where the path runs straight and high
Feb. 4th, 2007 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xaaraWhen I started Italian public school in sixth grade, I had to fill out a registration form. Most of the boxes were labeled with cognates: nome, madre, padre. Religione.
I had no idea what to put. Catholic? I'm only nominally Catholic, though. I go to church for Christmas mass because I think it's a beautiful ceremony, but I also attend the celebration of the winter solstice a few days before. I don't keep up with what's going on in the Vatican.
I wrote no in the box because I hadn't learned how to express none yet.
It was the wrong answer. No one knew how to respond to someone who had "no" religion. Everyone had some religion, whether it was Catholicism or the Islam practiced by the tiny minority of students from northern Africa. Don't you mean Christian? my teacher asked. She thought I didn't understand the box's caption. What religion are your parents?
Shrugging, I opened my English-Italian dictionary and sounded out niente.
We'll put Christian, said my teacher. She must've thought it was some rebellion on my part, some separation, removal from my parents. I shook my head. Niente, I said again. None.
My teacher's eyes, when they met mine, were full of pity. And unlike the north Africans, I was not excused from religion class.
It's been over six years since I wrote no under religion. Now, I live in a place where atheism is the norm. It's all right to say you hate Jesus. It's all right to make jokes about God and to mock people of faith, talking about them like they're children, too stupid to know better.
Sometimes, all I want is to be back in a place where everyone knew that they were watched out for and loved. Someplace where everyone knew that kindness had a greater reward than a smile, or even that a smile was a great reward. Where being on time had no real meaning, because we're all mortal, we all have only one life to live, and there's no reason to shorten it by worrying all the time.
I'd still write no. I don't belong to a religion. I don't call myself Catholic.
But I believe in people, in humanity, in the inevitable tide of time. I believe.
I had no idea what to put. Catholic? I'm only nominally Catholic, though. I go to church for Christmas mass because I think it's a beautiful ceremony, but I also attend the celebration of the winter solstice a few days before. I don't keep up with what's going on in the Vatican.
I wrote no in the box because I hadn't learned how to express none yet.
It was the wrong answer. No one knew how to respond to someone who had "no" religion. Everyone had some religion, whether it was Catholicism or the Islam practiced by the tiny minority of students from northern Africa. Don't you mean Christian? my teacher asked. She thought I didn't understand the box's caption. What religion are your parents?
Shrugging, I opened my English-Italian dictionary and sounded out niente.
We'll put Christian, said my teacher. She must've thought it was some rebellion on my part, some separation, removal from my parents. I shook my head. Niente, I said again. None.
My teacher's eyes, when they met mine, were full of pity. And unlike the north Africans, I was not excused from religion class.
It's been over six years since I wrote no under religion. Now, I live in a place where atheism is the norm. It's all right to say you hate Jesus. It's all right to make jokes about God and to mock people of faith, talking about them like they're children, too stupid to know better.
Sometimes, all I want is to be back in a place where everyone knew that they were watched out for and loved. Someplace where everyone knew that kindness had a greater reward than a smile, or even that a smile was a great reward. Where being on time had no real meaning, because we're all mortal, we all have only one life to live, and there's no reason to shorten it by worrying all the time.
I'd still write no. I don't belong to a religion. I don't call myself Catholic.
But I believe in people, in humanity, in the inevitable tide of time. I believe.