My boyfriend is really into witchcraft at the moment. Really into it. I have American Horror Story: Coven to thank for that. I don’t like American Horror Story: Coven and I don’t like witchcraft, and as a way of using this against me he has developed a new joke where he whispers a spell into his hand, then blows it towards me whenever I do something like forget to pick my clothes up off the floor (which I do often).
The thing about this joke is: every time it happens, despite the fact that I know that he isn’t actually casting a spell, it gives me an icky shudder down my spine. I get a little bit scared.
I can only put this down to a deep-seated fear instilled in me when I asked my mother if we could get Practical Magic out from the video store when I was nine. My mother told me witches – the women in this film, here portrayed by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman – were in relationships with Satan.
It was a reminder that my family believed in Hell, the Devil, and in him as the source of all the evil in the world. For the same reason, we weren’t allowed to go into Gipzys, a shop that sold crystals and incense near the Toyworld at Riccarton Mall.
My family went to church together every week. We had a huge collection of Christian music on vinyl, and we watched VeggieTales, an animated series where vegetables re-enact stories from the Bible (look it up, it’s actually pretty well-written).
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My family was the type of family that would sit in the lounge in front of the fire as Dad read a chapter of a novel, and then when he was finished, we would close our eyes and pray aloud for the characters. “Dear god, please be with Anne of Green Gables in this time of need, and help her overcome Gilbert’s bullying.” Didn’t know that was a type of family? Now you do.
I started drifting from Christianity in my early teens. I found church boring and struggled to connect with the ideas that were presented to me. I couldn’t abide the idea that those of my friends who didn’t “ask Jesus into their heart” would experience eternal punishment. I didn’t want to believe it, and I couldn’t understand why people who did weren’t desperately trying to save everyone around them. And an eternal paradise where you have all the assets and abilities you want on Earth sounded boring and empty to me.
Simply put, I felt like I was wasting my time worrying about pleasing a man I couldn’t see. The only thing that kept me going to church was my desire to sing in the rock band. (Then I dropped out to be in the school musical: telling.)
At Easter camp when I was 13, we had a ‘men’s night’, where we sat in a circle and were told that God didn’t like us masturbating, and that it was only excusable as a last-ditch resort to avoid having pre-marital sex. It was such a shameful idea of sex, and it stayed with me for so long that I’m very lucky that I don’t now have a wife and kids, and struggle through my days hanging out for a moment alone with the Dan Carter underwear ad in the Farmers catalogue under my pillow.
I grappled with the idea that, even though I didn’t like going to church, and didn’t agree with the rules dictated in the Bible, someone was up there and I owed them something
But around the same time as Easter Camp, one of my aunts was seriously injured. She came very close to death, and late on the night it happened, we sat in the lounge crying and prayed together. By a miracle, they survived. Our prayer had worked, and we had God to thank.
For years, I took this as fact. I couldn’t shake the idea that God had done what we’d asked of Him. I grappled with the idea that, even though I didn’t like going to church, and didn’t agree with the rules dictated in the Bible, someone was up there and I owed them something.
Today, I go to church twice a year, at Easter and Christmas. As a lasting hangover of my faith, a couple of times a month I spend a sleepless night considering which I’m more afraid of: dying, and that being the end, and there being darkness and nothing – or the idea of living forever in an eternal paradise. It’s a choice that makes me feel helpless and alone, and even now, I can see the appeal of accepting a worldview that means you don’t have to make it.
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Here’s how I see it, in a way that may offend many and is potentially ignorant: church is a good place to escape fear and to find community. It is definitely a rewarding experience for many. You make friends and see them every week; you get to meet people’s new babies all the time; and there’s plenty to talk about, like, for instance, when someone’s son comes out as gay. (Guilty secret: I love knowing that I was church gossip.)
But there are plenty of other places and groups in which to find belonging. I feel a sense of community backstage at a comedy gig or watching a DVD with my Sunday night gay 90s movie club. We haven’t got to Practical Magic yet, but it’s on the list.
If I someday raise children in a household absent of any kind of religion, will they never belong to a faith, purely because they were never told to?
People go to church to connect with God. They believe they do, and I can’t deny they don’t. Maybe God is out there, but I’ve given up searching for Him. Or Her. I don’t see the value in searching for meaning in a higher power when the world is rich with people to meet and things to do.
But I’m mostly glad I grew up going to church. I did my first play there – it was about a virtual reality basketball team – and it’s probably to thank for my slight musical abilities. I learned stories that are good for any writer to know. And it let me make a relatively informed opinion about what I believe in.
That is something I worry about: if I someday raise children in a household absent of any kind of religion, will they miss out? Will they never belong to a faith, purely because they were never told to? Or will they be happier if they’ve never believed in Heaven and Hell, and won’t ever in their twenties lie awake at night freaking out about eternity? If they have aren’t made to feel guilty about sex, will they masturbate too much and die or slack off on their schoolwork?
My future kids will be allowed to watch Practical Magic but maybe it won’t be good for them. They won’t watch VeggieTales, but maybe they should.
I guess what I want for them is a show in which animated vegetables don’t know what the future holds, who don’t know where their soul is going to end up, but are doing their best in life anyway. That’s the kind of vegetable I grew up to be.
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