I went to church yesterday. And the Sunday before that. And the Sunday before. In fact, I’ve been going to church for more than a month now, and even writing it down feels absurd. I had planned to talk about something else this week because I wanted to keep my faith exploration private, but, you know, news spread fast: I told someone, another person heard us, and suddenly a friend in the library comes up to me and asks if I believe in God now. May as well clear the air. As much as I didn’t like being “outed” like that, it was also a relief. Eight years ago, I started exploring my sexuality and soon after that, I was outed by someone who sent a picture of me and my ex (hi Elena, love you) to my family. At the time, I didn’t know what my feelings were for her, I didn’t know how to label myself, I didn’t even know it was possible to be happy with someone who was not the prince charming of the stories we’d been told. I was not ready to have a proper conversation about it with my family, but I had to. Looking back, they took a weight off my chest. But, obviously, don’t out people, everyone has their time and reasons, and you can put someone in real danger.
Anyway, the discovery of my sexuality more or less coincides with my detachment from the Catholic Church and anything religion related. My faith was already fragile, and when I saw the amount of hate that supposedly “Christians” direct toward people whose sin is to love someone of their same gender, it crumbled completely. More than that, I became so mad at God. Was he not supposed to accept and love everyone exactly as they are? Then why was he not accepting me when I needed it the most?
Time passes, I forget about my faith, and I move on with my life, and I reach a point where to go on I need to believe that there is something bigger, that there is a plan, and everything happens for a reason. Call it irrational or silly—as a future scientist, I agree with you—but for me, it was survival. I still didn’t trust the church, so I trusted the universe. From meditation to angel numbers and from crystals to the law of attraction, I learned what I had to and started to believe. And I still do. I do my meditation in the morning and my manifestations in the evening.
So why church? I don’t know. But I know one Sunday during summer, while I was on the edge of depression at the seaside back in Italy, I took the car and drove to the closest church. I stayed in the car for half an hour, watched people go in for mass, and drove back home. Next Sunday, I repeated the process, but I actually went in, and I felt such strong and conflicting emotions that I cried for a good half of the mass. No, it was no call from God—the closest thing I had to that was watching season two of Fleabag—but it felt good.
However, I had to return to Aberdeen and start a new way of experiencing church to make peace with my faith. And I know the process is still long. But that’s okay, I will take my time and figure out what feels right and what doesn’t for me.
What I find ironic is that it took me so much time and so many tears to even accept the fact that I’m looking for a spiritual guide—and to this day I sometimes feel ashamed about it—just as I felt ashamed when I started thinking I could be part of the LGBTQIA+ community long ago. And as people judged me then, they judge me now, for different reasons. They will always judge, whatever my partner choice or spiritual path is. So, let them judge.
I guess what I want to say here is that maybe boundaries are not as strict as I thought for many years, that being queer and believing in a greater power is not contradictory, nor is believing in science and having faith in the universe and God or Allah or any other religious figure at the same time. Life is hard as it is, so do whatever makes you feel at peace.
Have a Yellow Week.