Please Don’t Tell My Mother

Judaism 101: My early years: There is one God. Jews are chosen by that God. Everything else is heresy.
Unitarianism 101: My middle years: There’s a God if you want to believe there’s a God. Most people don’t, or if they do, they’re not saying.
Quakerism 101, Midwest version: My seminary years: There’s a God, and Christ is the way to God, but we accept all comers.
Theology 101: If you’re going to be a minister, you’d better figure out what you believe about God.
Life: No wonder I’m confused.

I was born into Judaism and practiced faithfully for many years. I chose Unitarian Universalism as a young adult, because of a new relationship. I became a UU minister at 45 years because as I became more aware of the violence perpetrated in the name of religion, I became more passionate about the need to use religion to promote peace. Unitarian Universalism actively promotes individual responsibility for personal answers to the perennial questions religions usually answer. How do we understand the mysteries of the universe? What happens after we die? Why is there evil? Why can’t we live without oppressing others?
In the US most mainstream religious institutions are part of the Abrahamic, or one-God, trilogy – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The institutionalized versions of these traditions focus on how different they are. But my experience, especially recently, keeps showing me the similarities that can’t help but exist among them. I’ve not studied Islam in much depth – yet, but as a seminarian and as a minister I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about Christianity.
The wonderful relationship that brought me into Unitarian Universalism ended after 24 years when my partner died after a long illness. Her death overshadowed my passion for ministry, my energy and desire to work in the world, and my connection to Unitarian Universalism. A year passed and everyone told me how ‘normal’ it is to still feel the primacy of grief and its concomitant loss of energy. I began to regain my energy, but not my passion. It was still difficult to be involved with anything UU – including worship.
I found a new relationship – with a Roman Catholic priest – a woman who first dreamed of priesthood at age 5, and finally at age 60 realized that dream through the controversial ordination process of Roman Catholic women. [For more on her story see Sophia Christi Catholic Community.] I started attending her monthly masses out of support for her work. And that’s when my theological conundrum really grew.
For years I have avoided Communion because it felt disrespectful to participate without being Christian. And I am not Christian. But I have for many years been fascinated by the connection between Jesus’ brand of Judaism and mine. Where Catholics see Communion, I see a Passover Seder. When the Priest says, “This is my body” I hear the rabbi at the Seder saying, “This is the bread of affliction”. “This is my blood” becomes the blood of the paschal lamb. The Priest talks about the ritual of sitting at table together, symbolically receiving God into our bodies in community renewing our awareness that divinity dwells within each of us at all times. The wine symbolizes nourishment from the earth – again shared in community. But it’s not the thoughts, or the particular symbolism that bring me comfort. It is the practice of the ritual – knowing that it has been performed in much the same manner for two thousand years. It reminds me of the comfort I find in Jewish ritual and it feeds my aching heart.
Still I was surprised when I rose to take Communion. The Priest knows I’m not Christian let alone Catholic, but the Communion ‘table’ is open to everyone – much like the Seder table. And what I need most right now is the comfort of religious ritual and religious community. Perhaps like the author Karen Armstrong, I am becoming a ‘freelance monotheist’, appreciating the richness of their different rituals and the gifts all three religions bring to my understanding of the world. (I will be very surprised if my study of Islam does not offer me similar gifts.)
So, when I am home, I go to Mass with my partner. And when I am in Philadelphia, I go to synagogue with my mother – the synagogue where she was raised and where my sister and I were raised.

I have just returned from the Kol Nidre service with my mother. It is the beginning of Yom Kippur, and the beginning of our twenty four hour fast – the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. This service has always had a particular power for me – my earliest memories of synagogue include listening to the same haunting melodies I heard tonight. Things have changed at the synagogue since I attended regularly; I don’t recognize very many people there anymore. My mom is 87 and she’s a bit stooped over now, so when we stand I am taller than she is. But when I close my eyes, I am seven years old, or maybe ten or even fifteen and I am sitting in the same seats in the same sanctuary filled with the wonder of tradition and ritual and I marvel at how I am connected not only with my early life, but with the lives of all of the people through thousands of years who recited the same words and reached for closeness with the same God.
A few years ago I would have seen only the contradictions of these activities. Now, I see the connections. Ironically, the experience of the past year attending Mass seems to open me even more to the richness of participating in Jewish worship. My heart is open and yearning for a deeper connection that I thought was part of my past. But time has a way of losing its linearity when it is experienced through the heart. And the Jewish God, who is said to be closest to humanity at Yom Kippur, seems very close indeed. L’Shana Tova.

 

4 responses to “Please Don’t Tell My Mother”

  1. Allison W. says:

    Patti, it is so good to read your words. It’s been awhile since I heard you preach, and it helps me to remember how gifted you are in writing. What a beautiful reflection. Wishing you a beautiful and meaningful Yom Kippur.

  2. Margee Bailey says:

    Patti, this is a wonderfully thoughtful, beautiful website. Thanks so much for your reflections.

  3. Oralee says:

    Patti, what a witness to the power of ritual and re-connection to the ritual of our upbringing. You weave these together so beautifully.

    your writing inspires me to a deepen authenticity. Thank you for this.

    With appreciation and gratitude,
    Oralee

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