Makes Me Wanna Pray

I was raised Catholic growing up. Let me alter that. I was placed in a Catholic school for ten years because I didn't have much of a choice as a kid. It was for the ususal reason that most parents did. My mother was divorced and had to work odd hours to support me and her sadistic mother. Since my mother couldn't be there to raise me because of work and avoiding the house, she put me in a Catholic school. I'm sure that she thought that it would bring discipline and structure into my life. What really happened was mostly mental and physical abuse. Constant terror. Shitloads of Catholic guilt. The list goes on. You also have to remember that I was going to school in the seventies and eighties. Back then, they could dish out whatever humiliation that they could create and call it discipline. Now, they schools would be getting sued if they even tried half the shit that they did back then.

I went to St. Margaret Of Scotland on 99th and Throop on the South Side of Chicago near Beverly. Its still there. My fondest memory of that place was going there to vote last year to make the Congress more Democratic. When you go to a Catholic grade school, you're made to go to church as a class even if you're not Catholic. It was more like a part of class. If you weren't baptised Catholic, you couldn't take Communion. That always sucked because you wanted to eat that so it could hold you over until lunchtime.

I never really believed in the sacraments and I always had questions about the Bible. A lot of just didn't make sense and it always getas distorted beyond proportion for that person's agenda. I went through Baptism, Holy Communion and Confirmation because I thought that if I didn't do them that I wouldn't be allowed into the next grade. When you're that young, you have no idea the depth of the dogma. You just go through it and hope that you figure it out at some point. I then found out that I could become an altar boy because I took all these sacraments. Cool...that gave me a reason not to be in class since I got the shit kicked out of me all he time. I could spend most of my time at church. My life at home was just as horrible because I had a sadistic grandmother and a mother that was barely there. So, I served as many masses as possible to stay out of the house. It also gave me a reason to snack on Communion wafers before mass. All altar boys did this. Our defense was that we could eat one because they weren't blessed yet. The wine was good too. Hey, it wasn't blessed yet. Why didn't they ever market that shit? "Sacrament Merlot"......"Sin never tasted so good"......Sorry

By the time that I quit St. Rita and went to Jones Commercial for my last two years of high school, I lost my faith because all that I had to connect to religion was violence, judgement, oppression and guilt. God already branded me a sinner and I had to find some sort of acceptance from a religious group in order receive the spirit and be clean. But since I'm not the type of person who's into blind faith, I questioned too many parts of the dogma in Baptist & Catholic religion and was basically shut out. I ended up becoming an athiest for a few years and lost hope.

I always had a belief that God is love. It didn't matter who you were or what you did. God's love would always love you and help you find a way to create hope and helpful paths in life. I always felt this but I could never find a place that practiced it. It seemed like there was always some sort of agenda. When you don't have a spiritual base, you always have this cursed feeling off loss and anger. My wife told me that at some point that I will need to find a spiritual path. I basically believed that I was doomed. I ended up having to look inside myself and make some serious changes. The biggest wake up call was the death of my father. We were never close because he made it a point to put up and emotional wall that I could never break down. He never had a problem with that. So, we only spoke about a couple of times a month and they weren't really conversations. He'd just talk about himself. I'd just listen for 20 minutes. He'd never ask about my life or anything. Then say "I love you" and hang up. When my father dropped dead from a heart attack, he died alone and no one found him for a month. I knew that if I didn't change my life that the same thing would happen to me. So, I ended up meeting Marta and Chelsea. They've been a wonderful family. I've developed a closer relationship with my friends and started mending fences with my mother. I also realized that I also suffered from anxiety and ADD and got help for that so I can focus better on life. But something was still missing. A sense of inner security and peace.

My best friend, Gabrielle, turned Marta and I on to a place called the Center For Spiritual Living. It believes that we are all dedicated to creating a spiritual environment where we recognize, honor and celebrate God, love and intelligence within all life. We do this through prayer, meditation and studies under the ideal that God is all of us and that we spread God's will though our will, love, actions and thought.

Since I've joined and let go of past pain and hurt, I've become a much more happier and centered person and life is full of joy and fun again. Its so wonderful to discover faith and the joy of the spirit after not having it for a long time.

If you're curious about the center, the link is:www.chicagocsl.org