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.
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