would stand for a long time at each row so the members of the church had to pay attention to him as he would hold the basket in front of them. My brother and I would have only this time to fixate on the statue of Mary and any other mysteries of the Church before my father was done collecting the money and then we would blow out of the church. Sometimes we would stay longer if it was a holiday and we’d say Hail Mary’s and rub the prayer beads just as well as any Catholics. I think I am comfortable in saying that I was an amateur Catholic. I was somewhat clumsy taking communion and giving confessions to the priest because I had so little practice but I was more comfortable at the Catholic Church than at the Presbyterian. I think it was because the Presbyterian Church centered on sermons and singing and it took an hour to get the job done. At the Catholic Church it was mostly spoken in a language I didn’t understand and it usually was over in 30 minutes and even shorter if my dad had better things to do after taking people’s money. I appreciated not understanding Latin as a child because I was most taken with the mysteries of God. I didn’t want to understand God. His mysteries were good for my imagination.

I think the Catholic Church was a miracle for my family when it came to the English Islands. One thousand years ago my ancestors were wandering around Scotland and Ireland hitting each other with big wooden sticks or throwing rocks at each other’s head.

Catholicism gave my ancestors a way to say they were sorry. “We might do this to you again but today we are sorry. “ It was a magical way of raising the consciousness of people of thuggish behavior. Catholicism didn’t demand a great deal from my family just a little time and some money in the collection plate and you had a way for dealing with your guilt of plundering other people and their homes. Or having someone to pray to when your crops wouldn’t grow or to ask for help in getting through another miserable rainy windy day in the Lowlands. Remember that my people were so difficult that the Romans, who had conquered the entire known world, chose to build a wall across
Scotland and close it off rather than deal with my ancestors.

At times we alternated between being Presbyterian and Catholic. My brother and sister were married in the Catholic Church though my sister took her children to the same Presbyterian Church we went to as kids. When I was in college my mother had an epiphany one day and became a Catholic. She remained a Catholic for a while but then fell into her old habits and became a Presbyterian again.

In my youth I traded on the fact that I favored the Catholic Church, mostly for its mysteries, but neither married a Catholic or went to the Presbyterian Church on the sly. I like to tell people I grew up Catholic but really I have always been a Baha’i at heart.