MyDoorsAreOpen
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2003
- Messages
- 8,549
I've heard it said that the moment at which you can say your innocence has been irrevocably lost is not your first sexual experience, your first cigarette, or even the first time you see another's disadvantage relative to you and dare to exploit it; it's the moment when you realize that the people who raised and molded you are actually just as lost in this mysterious and confusing world as you are.
I remember my early childhood pretty vividly, and remember always having a strong sense that my parents, who were always very loving and relentlessly idealistic, had life all figured out. This sense only grew as I got older and met the parents of other kids my age, many of whom had parents who weren't as kind or loving as mine. Somehow I'd lucked out, and had a family who really understood what really mattered. Through all sorts of hard (and usually lonely) times during my teens and twenties, I'd just have to remember what Mom and Dad said in a similar situation, and I'd feel more grounded.
It threw me for a loop this past month, when my mother confided to me that just recently, at age 68, she'd lost her faith in Christianity. All her life she and my dad had been so devout, and yet such humanitarians, trying to work within the Catholic Church to try to use Jesus' example and message as a force for social justice and humanitarian action in the here and now. She and my dad still lead non-sectarian environmental and social justice oriented spiritual retreats in their retirement. But they no longer believe in a personal God, nor in Jesus as more than mortal. In a sense, I'm happy for her, because it's clear that today's Catholic Church hasn't been willing to bend to her values, and is mired in political scandal.
But a part of me feels very ungrounded by this. I always thought my parents' boundless faith in the ability to change and improve longstanding institutions from within was something I'd always be able to hang my hat on. My ungrounding has more to do with this than with their change in cosmological view (which I largely agree with) -- I'd never seen my parents as quitters. I'd really believed that if you loyally toughed out active membership in any institution, you'd eventually be respected and listened to. I never thought I'd live to see my parents look at an institution they'd dedicated their lives in service to, and say "I was wrong."
All of this hit me today as I spent an early afternoon walking around Chinatown in NYC. My Dad used to take our whole family here on foot, many times every year when I was a child. I remember being so impressed with his ability to navigate an enclave so very foreign, and I remember thinking that if he knows how to get a great meal and have a good time in Chinatown for a tiny amount of money and only a few words of Chinese, he must really be able to do anything! I carried this sense of awe with me when I backpacked around the world.
NYC's Chinatown is about the only place that evokes such a rich and complex feeling of nostalgia in me. It has that 'the old neighborhood where I grew up' feeling for me, even though I never lived there. Being there again brings back a rush of memories, and getting swept back in time by gritty little noodle shops, cramped tenements, and phone booths with pagodas on them makes me almost want to believe again that there's a boundless amount of world out there for me to see, and all I have to do is ask my dad, because he always knows the way.
But I now know this isn't true. I can explore, and SHOULD explore, but I'm on my own when it comes to figuring out what it all means, where I ought to be headed, and where I'm inevitably headed.
I don't want my own kids to spend their first few years of life assuming that I'm perfect, and have all the answers, just because I'm their dad and I love and take care of them. I'd rather they realize as early as possible that we living, thinking beings cling to each other to stay afloat on this uncharted whitewater raft ride called life, but that none of us is a rock that will always be there to cling to no matter how many waves wash over it.
I remember my early childhood pretty vividly, and remember always having a strong sense that my parents, who were always very loving and relentlessly idealistic, had life all figured out. This sense only grew as I got older and met the parents of other kids my age, many of whom had parents who weren't as kind or loving as mine. Somehow I'd lucked out, and had a family who really understood what really mattered. Through all sorts of hard (and usually lonely) times during my teens and twenties, I'd just have to remember what Mom and Dad said in a similar situation, and I'd feel more grounded.
It threw me for a loop this past month, when my mother confided to me that just recently, at age 68, she'd lost her faith in Christianity. All her life she and my dad had been so devout, and yet such humanitarians, trying to work within the Catholic Church to try to use Jesus' example and message as a force for social justice and humanitarian action in the here and now. She and my dad still lead non-sectarian environmental and social justice oriented spiritual retreats in their retirement. But they no longer believe in a personal God, nor in Jesus as more than mortal. In a sense, I'm happy for her, because it's clear that today's Catholic Church hasn't been willing to bend to her values, and is mired in political scandal.
But a part of me feels very ungrounded by this. I always thought my parents' boundless faith in the ability to change and improve longstanding institutions from within was something I'd always be able to hang my hat on. My ungrounding has more to do with this than with their change in cosmological view (which I largely agree with) -- I'd never seen my parents as quitters. I'd really believed that if you loyally toughed out active membership in any institution, you'd eventually be respected and listened to. I never thought I'd live to see my parents look at an institution they'd dedicated their lives in service to, and say "I was wrong."
All of this hit me today as I spent an early afternoon walking around Chinatown in NYC. My Dad used to take our whole family here on foot, many times every year when I was a child. I remember being so impressed with his ability to navigate an enclave so very foreign, and I remember thinking that if he knows how to get a great meal and have a good time in Chinatown for a tiny amount of money and only a few words of Chinese, he must really be able to do anything! I carried this sense of awe with me when I backpacked around the world.
NYC's Chinatown is about the only place that evokes such a rich and complex feeling of nostalgia in me. It has that 'the old neighborhood where I grew up' feeling for me, even though I never lived there. Being there again brings back a rush of memories, and getting swept back in time by gritty little noodle shops, cramped tenements, and phone booths with pagodas on them makes me almost want to believe again that there's a boundless amount of world out there for me to see, and all I have to do is ask my dad, because he always knows the way.
But I now know this isn't true. I can explore, and SHOULD explore, but I'm on my own when it comes to figuring out what it all means, where I ought to be headed, and where I'm inevitably headed.
I don't want my own kids to spend their first few years of life assuming that I'm perfect, and have all the answers, just because I'm their dad and I love and take care of them. I'd rather they realize as early as possible that we living, thinking beings cling to each other to stay afloat on this uncharted whitewater raft ride called life, but that none of us is a rock that will always be there to cling to no matter how many waves wash over it.
