Day 12. Are we really gonna go there?

I gotta say, I'm sharing Katy-Gras, these 30 days leading to MY birthday, w/ a lotta birthdays, births, pregnancies and anniversaries! Every time I turn around someone is posting, "Hey it's my birthday," or "1,000 weeks pregnant and counting!" or "It's a GIRL!" or "15 years ago I married the man of my dreams and now he won't take out the trash," or "Fifty is the new forty," or some such.
Happy, happy days to ALL Y'ALL!! (That's a joke that Uncle Van will get. The Uncle who appreciates trite, overworked, and overworked-to-the-point-of-incorrect phrases.)
I'm proud to share my month.
Here's Item #12 on my list of things that makes ME ... ME ...

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I'm thinking I was around 12, my dad had picked me up from dancing lessons and we were parked in the driveway of the house in his blue work van. For some reason, and it can be scary when one is 12 and with one's DAD, we were talking about boys. And religion. I don't know why or how it came up. And I made what I thought was an innocent remark: "Whenever I get married, I'll just change religions. "
He didn't respond in awkward silence, but rather with, "WHAT??!? Er, I mean, WHY do you say that?"
"Well, I doubt he'll be Catholic anyway, so I'll just change."
"Why will YOU change?"
"Don't I have to?"
"Uh, NO, you don't. I'm just curious why you think YOU have to change your beliefs?"
I KNOW I was still growing INTO what I believed. I KNOW I did BELIEVE certain things. And I KNOW I didn't know HOW to answer that question.
To back up a bit, growing up, none of my closest friends were Catholic. Few of my school friends were Catholic. But, ALL my friends, it seemed, shared similar beliefs as my family. Church and religion were NOT something any of us dwelled on, or shouted out loud, it was just something we did.
I grew up and received sacraments in the Catholic Church.
I learned about quiz-show-like Bible Bowl from a friend at the Baptist Church in town.
I learned about basement youth dances from the same friend who was Methodist for awhile.
I learned about VBS and "lock-ins" from friends at the "bigger" Baptist Church in town.
I learned about group ski trips from the same friends.
I learned about singing in a Christmas cantata from that friend who was Baptist and then Methodist and then Baptist again.
I learned about worship sans music from my friends in the Church of Christ.
I learned about Bible study from my friends in the Presbyterian Church.
(I yearn to learn, if only from books and blogs, more about the Jewish and Mormon faiths. And I wish SOMEONE would invite me to a Bar Mitzvah. Bar or Bat, matters not.)
So, to "change my beliefs" didn't seem like I was changing my beliefs at all when I was 12. I had a comfortable place in each of those Churches and I was never made to feel forced, slighted or uncomfortable. I never had to "share," or "profess," or "evangelize" in any way. My friends were there. Their families were there. Like school and dancing lessons, it's just how it was.
To my dad, who was 12 yrs old and then a teenager at a very different time under very different circumstances, his community WAS Catholic. He wanted to be sure I knew that was HIM and it was ME and it was something I didn't HAVE to change if I didn't want to.
Not quite knowing how to wrap the conversation up, I think I probably muttered, "OK, I won't," or the oft-used, "I know."
Conversation over.
Dinner served.
Time goes on.
So, THIS MORNING, I'm in and around our church doing completely non-religious (I guess that would be secular) things. Meetings. Donations collections. Greeting. Arranging. Coordinating. Not a prayer was said nor a blessing offered. And, tho' I didn't realize it some 29 years ago, I was home. Those things that surround me in my church are ME. I never had to choose. I never had to choose for my children. When our family was born almost 15 years ago TO THIS DAY, we shared a faith, we shared a commitment, we sealed it w/ a sacrament. And in the words of my now-teenage niece many years ago, "Amen. Let's GO!"
No big folly or fa la la. It just is.
I was never GIVEN a choice. I never felt I had to MAKE a choice. It was what we did. It is what I do. I don't need to discuss it. Preach it. Pray it. Or say it.
It's home.
It's quiet.
And it's me.
How's THAT to follow the Fartlek?
I "went there" w/ religion, didn't I?
Sure 'nuf.
Whew.