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Me in 1980, in my First Communion Dress

I'm joining the entire Red Room community in writing a short blog post on this week's trio of topics: "Sex, Religion, and/or Politics." The form and the content of the blog entry are open to personal interpretation--you can blog about one or any combination of these subjects. We'll choose at least one of these blogs to be featured on Red Room's homepage next week, and we'll choose three blog writers to receive free books from Red Room Authors. Submit your blog entry by Friday at 10:30 a.m. PDT [GMT-0700] for consideration. Be sure to tag the entry with the keyword term "SRP” so we can find it.

Note: I’ve changed names in this blog to protect people’s identities.

A couple of months ago I overheard some people talking about nuns. “Some nun was doing that thing, the what do you call it?”

“Signs of the cross,” I replied without thinking.

“What’s that all about?” she asked me.

“Well, you start off with your forehead and say…” I started doing it “in the name of the father,” hand on the forehead, “the son,” Hand on the center of chest, “and the Holy” hand to the left, “Spirit” hand to the right.

She looked at me like I was crazy. “I’m a lapsed Catholic,” I explained.

“Ah,” she said back, understanding.

I first became aware I was Catholic when I was six. This was when I found out I was going to Catholic School. This sounded dreadfully boring. I wanted to read all day and watch soaps with my grandmother. She told me no, this would be good for me. “You’ll learn how to pray and about God,” she said. I was confused. Couldn’t I learn about this at home?

My first day of school, I wore the blue and green uniform with a crisp white blouse, and navy blue knee high socks. This is what I would wear for five years. I love the picture of me in the uniform, holding my bookbag, ready for school. I was smart. I knew how to read. I was ready to give this praying thing a shot now.

I’ve written before how Catholic School wasn’t a good fit for me; sometimes I wonder if those five years colored my vision about the religion I have so much mixed feelings about, yet I’m still connected to it, after all these years.

In Religion, I learned that God loved us. He loved everyone, and He knew everyone’s name. This was very comforting to me, that God loved me and he knew my name was Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons. That he loved me when the next subject was handwriting and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get my handwriting to look like everyone else’s. I tried and tried, I just couldn’t. My teacher often got frustrated and mad about this. Her name was Sister Julia, and I remember she wore cheerful blue sweaters, and played the guitar. At lunch she made us show her our empty lunchboxes to make sure we ate everything, including the crusts. I later found out that she once slapped a student because they forgot their homework.

I liked church; I mostly liked the singing. I couldn’t sing a lick but I loved the songs. My grandparents took me to the 9:15 mass which I always thought of as “The Young Mass.” That’s because a woman would play a guitar and they would sing songs like “Turn Turn Turn” or my favorite “Day By Day” Day by Day, day by day, oh dear Lord, three things I pray. Then I would come home and watch a Shirley Temple movie. Church and Shirley; this was my routine for many years.

Second grade was First Communion. This was BIG. This was when we dressed in white dresses with veils, and we would go with the grownups during communion time and take the wafer. What made it even more special was that they just built a new church and we were the first class to receive First Communion in the church. I was so looking forward to this, because everything else was so bad that year. My grandmother was dying of lung cancer, and everything at home was tense and sad. In school, I started hiding my bad math grades in my desk so I wouldn’t upset everyone. I was just trying to hold on until May for First Communion.

I remember I was so nervous, when Father Ryan placed the wafer in my hands I swallowed it whole. Once I sat down I started coughing. My mother looked up; she knew my cough. She heard someone say, “We might have trouble in the second pew.” I tried not to cough; the day before, Davy Frank had thrown up all over the new red carpet. Finally, I swallowed and stopped coughing. My mother heard someone say, “It’s okay.” She breathed a sigh of relief. Afterwards we went to the Copper Skillet for breakfast. I was starving because I couldn’t eat before taking the communion. My cousin gave me a rosary; the beads looked like diamonds.

It was the last time my family, including my dad, was together. My grandmother died two months later.

Third grade was my favorite year; that was the year we made shoe box floats and we could receive communion with all the big kids on First Friday Mass. First Friday Mass was always long and boring, plus they burned this awful incense and its smell flooded the church.

I was also going to Confession around this time. I could never think of anything to confess. I tried so hard to be a Good Girl. I wanted to be a Good Girl so I could see my grandmother again in Heaven. Yet I couldn’t manage my handwriting and math. I read more than anyone though, yet that wasn’t really confession-worthy.

Fourth grade we learned how to say the rosary. I kept going to the 9:15 mass. One weekend my dad stayed with us. I walked home from mass and he joined me halfway. “How was the sermon?” he asked me while we walked.

“The sermon?” I asked.

“Yeah, the sermon! What did the priest talk about today?”

I couldn’t remember. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember. I listened to him but never took it in; I just wanted to sing and take the communion. I can’t remember what I told my dad, but it was enough.

Fourth grade we were given Bibles and started to learn about Moses. Our teacher gave us an assignment: The Egyptians would have a nice little party, while the Jews had to make bricks. If you figured out I made bricks, you’re right on the money. While I and the other brick makers drank water, the Egyptians got to live it up like it was 1999 by laughing and drinking Kool-Aid. It wasn’t fair. Which was the whole point of the assignment, but I already knew life was unfair. I lost my grandmother, my handwriting was awful, and I was bad at math. I learned this lesson already; I didn’t need to be reminded.

Yet I wanted to be a Good Girl, a Good Catholic Girl. I went to church every day on weekdays, and I prayed every night. I read a children’s bible from beginning to end. I didn’t swear, I knew there was only one God, I wasn’t going to bear false witness against my neighbor, and I wasn’t going to make any idols to fake Gods. I wouldn’t see Fast Times at Ridgemont High until I was sixteen because it had a fourteen year old girl having an abortion, and the Church didn’t like that.

Fifth Grade was The Bad Year, the year I wrote about last year, the year when I simply shut down. A lot of it I’ve blocked. I do remember this was the year we had Sex Education. Who taught us about sex? A nun! Oh, this was interesting, especially when we discussed teenage pregnancy. “It takes two to tango,” our teacher told us, “but the girl gets the worst of it. She has to have the baby and have all the responsibility.”

I raised my hand and asked “But if the boy got her pregnant, shouldn’t he share the responsibility as well?”

“Are you kidding? Usually they take off. They don’t want anything to do with the girl or the baby.”

Dear Lord.

I stopped going to mass because I had to go to Special Ed at the public school. However, my math was getting worse. Everything was getting to me that year. I did the sign of the cross with my left hand, which was wrong. I genuflected on my left knee that was wrong. Everything about me was wrong; I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a new desk like all the other kids. I couldn’t understand my teacher, a nun, was so angry at the time.

My grades were so bad that last report card but I was promoted to sixth grade. My mother called the school and said “You must be kidding. She didn’t learn a damned thing this year.”

“We think Jennifer is ready for sixth grade.”

“She’s not. She hasn’t told me everything that went on in that class but something is. A normal child doesn’t try to make herself throw up so she doesn’t have to go to school.”

“We can’t just leave her back because she had problems with one subject. No other parent has complained about the teaching.”

It was then my mother knew I couldn’t go back. She got me in a public school to repeat the fifth grade. Around then my grandfather got married again, and I stopped going to mass. Just like that. I truly believe that this saved my academic life. However, it also saved my spiritual life. If I stayed in Catholic school, I truly believe I would be an atheist now. Not there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m glad I still believe in God. I don’t trust His judgment, but there are times when I’m feeling lost or sad I go to an empty church and pray. I pray every day—not to be a Good Girl but to be of use, that things go well— when I feel so alone.

Last May, after my cat Gus died, I went to my school’s annual carnival. My mother went with me and she wandered off. I started to look for her, and I walked into church, the church of my childhood. I hadn’t been in there since my grandfather’s funeral. What amazed me was that I knew what to do. I dipped my hand in holy water, and made the Sign of the Cross, with my right hand. I walked inside and genuflected with my right knee. I sat down and listened to the priest talk about children’s letters to God. When it was over, we all stood up, and I knew what to say: “Lord hear our prayer, Christ hear our prayer.” With my thumb, I made miniature crosses on my forehead, my lips, and my heart. This meant God was in my thoughts, my words, and my heart. This was still true.

After Communion I walked out in the foyer. I saw my mother outside, watching the children playing on the field. I wanted to tell her that, although I was sad about Gus dying, I knew she was in Heaven; however, sometimes I wondered if Heaven existed anymore. I still believed in God, but wasn’t sure about the Heaven part anymore. There were times when I wanted to be so sure, like I was at ten when I read the Bible from cover to cover and thought that maybe I could be a nun, a good nun like Sally Field in The Flying Nun. I wanted to ask her, “When did it get so confusing?” I didn’t. Instead I dipped my hand in the cool holy water. I made the Sign of the Cross. I left the church without looking back to tell Mom we should get some lunch.