Thoughts on Catholocism.

Portions of this post have been languishing as drafts for some time, but a birthday party I went to last night gave me occasion to sit up far too late and join them all together. (And yes, I changed the blog look, too. I’m just feeling kind of everywhere, and a fresh new look is always good, yes? Yes).

Before continuing, know that this is long. I’ve tried to cut it down, but it doesn’t seem willing. The author assumes no liability for any injury/eye strain/length frustrations felt by the reader past this point. This disclaimer creates a binding contract. Et cetera, et cetera, ad finitum.

It was a party for one of the first “friends” I made out here, a guy I met through young adult Catholic-y style people. When I first moved here, I really embroiled myself in the Catholic scene; it seemed the most natural place to meet people who, I thought, would be like-minded.

My life doesn’t center around the Catholic community, however, as it seems it does for many, many people here. I’m a west-coast Catholic, what you’d call the ugly liberal step-cousin of the devouts of the Diocese of Arlington. I like to be Catholic, in other words, but it is not how I define myself.

They were quick to take me in, but I was quick to feel swallowed: I want to talk about more with my friends then where we went to mass; who’s going on what monastic retreat; when the next pro-life prayer service is. I don’t agree with or buy into everything they do, and certainly not as whole-heartedly. I told myself I’d never fit with these people who were, and are, wholly Catholic. The more I hung around them, the more I started to see: they’re all Catholic, all the time. All the parties, all the get-togethers, all the events were centered on faith. I had seen nothing like that, and I admit it made me uncomfortable.

Then I started dating J, who’s quasi-Jewish, if he’s anything, and really, at the time, I think I saw that as an asset. A breath of fresh air; a man who will ask me on a date that does not involve saying the rosary, and who won’t look at me like he’s sizing me up to be a Good Catholic Wife.

But dating J also made it impossible to fully integrate. I know these people by sight, but it’s nothing more than superficial. How can it be when I’m half of something that won’t participate? There’s a whole world of best friends and close ties that I didn’t think I wanted, but find myself now excluded from in any event.

J and I have been having some rough times, as those of you who have been reading for awhile know. I love him, I do, but being around all of these people, like I was last night, makes me realize that faith is really crucial to me. It’s not just “important.” It’s more than just tradition. I don’t agree with everything and I don’t have a particular inkling for 11 babies, but I can’t help but feel like I’m selling out.

My history with the Church of Rome is a somewhat tortured one (fitting, I think). I’m perhaps an unlikely and a likely Catholic at once.

I was raised in a mainstream Christian home; we believed in Jesus and dressed up every Sunday morning, but without any firm denominational or traditional parameters to contain it. On top of this, my parents sent my sisters and me to a Catholic school for the preponderance of our formative years. A maximum sentence, really; this school that touted itself as an elite educated young women from 5th through 12th grade. That’s exactly how long we each went; “lifers,” they called us. Really, that is an awful lot of plaid.

Somewhere between Sunday services and Tuesday senior theology seminar, something started making sense. I started feeling more like I belonged, and I started seeing how the pieces of my heart-held faith fit into a larger puzzle. I started becoming a closet Catholic, which persisted through college but didn’t really meet its fruition till law school.

One of my best friends in the world I met in law school, and she’s exactly my kind of Catholic. That is, she loves the tradition, the order, the heritage, and together we celebrate the underlying truths. She lives with her boyfriend, however; she’s on the pill, and she drinks and curses and sins along with the rest of us.

It’s really tempting for me to conclude this rapidly by saying “and so, after much discernment, I decided official Catholicism was something I wanted and could relate to, so I joined the church.” That was the ultimate conclusion, yes. But there’s more. There’s always more.

Disillusioned with the practice of law in any tangible form (and before I’d thought of defecting to the legal writing dark side), I opted to “study abroad” for my 1L summer. This best friend of mine and I were in the same boat, and we orchestrated the most brilliant summer of Not Working. In June we jetted off to Italy. In mid-July, she went up to England; I to Japan.

Japan was an odd choice. I’ve been to England several times, and I studied at Oxford in college. As much as I adore the UK, I do have a bit of the travel bug. I could see myself packing up for England at a moment’s notice. Japan, not so much. The best friend was slightly less adventurous, but eh, we each had our stories to tell.

Me? I fell in love. I really did, or at least I sowed the unfertilized seeds of it. Japan was a wholly bizarre experience in so many ways that would require pages and pages, thousands of words I can’t even start to formulate. But he was there, in the midst of all of it. He was there, and he had big thoughts and an even bigger vocabulary. This girl loves an intellect, what can I say.

There was generally too much vodka involved in our charged interchanges. It was for sale in the convenience store across the street which, source notwithstanding, proved entirely inconvenient. Also inconvenient: my uncanny alcohol tolerance which guys, damn them, seem impressed by. He heard about it, and at one of our “formal events,” both of us high on the road to tipsy, issued me a Guinness challenge. Bastard was Irish, too. Keys to my heart? Better change the locks. He’s in for keeps.

“I hear you can drink. I hear you’ve been asking for dark beer. The only bar here [in this godforsaken Japanese beach village that is not at all metropolitan] that serves Guinness is across the street. See you there. 10 minutes.”

Stupid, stupid Magda took the bait. And outdrank him. And wore his clothes to breakfast the next morning. Not pretty. [And an aside: they did indeed have Guinness, bottled, and served up on a silver tray and poured in a wine glass. Again, I say, odd. So, so much there confused me].

But I was wrong. The town wasn’t godforsaken. He found God there, every Sunday. We spent every night but Saturday together why? Because he went to mass. IN JAPAN. He, American purebred who speaks not one word of non-English, went to mass without fail in a land where the washing machines come with characters on the buttons, where groceries lack pictures and that juice in the orange carton? Not necessarily orange. Actually, not even close. Curious.

He was not the first man I slept with, but I really feel like he was my first real, true love. The first one? No good.  The summer away gave me perspective on just how not good it was, but “not good” can sum it up for now.  With this Japan man, seriously, I’ve never felt a connection that powerful; never before have I been so frightened by the raw depth and velocity of my heart (and her oh-so-imperfect inclinations).  He tapped something in me I never knew I had.  He drilled a well and, the moment he looked away, I fell right in.  This may not make sense, my unilaterally falling in  love with no words. In fact, it probably shouldn’t.  And I have reason to believe my Japan Man was not expecting my inclinations in the “love” direction. 

First indication: he had a girlfriend waiting for him state-side. Oh-ho. Yes. I knew this, and I was still completely, in my head and in my heart, making this guy to be the most amazingly perfect person I had ever had the fortune to meet.

He was Catholic, sure, but he was a bad Catholic. A bad, bad, very bad Catholic. The nuns should have smacked those knuckles, seriously.

I, in my brilliance, told him that of course it didn’t matter, of course I knew that we were “just for now,” of course it meant nothing.

I told him I was Catholic, too. I didn’t go to mass with him, but my eight years at the convent afforded me ample space on the rhetoric platform. We discussed Catholic theology all night long one night. I believe I slept by his side through classes the next day.

He was frustrated that his girlfriend had no faith life. She couldn’t talk the Catholic talk like I could, she couldn’t “connect with him on that level.” Bullshit, Japan man.

He went back to her anyway. Of course he did.

He was in school down south. I was in Seattle. The last time I saw him was in the Chicago airport, circa summer 2004, as we each headed off towards our other lives.

We kept in touch over e-mail, but I sometimes wish we hadn’t. I’d think up what I was going to say to him for weeks; I’d draft e-mails to him the way I draft some blog posts these days. I’d write them out, tweak them, sit on them and finally get courageous enough to hit “send.”

They were long, our correspondences, and beautiful. This was a man who loved words the way I do. Even so, every letter he wrote was another knife in my heart. He’ll never be mine. But oh, I wanted him.

I started going to mass in Seattle. Suddenly, holy days weren’t enough; I went every Sunday. I felt connected to him that way. When an ad ran in the bulletin for an RCIA class, an official join-up-now introduction, I thought yes, I want to make this real, I should do this. In fact, I said, I feel called to do this.

If I’m honest, this “strong calling” coincided with Japan man emailing that he and Miss No Religion had broken up. I took it as a sign.

The more I learned, though, and the more I really came into being in class, the farther and farther I felt from him. It was entirely unexpected, but divinely beautiful: in doing what I thought would bring me closer, I was finally able to let go.

This is not at all to say that he’s completely left my mind. He hasn’t. Our e-mails have dwindled, but they haven’t disappeared. I mostly chalk this up to my own masochism. Exhibit A: it’s possible that I emailed him something short and Guinness-related this St. Patrick’s Day. And it’s possible that he wrote back wishing me Happy Easter. It’s possible, too, that his name in my inbox doesn’t make my heart go pitter-patter anymore, and it’s possible that I couldn’t be happier.

I’m not an especially strong Catholic, at least not where strict doctrine and church teachings come into play. In my heart, though, I’m finally home in the church. I have finally found what is, for me, the perfect balance of life and love and God and goodness.

J hasn’t. And he doesn’t seem to want it. And I don’t know what to do.