So, today, someone told me that the key to proper catechism (religious education) is testimony. That is, sharing your own religious experiences but making sure to draw attention to what God has done for you rather than yourself, can be super effective, not to educate, obviously, but to evangelize. "Bearing witness to Christ" is the best way bring people to the Church. How to properly share your testimony, though? Answer these three questions:
1. What was your life like before Christ?
2. How did you convert to Christianity?
3. What is your life like now, with Christ?
Obviously, my testimony will be a little different.
My life before Christ was one of loneliness and isolation (so far so good, right?). I grew up as basically atheist in a small, rural Christian town. When I was in middle school, I had friends who asked me things like, "If humans are descended from apes, why are there still monkeys?" In my class in world history in the sixth grade, my teacher asked me to describe and draw my favorite Bible story. My mom took me to an Episcopal Church where the homily started out, "Hey, at least we're better than Lutherans!"
Because this is my Christian story, I'm going to skip over my years as a fledgling witch. Let's go to college!
I went to a private Catholic institution. As a part of my curriculum there, I was required to take six hours in theology. Not a big deal. I enjoy studying other cultures. Now, I admit, I was nineteen and naive. When we got to the Biblical portion of my Intro to Catholicism class, I was pretty good at Biblical interpretation, despite the fact that it was the first time encountering many of the texts. I earned a lot of praise from my male professor, which admittedly felt pretty good. I lacked a certain amount of male praise growing up. I earned a scholarship for community service work. Some of the projects I was involved with were entirely secular (such as helping catalogue photographs at the local library), but the majority of my projects were through the school, which meant there was a spiritual aspect/reflection in almost everything I did. I got heavily involved in campus ministry, if (initially) for the community outreach aspect of it.
So, combining all the praise I was receiving in my theology courses and the feeling of being included with campus ministry, along with the isolation I felt being a witch at a small Catholic university, I decided to major in theology. From there, it only made sense to be confirmed in the Catholic Church, if only for my career. I don't think I ever really believed in the teachings of the Church. I was always very uncomfortable with the position of women in the Church. At the back of my mind, I think I felt as though I could help things along between Catholics and pagans by approaching them using their own language. I was terribly naive.
After college, I went to work for the Church. Let me say this: my supervisor was a very good, upstanding man. He took a chance with hiring me with no experience and I truly appreciate the opportunity. However, he was also laity. Almost every priest I met refused to look me in the eye, or even address me directly. This was off-putting, of course, but I ignored it. After a few months, I realized that there would be no advancement in my career. Even more, the issues that were most important to me (such as environmental issues), were completely brushed off by the majority of people I met in a professional capacity. I say "brushed off," but it was really more like "aggressively ignored." It was made very clear that these issues were not of interest to the average Catholic.
And then there were the phone calls. After every weekend, I would dread coming back to work because I knew my voicemail would be inundated with people (Catholic parishioners) swearing and screaming at me because they disagreed with (again, their own Catholic) politics. It was then that I realized there was no hope approaching Catholics with a pagan perspective, because they couldn't even agree with each other. I gave up hope and quit my job.
Now, let's go back and tell the story again, but with Wicca.
The inciting incident that led me to Wicca was this: I attended a performance by my nieces and nephews at their Bible Camp. At the end of the performance, the children parroted off Bible verses without understanding them. It struck me as very wrong, but it shouldn't have, not if I was truly an atheist. So I went on a quest for what I believed in. I went through some of the same struggles that I'm sure a lot of pagans and Wiccans go through: do I really believe this, or do I just want to believe this? This went on for years, despite experiences that confirmed my beliefs. I found that traditional Wiccan practices didn't quite fit with my lifestyle, as I've mentioned in a previous post. Eventually I found a spiritual practice that worked for me and a deity that in her infitine graciousness took interest in me. (I have to note that it happened in that order; it seemed that when I was more attentive to my beliefs, I attracted more spiritual attention. Funny how that works.)
Life after Wicca is actually fairly normal. I work a full-time job, pay my bills, watch movies, read books. But I have the benefit of being able to see transcendence everywhere. Deity is all around me. That is what makes my life rich.
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