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| The real one has gold embossed edges and the same text on the back, but in Latin. |
As I've become an adult and gotten older, I've found more and more that I am not who I thought I'd be.
I started dating my former high school teacher, something that scandalized quite a few people at the time, when I was an 18 year old graduate and he was no longer working at the school. Three years later, I married him.
We use NFP to space our children for reasons that don't include a life-threatening illness or abject and total destitution.
I had to stop praying the Rosary in its entirety, at least temporarily.
I decided to get a tattoo.
And now, my oldest child is rapidly reaching the age where we need to make actual decisions about his education. My husband and I have been talking, praying, discerning, and debating, trying to choose between homeschooling, Catholic school, and public school...but we've finally come to a decision.
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| Image Credit: Tenor I know. I know... |
In some circles, these decisions have precluded me from being even a "good," "fully formed" or "actually practicing" Catholic. My Good Catholic Card (TM) hasn't just been handed in, at this point it's been shredded and burned to ash.
And, honestly, I think maybe Jesus did that on purpose. It seems like He does stuff like that pretty often.
None of the lifestyle decisions I've made that preclude me from popular "good Catholic" status have been against Church teaching. All of them were reached after a period of prayer and discernment, and they've all been aimed towards the goal of meeting the real spiritual, intellectual, emotional, or physical needs of myself and my family (even my tattoo, for reasons a little too personal to get into here).
They're all things I've done because I thought they were the best choice for the good of my family and mission, not because I wanted to take the easy way out or because I didn't care about my faith.
Looking back, a lot of these decisions were actually really difficult to make. I was mortified that I was attracted to my now-husband, (he was my TEACHER, and I got the certificate for most outstanding student in his class my junior year! How was this gonna look? Was he going to be weirded out if I told him I liked him, and should I be worried if he wasn't?! etc.) and it took a lot of guts to make that initial phone call.
It feels genuinely surreal not to have a baby in diapers right now.
It was difficult to admit that our family isn't in a place where we can pray a nightly Rosary yet.
I was WAY out of my comfort zone sitting in that tattoo parlor.
The biggest, at least for me, example of stepping outside of my comfort zone was the decision to send our oldest to public school next year. I spent literal years worrying about it, but after many, MANY conversations with my husband and a LOT of prayer, I came to the conclusion that, for my son, this really is the best fit. We know the principal at that elementary school, we've visited the campus, and I really think he'll thrive there (we don't live in an area where a depraved 'sex education' is an issue, and because my husband works for the school district we know we'll hear if it becomes an issue).
I know I could home-school him, and probably do a pretty decent job of it, but I know that the school can provide a lot of opportunities for him that I can't. He won't receive a religious education there, but that's something I think we'll be able to provide and nurture at home, and I know that it's important enough to us that it will remain a priority.
To my surprise, the last big hurdle that remained for me, and the one I found myself struggling with the most, was that most of my friends home-school or send their kids to Catholic school, and I was genuinely worried about what they'd think of me. There was a real concern that I'd be excluded from their confidence somehow, and that I'd lose the respect and admiration of my friends-- be tolerated rather than wanted and trusted in their company.
It was pretty humbling to realize that so much of my motivation was tied up in what others would think of me. I knew that this wasn't a good basis for a decision, but I was taken aback that this was the way that this hurdle came up in my life. It seemed an atypical way for peer pressure to take hold.
It seems like every time I've had to make a choice that isn't what I consider "ideal" I find myself having to face an area of pride. Some thing or public perception that I've based part of my identity on, rather than a fidelity to my God and to the actual needs of my family. I've found myself actually having to listen, rather than follow a pre-set pattern.
And that's scary. It's really scary.
More than ever, I'm realizing that I don't know what my life will look like in the future, or what I'm going to be asked to do next. I know certain things about what it shouldn't be, nothing that breaks the laws of morality or of the Church, but I don't know what it will be, even in areas where I once thought I did.
I'm being asked to trust in ways I never thought I would be, and do things I never imagined myself doing; things that other people probably won't understand. I have to learn to be okay with that.
This is not to say that those who make choices that fall along stereotypical "real Catholic" lines are doing them for approval. A lot of times, they reach these decisions after a lot of prayer, with a true conviction that this is what God is calling them to do and that it's what's best for their families. Often, they lose the approval of their families and friends when they make these choices.
For a lot of people, these lifestyle choices, the choice to home school or to start saying a family rosary every night, are their leap out into the deep and their act of trust in God.
This leap into blind trust, rather than any cookie-cutter ideal, seems to be the common factor to a lived Christian life. Sometimes it looks like trusting and stepping out of your comfort zone by home schooling and welcoming children as they come, and other times it looks like trusting and stepping out of your comfort zone by sending your children to public school and having to wait longer than you'd like to have a new baby.
The true basis for a good Catholic or Christian life isn't how closely you fit a given mold, but in how much you're willing to actively discern what you're called to do and to step out in trust, even if the answer isn't what you expected or wanted.
It takes a lot more work than following a script, but the results seem to be far more varied and interesting.
Who knew? Maybe you can go ahead and hand your Good Catholic card in too.
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