What I Really Want to Talk About....

and what I will talk about are two totally different things.

I want to tell you the seventeen songs on my playlist for Sunday's run. Seventeen glorious songs that will carry me straight through the race! Yay!

But, instead.

I spoke to one of my best friends from high school on the phone yesterday. The conversation was going along just fine until we got on the topic of religion. Lately, it's been harder and harder to talk about my beliefs with my Catholic friends, because they cannot phathom ever going to a non-Catholic church.

My parents and my friends of different denominations (and those who claim no one faith or claim a faith but don't actively practice it) have been immensely supportive as I've entered a different path on my spiritual journey.

But the Catholics. Well, I suppose if they accept what I'm saying, then their own worlds would come tumbling down. If my friend last night accepted that there is a path to Grace that does not involve Catholicism, his life would have no meaning. He has spent his life coming to understand the Catholic Church, in his own way, and if he admitted that there may be those who don't need the Catholic Church, well, I believe he would need to be heavily medicated in order to continue to function in the world.

I think my favorite part of the conversation was when he, breathlessly, asked me if I was considering getting baptised in another Christian faith. Uhm, no. First of all, just, no. And second of all, I'm pretty sure they don't require a RE-Baptism. The Baptism my parents organized in February of 1981 is working out pretty well for me, thanks.

My mom, on the other hand, in response to my own statement that I certainly don't remember ever hearing that those who aren't Catholic are saved only by the fact that the Catholic Church exists in the world, had this to say:

"I vaguely remember that line in my religious education, but as I didn't believe it, I just ignored it - and as your father feels the same, we certainly never passed that haughty belief onto you!!"

While I mourn what may be the passing of that friendship (I'm not sure he'll be able to stay in the same room seeing as how I not only date a non-Catholic but also <> hope to marry that non-Catholic someday), I celebrate the freedom I have to practice my own faith. I celebrate the fact that my parents encouraged me to question the world around me. I celebrate the fact that I have any faith at all.