GOD.

I'm not sure I believe in God anymore.
I grew up believing. Even before I was sent to Catholic school by my stepmother. I believed strongly. As far as I was concerned, there was a big, strong,JUST man up there in the clouds somewhere that would one day save me from my miserable childhood - if I only prayed hard enough - believed with all of my heart.

And then I was sent to Catholic school, and it was all laid out for me. Explained. Specifically. The nuns had a bad reputation that first year. They still rapped kids knuckles with a ruler, and kids were sent to the principle's office for spankings with a big paddle. Scare tactics were the order of the day - my first year - then, things changed.

By my second year of Catholic school at St. Austin's (in Austin , TX), the hippy-Catholics had taken over the school. Mass sounded like a PBS show, with long haired guys and their wives singing and strumming guitar, the student body changed colors - all of a sudden, I was going to school with black and hispanic kids. And that was the year (the wonderful year) that Sister Annette taught the fifth grade as home room teacher.

I will never forget the first day of fifth grade. Sister Annette came into the rowdy class room. All of the kids were just chatting away, being very loud and bad. She came in a couple of minutes after the bell. She was a thin, almost fragile looking woman who chose to wear the old fashioned uniform of black and white, with a black and white head covering. She may have been 45, or 50 even. To a kid - she just seemed kind of older. Not OLD, but older.

Sister Annette stood there, her hands folded, looking at the entire classroom serenely. It took at least a couple of minutes for the kids to even realize she was there. Slowly, they started to quiet down. Sister Annette said nothing. She just looked at us all intensely, and then, when she had our attention, she stood on her head.

Sister Annette stood on her head like a Buddhist. Very calmly, very gracefully. EXCEPT that her underwear was showing! Well....Nun underwear, anyway! The whole classroom took a collective gasp of breath in shock. Nuns did NOT stand on their heads and show their underwear! They just DIDN'T!

We all sat there with our mouths open. A couple of kids started to giggle, but then stopped. It seemed like Sister Annette held that pose for a long time. A long, uncomfortable time.
Then she bent back over to her normal standing self (her body looked like Olive Oil), her skirt going right back down to her ankles where it was supposed to be, and continued to look at all of us intensely. Unlike other teachers, who seemed to see us as one big blob of a problem, she appeared to looking at each, single one of us. Looking into our eyes, taking in each kid's set of bad habits - the squirmers, the fidgeters, the shy ones, the trouble makers. When her eyes landed on me, I felt positively naked.

"Have you ever seen a nun stand on her head before?" she asked us seriously. We all just sat quietly, shook our heads,'no'.
"Does anyone have any idea why I did that?" she then asked the dumbfounded class. Again - none of us did, and were too confused to speak.
"Our very first lesson of this year is, 'stereo-types.'", she went on. "You all think of nuns as a certain type, probably clump them all together and think that we are all the same. Well I have news for you. Underneath these black dresses we are PEOPLE. With legs and everything. And we are all different. So don't think that this class will be like any class you've ever been in before, because it won't."

Sister Annette gained our love and respect that very first 5 minutes of school, and we were her loyal and loving disciples from that moment on. She taught us many life lessons that way. One day, she came into class and told us to pass out different colored helium balloons to everyone. Then, without explanation, she left the classroom for 5 minutes. We were full of boisterous energy by the time she came back in. Even in fifth grade, balloons were fun. The classroom looked like a party.
When sister Annette came back in, she walked around the room and popped all of the yellow balloons. The kids whose balloons were popped looked kind of shocked. Why theirs? Were they in trouble?
Sister Annette explained that the balloon demonstration was about prejudice. That she had made up her mind to pop all of the yellow ones before she even knew who had them.It worked. We got it.

I was so in love with Sister Annette, that I signed up to go with her 2 times a week to old people's houses, that couldn't get out, didn't have enough money for decent food. We went around and brought them meals. Sister Annette prayed with them, and I told them about my day or my week. I loved it. It made me feel really good. And somehow it seemed to tie in with the idea of God.

Sister Annette allowed me to write,produce, direct and star in my first play that year. It was a huge success (by elementary school standards), and that bug (for the theatre) was solidly lodged in my heart - never to leave it again. But GOD, on the other hand, started seeming like a sham very shortly into my next year. Sister Annette left us at the end of fifth grade. She went on to another school somewhere that needed her more than we did. I will always be grateful for what she taught me, and what she allowed me to explore on my own.

In sixth grade, we had to take a pretty intense religion class. Go through the Bible bit by bit, etc.
Soon enough, our teacher (a priest)explained to us that ONLY Catholics could get into heaven. My hand shot straight up immediately.
"What about Jewish people?" I asked.
"They will go to hell." the priest said, matter of factly.
"That doesn't seem right." I said."What about Methodists?" (my grandmother was a Methodist)
"If they have heard about the true faith, and have rejected it, they will not abide in Heaven with our Father." he explained.
Someone else raised their hand and asked about babies who haven't been baptized.
"They will go to limbo." the priest explained.

I squirmed in my seat for the rest of the lesson, which turned into the whole explanation of limbo and Hell and Heaven.If what he was saying was true, my whole damn family on my Father's side was going straight to hell! This was NOT possible.My grandmother and her friends were some of the sweetest, best people I knew. And they went to church every Sunday - sung their hearts out. Plus, my family knew plenty of Jewish families - they all seemed REALLY nice! I simply could NOT believe that all of those people were going to hell, OR that all of the babies that weren't baptized Catholic were damned to fly around in limbo for eternity. None of it made any sense to me. Nor did most of the bible. What kind of God would ask a man to kill his own son to prove that he loved GOD!!!??? A monster! That's what I thought.

The more I read the bible, the more I decided that I didn't want anything to do with any God that had anything to do with that book. The more history I learned, the more I came to think of religion (most of it)as a force that caused war, or was an excuse for it, or was an excuse for hating people who didn't look or think like you. AND it was all crazy. A virgin having a baby!? What's THAT about???

Before I even got to Interlochen, I realized that religion was not for me. My brother said that it was important to belong to a religion or a church, even if you didn't agree with some of the things they preached. He talked about changing things "from the inside". But I just felt like I would be a hypocrite to say I was part of ANY religion that hated gay people or other religions. Period.

Over the years, and with much thought put into the matter, I have come to believe in some kind of God. Not a man with a white beard. Not a MAN at all. My God is a mix of science and faith. A mixture of the miracle of all that we DO know now, and all that we don't. It's a little bit like "the force" in Star Wars. Even in this enlightened time, there is still so much unknown. the more that we know - the more we know we DON'T know. And why should we? Mere mortals?

As cloudy and muddled as my faith is, I still go to bed every night saying, "Thank you God. Thank you for my beautiful children. Thank you for every moment you give me with them."

And, as cloudy and muddled as my faith is, I still imagine a kind of heaven. I have to. I imagine Marieke there. In her own tailor-made heaven. In my imagination, she is surrounded by all of the lost or broken animals that need her love. It's a bit like the 'Isle of misfit toys' from the old Rudolph Christmas special. Only it's a perfect,sunny day. And for some reason, I see her as a giant girl. A great, big version of Marieke. Laying in the grass, the sun warming her long,blonde hair, her big eyes sparkling with joy as she cuddles with puppies and bunnies and cats and birds and - you name it.
Like some kind of bizarre fairy tale, she can part the grass beneath her (as if it was cloud material) and look down on her family here on earth. Blow kisses to her mother. Check in on us all.
And once in awhile, maybe, Tom might be able to visit her. Stepping out of his heaven into hers. And maybe even Paul.

If you believe science, nothing ever goes AWAY. It only changes. So I believe that their energy is SOMEWHERE. SOMEHOW.

Just because I can't understand it, or imagine it, doesn't mean it isn't so.