My Religious History (Part 2)

I met him in college. He was Presbyterian and although he didn't attend the University church often...he did attend. His family was very involved in church, his mother was an elder. Going to church with his family was very different. Not formal and all-eyes-on-you unwelcoming. Not un comfortably unchurchy. Not frighteningly quiet (How do those Quakers do it?).
Everyone was friendly and enjoyed catching up with each other. They welcomed me yes, but they welcomed each other too. I'll admit I giggled when I saw the tray of little cups of grape juice (grape juice and real bread!). They had a woman pastor! They prayed what was in their hearts aloud. I wasn't ready to give up my non-religion though.

If asked at that time, I may have said that I was spiritual, not religious. (Ugh) What I meant by that was thatI believed in God and I prayed. I believed fervently that there was some great plan of God's that made things make sense somehow from afar. My parents divorce was horrible and has had ripple effects through my life, but I was able to look at it in my teens with new eyes. My parents were as different as night and day. I have no doubt that they loved each other at one time. But my father is quiet, neat, hermit-like but with a wicked sense of humor. My mother is bubbly, social, always working on three projects at once and doesn't get his humor (I should know, I inherited it). Once I figured that out, I realized that God had a plan for me, because he had brought these two wonderful different people together to have me and my sister.

So I believed and I prayed. Our Father and Hail Mary were the ones I knew, so those were the ones I said. And I had some religious role models, those three nun-aunts. The most influential of them was Sister Eulalia (nee' Kitty). There are many stories about her and I wish to do them justice in their own posts but I will say that she visited each summer for several weeks and took care of our little single parent family. She brought me foreign coins from her travels and said her rosary while walking around the tree in the backyard (or the dining room table when it rained) and always wore her full habit. And she sent us advent calendars every year. And she was kind and powerful and mysterious and exotic. And she had a very special relationship with God. I think she would have loved Hubby.

Hubby and I got married while we were in grad school. We married in the big University Presbyterian Church right after Christmas and went to live in South Georgia while he finished school. If college had been a shock religiously then South Georgia was twice that. I was a minor celebrity as the local children's librarian so we were courted by several churches. Library patrons asked me to church and revivals and suppers and not realizing the culture I found this incredibly intrusive. In a small southern town, church is often your social network, your friends, your "church family". I didn't know anything about this and it made me distinctly uncomfortable. So we went to church when we visited his family and "avoided playing favorites" the rest of the time.

Not knowing it, we prayed separately. But possibly for the same things.