How long would it take....

I'll try to put this in short form (I've written about it at length here before).
- I was a shy only child in a very religious catholic family; went to catholic grammar school and girls' high school from the mid forties to the late fifties. Heavy involvement in novenas, masses, retreats, yadda yadda yadda.
- my father was involved in the making of motion pictures and radio programs with catholic content
- we often had missionaries for dinner at our house - they sat at our dinner table ; )
- I did believe it all, as a package - thus part of a later bunch of sheer rage
- I was recruited to be a nun when I was seventeen, which I didn't really want to do but was told I had a vocation. Hmm? Well, I did think I should be single as women doctors would have a conflict having a family too, or so I heard. Not that any women got into med school back then, very very few until the civil rights act.
- I never did get past signing up, and getting a list of things I'd need, like certain shoes - didn't enter the convent, since I had a crush on a guy that summer and just said no.
- it took me another five years to fully work my way out of the catholic church, via the questioning of some theology and then the 'whole ball of wax' route.
- once I didn't believe, that was it. But with decades having passed, the rage is gone in that I'm not against other people having religious and spiritual joys and concerns, assuming they leave me out of it.

I can finally go in a church again, for the architecture.

Told you had a vocation??? That was pretty damned presumptuous.
Who had the nerve to tell you that?

Luckly, Osso just said no. Nancy Reagan would have been so proud!

I haven't read the article yet, but probably will.

Why does the article remind me of a video I saw 10+ years ago? It was a wildlife video of a mountain lion who had just seen a snake.

The lion then went to the river for a drink, and appeared to see snakes everywhere. It would look down (no snake), jump up in alarm, look somewhere else (no snake), leap in fear... etc... Because it had seen a snake only minutes before. There was no snake! There was only snake memory.

I'd never before seen an animal behave in such a (shall I say it?) human fashion.

If mountain lions do that, why wouldn't we?

Sigh.

I think it was B F Skinner who was called the father of Ratomorphic psychology.

How did I ever miss all this about your upbringing, Osso?

I can certainly see why you were angry for a long time, yet I'm delighted to hear you've worked through it.

My husband had a similar upbringing: Father was a pastor, opened his own church, etc.

Hubby became a church member at 18, figured out by age 27 it all "was not real," and spent many years feeling angry and bitter.

Even today he is not as tolerant as I am of very religious folk.

I think the difference is, I NEVER believed in any of it. He felt, and feels, much more Betrayed than I do.

He's not terribly angry now, let me state for the record: Just not as tolerant of extreme religiosity as I am.

Or Herpomorphic/Snake-O-Morphic psychology?

Sister Joel (latin) and Sister Wilhelmina (whom I interviewed for the newspaper) and Sister St. Charles (whom I did like, the chem teacher). Gang up.

They all just knew.

I suppose it's time to tell about Mary Lou, of no last name. I met her at the hospital I worked at after school, weekends, and summers. She did get accepted as a postulant to an Holy Order of Sisters. And then kicked out. Her feet were too loud. I suppose there were other matters, but I never knew about them. I don't think of her as one of my loud friends.

We're still pals, all this time later. We're diametrically opposed on most all opinions.

You're just trying to rile me..

Last time I was in Washington DC it was on a short vacation with my husband. We walked and walked and walked. I remember being either in Georgetown or near it and staring at the Ritz Carlton, deciding between us that we could do with a gin and tonic. But I also remember something about a gay march that day, or maybe the day before, and the washington police having some foofuraw about antisepsis, not that I knew all about that at the time. And the march was somewhere around there. I missed it, we would have marched.. I'd had an associate die already. I've had friends die too, but that was later.

Eh, I was not a Reagan fan that day. I remember that as I walked into the hotel.

We did go into the Ritz and have gin and tonics. I don't know if it was payback or sheer luxe or happenstance. After that, we walked some more miles.