My Path

I have been raised Catholic. However, my father is atheist and my mother is very liberal. She mixed Catholicism and Buddhism to form her own religion but she always uses the Catholic label. I've gone to Catholic school my whole life, and let me tell you this, Catholic teachers don't like when you question religion! It's all black and white, no gray area. I remember learning Abortion is ALWAYS WRONG, Capital punishment is ALWAYS WRONG, and so on. The fact that everything was wither right or wrong didn't register with me. Does that make any sense? Then I remember my teachers rambling on about how immoral the pagans are... It's actually quite funny. This also made me curious... Are the pagans as bad as people say?

I, overall, have had a bad experience at catholic school. I don't like how strict everything is. I questioned and questioned and I never got answers. I always thought that the point of religion (to me, at least) was to answer the unanswered questions, to fill that gap in our understanding of the universe. However, I couldn't see how Catholicism was answering everybody else's questions. It only left me with more.

I considered the fact that there was no God at all, that everything could be explained without deity. I became an atheist for 6th grade and the majority of seventh. (I'm in seventh right now). I stopped praying when I was 11. I avoided church. I was doing the motions and saying the words but it was doing nothing for me. I kept the secret and sat through religion classes (and science classes, the majority of it is how religion CONNECTS to it). Then, that summer, I went to an overnight camp for intellectually gifted students.

I met this girl there. She was so kind, funny, and had this respect for nature. One day, we were talking about religion and she told me she was wiccan. That was how I first discovered it. I remember one day we found a dead butterfly. We buried it and she said a prayer.I didn't think much about it then, but now I realize what it meant. She really showed me what wicca was. It's loving everything around you, everything that is alive. It is the beautiful sunrise that begins our day, and the breathtaking sunset that sees it close. It is every leaf on the trees, it is the water rushing in a stream. I'm currently using the wiccan label. I believe that when you die, you go to summerland. If you lived well and learned what you needed to learn, you stay longer before being reincarnated. If you did not live well, you stay for a shorter time and then you are reincarnated. Thank you and blessed be ! )O(