My Biology Teacher is Hindu

I was naive.  

I knew that there were many different churches, but somehow it had never clicked to me that not everyone believed in God the same way.  At first, it was learning that there were Methodists, but Methodists are very similar to Catholics in a lot of ways.  The services are similar, the Bible is the same, holidays are the same, even a lot of the sermons are right on track.  Methodists really weren't so different from Catholics.

Then came my biology teacher. She was an awesome teacher.  I adored her class.  She also refused to do dissections in class.  We were the only biology class that didn't have to do them.  The reason, and she was open and explained it, was due to her religion.  More than a few jaws dropped.  It opened up a whole class discussion on religion, and I will remember sitting in class just amazed.  My family didn't believe in killing an animal for sport, but that was a personal thing, not a religious.  And, here was our teacher being open about it.  Of course, questions like her nose ring came up, this was almost 30 years ago so very few people had nose rings.  After that one discussion, there was no more talk about religion in class, and we went on with our regular curriculum, minus dissections, of course. 

If this was today's world, I probably would have gone on the Internet to find out more.  At the same time, my awesome biology teacher probably would have been fired today.  

I learned more than just biology from this teacher, I also learned that there are truly different beliefs out there.  

I was lucky in that my parents never put down other religions, of course, they also never talked about them.  I chalk that up to the way they didn't talk about race.  They treated everyone as just other people, and if they had an opinion otherwise, they never said it. 

The Good Catholic and The Methodist Church

After my parent's divorce I came to live with my father for awhile.  My stepmother is a devout Methodist.  She really is a wonderful woman, even if at the time, I thought of her as the "stepmonster" from beyond.

Every Sunday, my father and stepmother would go to her Methodist church for services and afterward her family would get together for brunch.  Often times, they would go out to eat and it was always someplace with delicious food.  The only way to be allowed to go to brunch was to attend services at the Methodist church with my stepmother.

I really wanted to join them.  Even if I was a rebellious 16 year old by this point, I wanted to be accepted and part of the family.  I enjoyed the sermons at the local Methodist church.  It was even better that everyone was so friendly, and it was a smaller congregation.

There was a problem.  I was a devout Catholic, and my father was insistent that I would continue to attend the local Catholic church.

I didn't quite understand yet that there were many religions and that being Catholic meant that going to a different church didn't "count".  It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the Catholic services anymore, I did.  I was attending a different parish and I loved the feeling that I could go into any Catholic church and feel that sense of continuity from my earlier childhood.

There was a solution, by 17 I was doing "double duty".  I would wake up early at go to the Catholic services first then rush home in time to join everyone else for Methodist services.

I'd joke that went to Catholic services because I was Catholic and that was real church, and then I'd go to Methodist church because I enjoyed it.  The truth was I enjoyed both, but more than that I was just a kid that wanted to belong.

During those couple years of living with my father and stepmother, a seed took root.  Why did I have to go to Catholic services if I felt drawn to the Methodist church and the wonderful pastor whose sermons I enjoyed so much.

My disillusionment had begun and with it my decades long search for finding the peace on the outside that I found inside in knowing God.

In The Beginning

The journey began years ago. I really don't know when.  It just came on slowly.

I've been searching for my place in this world for a long time.  Maybe not so much my place but for that peace that you only know from a certain spiritualness.

I was raised Catholic.  We went to church every Sunday, kneeling, praying, singing, and being faithful.  I will always remember the day that I became disillusioned.

My parents had recently separated, but that didn't shake our ways.  After all, we knew nothing but how to be good Catholics.  You always went to church.  It was just what you did.  Everyone you knew went to church, and if they didn't you didn't know it.  You just assumed that if they didn't go to your church that they went to some other church.

As we listened to the priest's sermon on this particular Sunday, he spoke of marriage.  He spoke of how it was the woman's duty to keep the family together, and if the family didn't stay together it was her fault.

I remember thinking of my parents, my mom and my dad.  I loved them both.  I couldn't fathom what my mother could have done so horribly that she made my father leave us.

That day, as a young 14 year old, I knew it wasn't right.  I knew I had to find out the truth.

The first thing I learned was it wasn't my mother's fault, nor was it my father's fault.  I learned the truth lay somewhere in between.

Since that day, somewhere around 30 years ago, I have been on this journey.

I know I love God.  I have no doubts about that.  I love Him with all my heart and soul.

This is about my continuing journey in search of that inner peace.  Or, perhaps, more precisely, finding the outside for what I already know is inside of me.