I want to say first off that I am not trying to start a debate with anyone or to convert anyone or to make fun of anyone's beliefs. It simply occurred to me that I have walked my religious path on my own for so long, it might be interesting to get it out there and let people know what my journey has been like.
I wasn't raised in a religious household. I was fully 15 years old before I even found out that my family even had a religion. Before that, I had always assumed we were atheists. I had been vaguely aware that my maternal grandmother was Catholic, but that was the extent of what I knew.
When I was in grade three, a new girl came to our school. Her name was Trisha and as luck would have it, we were on the same school bus. We became best friends. Trisha's family was religious and she gave me a picture Bible to read. It was something completely new to me and I think I thought of it as a novelty. I remember bringing the Bible home in a plastic bag and when my mother asked me what it was, I was evasive at first. I said something like, "It isn't something that we read." She figured out right away that it was a Bible. She said it was no big deal and that there was no need to hide it. So I believed that she was open-minded, but I still didn't know that she believed in God. I just thought that she was being tolerant. When I think back on that today, it is really weird that I thought that.
So my first experience with religion was thanks to Trisha. I read the Bible and started praying, but I didn't really know what it was all about. To me, it was like being a good girl. If I prayed, then I thought I was being a good girl. I read the Bible and tried to study it so I would know what it was about, but that is as far as it went. Besides feeling that I was a good person, I didn't really experience anything that I would call faith. I had plenty of imagination, but that was as far as I got in believing in God. Soon the novelty wore off and I forgot to pray or to read the Bible. The next year, in grade four, Trisha moved away and we didn't keep in touch.
As far as I can recall, that was my first experience with religion. It was a very short chapter of my life.
Later, when I was in university studying to be a teacher, there were two optional courses that we were strongly encouraged to take so that we could be qualified to teach religious education in elementary school. One course was a sort of history of religion that covered some of the stories in the Bible, and the other was a pedagogical course on how to teach religion. It wasn't an absolute must, but as most teachers were called on to teach religion, it would help us land jobs if we had taken the two courses.
In the second course, the pedagogical one, we learned that when a child is young, it is the mystery and the wonder of religion that reaches out to them. At a young age, children are not yet looking into the message that the writers of the Bible were trying to transmit. They are simply attracted to the wonder of the stories. Creation, David and Goliath and the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes are magical stories to children. At a young age, this is all that were were asked to transmit to the students. The magic.
I think that I caught some of this magic when I was reading the Bible and praying on my own. It is actually ironic that I had to go out and get this magic on my own. I don't remember ever being taught about it in elementary school. I have looked over my old school report cards and was surprised at what I found there. In grade four, under the heading of Religious Education, the teacher had written that we had covered personal hygiene that term. I kid you not. This is what Religious Education period was used for.
Instead of the public school system, I have Trisha and her family to thank for planting the seed. I don't even remember their last name. I wonder where they are today...
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