Religions Confused Me When I Was Young. They Still Do and Now I’m 68.
By: Rebecca Romanelli
Tags: Spirituality, Growth, Prejudice, Religion, Tolerance

Religions Confused Me When I Was Young. They Still Do and Now I’m 68.

World religions profess unity so why are they used, both historically and presently, to divide and conquer?

Prateek Katyal/unsplash

I had a series of spiritual experiences from the age of 6, onward. They all involved immersions into light. I didn’t know what was happening to me when I was a kid, but I did know I felt exhilarated and restored each time this phenomena occurred.

These rarefied, yet steady episodes, stoked my curiosity about hidden realms. The main energy operators we can’t see, but most definitely feel. They also oriented my life through a spiritual lens.

There wasn’t a mystery school in my nuclear home town, Richland, Washington. Quite the opposite in fact. I was surrounded by engineers and scientists manufacturing plutonium for atomic bombs. More of a hell on earth than a spiritual refuge.

My mother and father believed God could be found in nature, but they also thought their 11 children should be educated in the basic principles of at least one religion.

They sent us to the Protestant church at the end of our block because it was the closest. Their attendance was limited to major holidays but we kids were expected to go most Sundays until we were teens. People thought we were Catholic due to the size of our family. An assumption I was constantly correcting.

I started to realize I was not religious. Spiritual, yes, religious, no.

My first dilemma with the dogma and rules in religion showed up while attending Sunday school. The minister’s wife came into our classroom one day carrying a piggy bank in the shape of a cow. She rattled the coins it contained and informed our curious, seven year old group, that cows liked to chew green cud, not metal. We should feed it cud in the future.

I turned to my friend after she left and asked her if this woman thought we were dumb. Did she think we were unable to realize she wanted more money [dollar bills=green cud] for the minister’s missions? This was my first unpleasant clue to the intertwining of wealth and religion. Not what I was looking for.

Children can be under estimated in their knowledge of holiness.

I ended up making my own decisions about service on Sunday. I sat in the very back pew until I could hear the trays of doughnuts arriving for post service, social hour. After waiting a few minutes, I would slip out the back door and into the kitchen, grab one, sometimes two and head for the trees outside. Greasy, glazed, still warm spudnuts propelled me into a state of worship I never accessed inside the church.

In fact, the only benediction I received in church was a safe haven to stash the clothes I wanted to wear to school. The rolled up bundle fit perfectly behind the pulpit in the always open prayer chapel. It was an ideal hiding and changing place for the short skirts and tight dresses my mother nixed as appropriate clothing. One morning my girlfriend and I entered the chapel and to our surprise, found a group praying in a circle of chairs.

Oh no! What to do? I rapidly summoned up a dose of courage and re-opened the door with a flashing smile. “Sorry to interrupt, but I think I left my bible in here” I blurted out as I marched up to the pulpit, retrieving my clothes without blinking. I’d be damned if I wore that hideous, down to my knees, skirt, mother insisted on to school. I wasn’t a nun, I was a teenager. The group stared at me, totally perplexed. What was this apparition, a sign from God? I wished them a great day as I sprinted back out the door.