You may wonder about the title above. It is the title to a song, from the 80s I think, sung by Dionne Warwick. This question got me to thinking about a whole lot of things about LIFE. That's what the 'it' was, when I asked the question, way back when. What's LIFE all about?
Lo and behold - I still have a copy of an article I wrote, way back then. This should be interesting, to compare what I thought I knew then, to what I think I know now, some 25 years later!
First, I am going to quote from what I wrote back then. The first part takes me back to childhood, when I was first learning about God.
'That question bounced around inside my head for a long time. What is life all about, anyway? I saw my world. My world was limited to what I saw around me, the people I came in contact with, and the places I went. Sometimes, what I saw and heard did not make sense to me. People often said one thing, and did another. WHY? Why did a rule apply in one situation and not in another? Why did people do hurtful things to each other? Why, in Church on Sunday, did people pretend to be good, when during the week they forgot all about God? Why did bad things happen to good people? Why did babies die? Why did God let these things happen?
And WHO was God, anyway? The God I learned about you had to be quiet in front of. Whenever I tried to say something, it was "SH!" And He didn't like you biting your nails in front of Him. And girls had to wear a hat in front of Him. I don't know why: the boys didn't. That always felt grossly unfair to me.
I learned that God made me, and I was supposed to love Him. But I also learned that He sent people to hell if they were bad. He sounded kind of mean to me.
When I was 5 years old, in Kindergarten class, the nun told us that these 'martyrs' loved God so much they had their tongues nailed to a table! Well! I just knew that I wouldn't be able to love Him that much! And I felt GUILTY! Guilty, because I knew I couldn't love God ENOUGH. I couldn't measure up.
We heard many stories of the saints and the martyrs, and these people were revered because they loved God so much they died for Him. Each story was a reminder to me of how unworthy I was. I didn't love God enough.
Much has transpired between then and now. A journey - the long way home.'
The 'now' referred to above was in the late 80s. That's about 25 years ago! Much has happened since then. It is going to be interesting to see how my thinking has changed and where it has remained essentially the same.
However, I have to back up!
My Quest
Where did it start? When did it start? I don't know the answers to those questions for sure, but I am satisfied that an incident in my childhood provoked some internal questions.
When I was 5 years old, I was allowed to sit in the front pew of the church along with all the other little girls, instead of sitting beside my mother. I had noticed for some time that towards the end of the Mass, people walked up to the front of the church and had something put in their mouths. When they walked back to their pews they looked so holy, or at least tried to look holy. I thought maybe they were going up there to get a little piece of God or something, and one Sunday morning I decided I wanted some too.
Well! The hullaballoo it caused! I felt like I had committed the most unpardonable crime, from all the noise created afterward. I was told I was a bad girl; that only those who had made their First Holy Communion could receive Communion, and I hadn't made mine yet. What to do with me?
So they came up with a solution: I would just have to start going to Catechism with the 6-year-olds, and make my First Holy Communion as soon as possible! Consequently, while other 5-year-olds were sitting with their parents during Mass, I was over at the convent, taking Catechism, preparing to make my 'First Holy Communion'.
I continued in the Catholic Church until I had been married for a few years. When a church claims to be the 'one true church' a person doesn't leave it lightly. However, the time came when I had to leave, for several unrelated reasons. The final straw for me was being told by the priest that I couldn't say no to him because I was _______________'s daughter! My father lived over a thousand miles away! And I was married with a child! The Church and I parted company.
It was then that I began to delve into other material for answers to life's questions...... At first I didn't know what I wanted to know. I thought "there's got to be more to it than this". "It" being life. "What is my purpose here?" "What's it all about?" I read about psychic phenomena and UFOs and the pyramids, astrology and life after death and ESP and how the mind works, and different philosophies and religions, and psychiatry and Transcendental Meditation ..... and I was going crazy because I wasn't getting anywhere. There I was, going in seventeen different directions at once, thirsting for knowledge of purpose, and coming up with incomplete, unsatisfactory answers. This information that I gleaned from reading all these subject areas was interesting, but fell far short of my quest.
As a result of the places I searched, I became very confused, and although I never stopped believing that God created the universe, I was unable to feel that He was ever there for me. For many years, He just wasn't part of my life. I was too busy searching here and there for answers.
I was also on the road to self-destruction.
(Stay tuned for Part 2)
