Thoughts on Childhood

In thinking about intuition and how to re-open it for myself/relearn what I've lost, my thoughts keep returning to a point in my childhood when I got myself backed into a corner, and where this certain part of me just withered and died.

I grew up in a very Catholic-repressed household. You didn't question, you didn't think, you just did. Well, my parents, my little sister and brother did. I had more of a problem with it than they did, for awhile.

This particular time.... It was for confirmation - you know that? (If you're a catholic, you do). Where you go and have lots of talks and after school crap at the church, you speak with the youth group director and priest and pick a name for yourself? This is a turning point in the church, as this is the first of the times that you can actually have a say in your church and education therein.

I'd always been a pretty indifferent churchgoer. Nothing for it ever did anything for me; well, almost nothing. Have you ever seen a midnight mass, with the candles glowing through the darkness, incense smoking, and people chanting? Pretty pagan to me. But I digress.

This confirmation thing created a huge problem. I wanted to know *why* I couldn't go outside and pray. Not in the church, not with the people, not with the drunken joke that was the priest, or the closet lesbian that was the church youthgroup pastor (too afraid of coming out and losing her job). If God was in the details, I argued, then I wanted to be out in the nature that he created and not in the stifling, green-carpeted church that shoved my soul into the floor every time I was in it.

And if I couldn't do that, well, I wasn't going to be confirmed. And they *had* to have my approval and "want" to be able to go forward (or so they said). I had lots and lots of talks after that; mostly the youth group director and the priest taking turns tag-teaming me, arguing constantly. I still wasn't having any of it (I can be stubborn, you know).

And I'm sorry, but I remember their arguments, and "cause the bible told me so" just didn't cut it. They ended up having to bring the parents in, mistakenly thinking that would help. NOPE! Not a bit. The little brother and sister were brought in, food was withheld, horse time denied, everything.

But the thing was - I knew I was right, on a deep, deep level. I didn't feel anything in the church; no transcendental moments, no bliss, nothing. It was all outside where I felt it, when I was riding my horse through the plains, exploring with my two dogs, living in nature. And if they weren't going to accept that (or at least ACKNOWLEDGE it) then well, I wasn't going to go for the confirmation thing.

So what happened? After holding the entire process up (the lemmings were totally for it) over three weeks, my father beat the living crap out of me and informed the priest and youth group person I accepted it. The youth group person picked a name for me (very tongue in cheek: Francis, for St Francis of Assissi) and the whole thing went through. I decided I would be sick on the confirmation day, and didn't go (it was all I could do).

All the struggle, all the pain, for some stupid hour. It really brought my soul down, and cast my intuition into the pit of despair. There it lay, unused and ignored, until last year.

Now it comes back with a vengeance, and I remember all the things that happened before. I think that with the awareness and return of the intuition, the lock on my memory has been opened, and that part I don't like, as there is a lot in there I would rather forget. But remembering and knowing I lived through it makes me stronger, and ever more determined to do what I think is right.

This includes my intuition, which I welcome back with open arms, despite the pain.