ironic deconversion

[skeptic68]

I was raised by a Christian mother in a Nazarene church, which we attended weekly throughout my childhood. There, I absorbed all the typical messages about Christianity that one would expect of 18 years of indoctrination. When I went to college, my epiphany was swift and within a semester, I had renounced all my childhood religious beliefs, as absolutely none of it made any rational sense to me at all. What follows are ten years of relative peace on that front, until I married and had my first child. Suddenly, I became deeply compelled to get back in church. I felt that taking one's children to church was what good moms did, and I was trying like Hell to be the good mom I wanted to be rather than the flaky mess I suspected I truly was. My husband had toyed with Buddhist philosophies prior to our marriage, but was really no more religious than I, but when I decided we had to start going to church, he dutifully came along for the ride. What followed is over a decade of a religious search that ended up being far more flaky than if I had just never went back at all. Because I really didn't believe in God, Heaven, Hell, Christ, or miracles, I would have a brief honeymoon period in a church, then become disgruntled and leave abruptly. After dabbling in the Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran, Episcopal, and Missouri Synod Lutheran, I strangely woke up one day and decided I was Catholic. I signed up for RCIA classes at our local parish church and began the process of conversion to Catholicism. This is a process that begins in the Fall with weekly classes and culminates in confirmation at the Easter Vigil in Spring, so it requires a significant commitment. The irony here is that my husband didn't join me in the classes until the very end (thinking it was another fad of mine) but then at the last minute, he jumped in, too, and our whole family became Catholic at Easter Vigil 2006. Since then, my non-religious husband has become very devout and even joined the Knights of Columbus and attends Mass every week. About six months ago, I decided to stop living a lie and I confessed to our children (now ages 12 and 14) that I am truly non-religious, but I respect their right to believe in whatever way they wish (my 14 year old is a non-believer and my 12 year old believes). I attend Mass with my husband and our children weekly, but I do not kneel, say the prayers, or receive the Eucharist any longer. The Catholic Mass can be a beautiful thing if you appreciate ceremony and ritual, which I do, and sometimes I miss it. However, nothing compares to the peace of knowing that I am no longer living a lie and that a good mother can be many things. The irony of me dragging my husband along into a conversion to Catholicism and then four years later coming out of the closet as an atheist is a constant reminder to me that life truly is what happens while we're making other plans.