Friday, March 23, 2012

Essay #4 - In Class Contrast Essay – Rewritten

Essay #4 - In Class Contrast Essay – Rewritten

Roads

Life is full of roads.  Some are actual, visible roads, like the road I drive on to go to town or to anywhere.  Others are inside and invisible, the choices made as life takes its own twists and turns.  Decisions made when cross-sections appear, sometimes out of nowhere, shape the course and direction of those roads.  And those are the ones that really matter.  In my own life, I can think of one major decision that changed my life forever, a choice I made 30 years ago, one I have never, ever regretted.  That choice was to finally give up, give in, and give my heart and life to Jesus Christ. 

I remember growing up, going to Catholic school, attending Catholic mass, because I had to.  Those were the rules.  If I didn’t go to mass, I’d go to hell.  That makes an easy decision, though I didn’t actually have a choice.  I even went to Catholic high school.  Mass was right there in the chapel, no excuses.  But my senior year I switched schools and went to a New York City public school – culture shock as to academic expectations (from high to none) and morals (from “be a good girl” to “if it feels good, do it”), not to mention the fact that in Catholic school, if you didn’t return your schoolbooks in primo condition, you didn’t go on to the next grade; while in public school, books were used as footballs or left at home, maybe forever.  That was the beginning of the end for me.  College just clinched the deal; and for years, though I believed in God, he was that “higher power” somewhere, whatever you wanted to call him – Allah, Buddha, the Great Spirit, etc.  It was all the same to me.  He was up there; I was down here, almost “never the twain to meet.”

When I became a Christian (was “born again” in Christian-ese), strange things began to happen.  I began to have an insatiable appetite for Bible reading.  What had once been a dead book, propped up in a dusty corner of my bookshelf, became a life-giving, awe-inspiring love letter just to me.  Though I had gone to mass almost daily for the first 17 years of my life, and though I had attended Catholic school for 12 years, counting kindergarten, I knew very little about the Bible and I had no interest in learning more.  It wasn’t that important compared to the rules and regulations of the Catholic Church that I’d had to learn, and that was more than enough for me.  After I became a Christian, I became absolutely fascinated with the amazing stories of the Old Testament (many of which I would have left out had I been the one writing The Book.  I would have sugar-coated it to make everything more appealing to the general public, not to mention that I hate to make anyone look bad.)  But those parts gave me hope.  Those ancient warriors of the faith were ordinary, fallible human beings like me, not holier-than-thou superheroes as the Catholic Church portrays their saints.  And the story of Jesus himself is almost beautiful enough to make one cry.  I was a young mom with a two-year-old son at that point.  There was no way I’d give up my child for a sinner, no matter how hard he begged.  But God willingly gave up his son, his only, only son – for me.  And not only for me but for every other rotten human being ever born or ever to be born.  It was just mind-boggling.

Then there was how you “got saved” and what was expected afterwards.  That was an alien concept.  Those were strange words.  I was never drowning, or lost, or in danger of falling off a cliff.  I didn’t need to “be saved.”  Christians sure do have a strange vocabulary.  In Catholic school, we had a whole invisible rule book.  We had to go to Mass on Sunday (later Saturday evening became a suitable substitute.)  We couldn’t eat meat on Fridays (though later that was also changed.  I always wondered what happened to all those poor souls in hell or purgatory.  Were they immediately released or did they still have to take the punishment for their crimes?)  I remember the horror of my mother when she realized it was Friday and she had just served us delicious bacon.  Had it been open, she would have made a beeline for the confessional to ease her suffering conscience.  But when friends of mine became Christians, they didn’t have to do anything… weird.  They just had to accept the free gift of “salvation through Jesus Christ.”  Again, strange words – hadn’t a clue what they meant.  They also didn’t have to go to church at all.  There wasn’t even a hell consequence, yet they went every Sunday, twice a day in fact, and Wednesdays.  They were strange folk.  After I became a Christian, I’ll admit, I didn’t go to church either.  My husband was a hermit, and at that time in my life I followed in his footsteps.  But I read, no I devoured, my Bible for hours every day.  I wanted to learn everything there was to know about my new faith.  Later, much, much later, when my oldest son began looking toward college, we finally started going to church.  It wasn’t for the purest of reasons either.  I’d raised my kids with a strong faith, and he decided he wanted to go to a Christian college.  In filling out the applications, it asked questions like: how often do you attend church?  Every Sunday?  Sundays and Wednesdays?  Every time the church doors are open?  Oops… there was no place for “Never.”  They also wanted a reference from his pastor or youth group leader.  It was finally time.  We found a local church where different friends attended, and I was hooked.  I finally understood why those first friends went to church when they didn’t even have to.  Though I probably exceeded the Bible knowledge of most of the congregation by then (other than the pastor), there are some things that aren’t in the Good Book, or actually they are, but actions speak louder than words.  And I began to learn those things.  I’ve now been a Christian for 30 years, attending church for 15 of those years (though not all in the same church).  I now find myself going to church on Sundays, not for the short, mandatory ½ hour as the Catholic Church demanded which I reluctantly obeyed, but for 3 hours, willingly, under no obligation to attend.  Plus I’m part of a weeknight in-home Bible Study which will celebrate its 6th year together in April.  I now consider my church my family, and I‘m glad God found a way to steer us to the right path.

During all those years while growing up, attending Catholic Church and school, I managed to effectively separate church and life.  It wasn’t that I was awful, just a bit schizophrenic.  I could easily compartmentalize my life into two sections: life and church.  They didn’t seem to interfere much with each other.  Those Catholic rules were more about church attendance, confession, and holy days.  Life didn’t happen much at those times.  But the Bible, that was another matter.  It said scary things like if one person lusts after another, it’s the same as committing adultery.  To be angry without just cause at another is like murder.  And God hates lies.  Plus there was the novel idea of being nice to those who hurt you, repaying evil with good.  These were everyday sorts of things, hard to separate from normal life.  It also doesn’t give many outs for marriage, just 2 that I know of: adultery by the other partner, and if an unbeliever wants to leave, let him go.  Every marriage has its struggles, and my husband and I married young.  I was only 19.  We’ve had our share of disagreements.  While most of our other, non-believing friends’ marriages bit the dust one by one, divorce was no longer an option and we learned to deal with our differences instead of looking for a way out.  Faith and life were no longer separate, but one and the same.

Making the decision to follow Christ changed the roadmap of my life in many ways.  I know that some people can point to the day, the place, and the time when they accepted Christ for who he is and for what he did for them.  I can’t.  I can give you a year, 1982, but only because my firstborn son was 2 at the time.  For me, it was a slow process.  God had to work on me slowly because he knows I can be stubborn.  But he was very patient, working in my life as I was willing and able to take it.  Eventually, instead of crying, “Uncle,” and giving up, I cried, “Father,” and ran into his huge, welcoming arms, like a little child running into the arms of the one who loves her best, who knows her best, and who wants only the best for her.  It was a decision that changed my life forever, and I hate to even imagine what I would be like had I chosen a different path.

1 comment:

  1. I hope you didn't feel squeamish writing this, squeamish about describing these two roads to an imperfect stranger.

    I don't myself see any point in here where there would be embarrassment. I was born in 1945 and had many Catholic friends growing up and so none of the 'old' Catholic ways you describe came as a surprise to me. As for the born-again part, that's simply your testimony, something enjoined on Christians--'go forth therefore and teach the nations.' That can't be private or embarrassing, can it?

    Anyway, this is the full dress version--and I would imagine you would be very pleased and proud of this detailed, individual, well-constructed contrast essay.

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