When I lived in San Francisco, I started attending a catholic parish called St. John of God. The church was small and lovely with its own Irish priest who acknowledged that the Bible was a parable. The average age of a parishioner was probably 70. They did a lot of work on the cancer ward at UCSF. They built houses for people. They raised money for the community.
I started attending church masses early on Sundays. And then I started staying for the after church socials where adorable old ladies served homemade coffee cake and scones with coffee. And then, to my mom's surprise and delight as I was agnostic for a time, I started attending Sunday school classes to make my confirmation. Finally.
Yes, I made my Catholic confirmation in my thirties.
I enjoyed the classes. Most of all, I just loved reading the stories and learning about the history of religion. We would debate in class over whether cats and dogs went to heaven. I'm sure they do and won the unofficial debate. At least in my opinion I did. But most of all, church was a community for me. I joined the choir and loved singing, letting my voice soar to the hymns with the guitar and piano in the background.
The day of my confirmation, my mom, sister and baby Selena drove down to see it. I walked up the aisle, and grinned, knowing that this could happen nowhere else but in a progressive parish in San Francisco. And I felt a presence in the church that day. I looked around at the stained glass windows and felt it. The universe, Buddha, God. A rose by any other name. And it felt lovely and true. Later, my faith would help me through my dad's death. And through my failed infertility treatments.
So in the end, that confirmation was meant to be. Like most things. It's not that I needed to conform or anything like that. Like my MFA writing program in many ways, it was something I decided to do just for me.
And it felt good.
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