Bad Habits Confessions of a Recovering Catholic Page 6

  As I sat with him experiencing my first and worst hangover ever, he wanted to know why I would think that getting liquor would make my friends like me.

  I replied sincerely, “Well, that’s why you became friends with our family in the first place. I saw my parents buy you liquor and it worked. So I thought it would work for me.”

  The sheepish look on Father Andrew’s face made me realize how dumb he felt. Children do learn from watching adults, and no doubt he was guilty himself.

  We sat in silence for a minute, and then he said, “Looks like I need to be doing a penance rosary with you.” He knelt down next to me and recited the rosary with me.

  I had so much respect for the fact that Father Andrew saw his own sins in my actions.

  I wished all adults were like Father Andrew.

  12

  GOD: Thou Shalt Not Have Strange Gods Before Me.

  JENNY: I’m Cool with That But … Who Are You?

  I was thirteen.

  “What now, Jenny?” asked Sister Harris.

  “I’m confused.”

  “What else is new? What are you confused about now?”

  “I’m confused about the First Commandment: ‘I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.’ I don’t understand exactly what that means.”

  “It means we should worship only God, no one else,” Sister Harris explained.

  “Okay, define ‘worship.’”

  “To praise and adore. You shouldn’t put a picture of an elephant on the wall and praise it as God.”

  “What if God is an elephant?”

  “God is not an elephant,” said Sister Harris.

  “How do you know God is not an elephant?”

  “Because I know.”

  “But how?”

  “Enough.”

  These were the back-and-forth conversations I had with nuns at the school that my dad worked his balls off to afford. I quickly came to realize that nuns weren’t mentally equipped for my investigations, so my questions were not well received.

  I was truly stumped by the First Commandment. I was stumped by this rule as to who God is. If the Catholic Church doesn’t know what God is, how can they tell me not to worship other gods? What if I accidentally bought the wrong snow globe with the wrong god inside it?

  I raised my hand again with more question marks floating in my head. “Sister?”

  “What?”

  “Jesus always referred to God as a ‘He,’ so that’s why the Church believes it’s some sort of a male species, right?”

  “Yes, Jenny.”

  “Well, we refer to a boat as a ‘she.’ So maybe Jesus was calling God a ‘He’ like a gendered pronoun.”

  “What is wrong with you?” said Sister Harris. “Why do you ask these questions?”

  “Um, because we’re in religion class right now.”

  “Why do you question your faith?”

  “Because I’m trying to understand it.”

  “But that’s where faith comes in,” Sister Harris said. “Trust that the things you don’t understand were already understood for you and have faith we are right.”

  “Really? So believe everything you say and don’t question it?”

  “Just have faith.”

  I left school that day totally committed to God as a dude with a beard and a staff. I was going to have faith! I wasn’t a troublemaker. I was a truth seeker.

  I was tired of the nuns dismissing me as if my inquisitive nature just brought piss and vinegar to their classrooms. The truth was that I just wanted to be more self-aware of my religion so I could continue being a good person and avoid accumulating unnecessary sins. It was in their best interest if they wanted me to remain holy as a subservient Catholic girl!

  Now I’m fourteen years old.

  I’m in my new high school. It’s the first day of school at Mother McAuley, a prestigious all-girls school taught by nuns, of course. I loved that school. I’m proud to have gone, but I suffered some major hard times there.

  Many of the girls came from affluent families, but my family made the sacrifice to spend all of their hard-earned money on our education. When the other girls found out my family was struggling financially, they used it as a tool to belittle and torment me. It took me a long time to find my core group of trustworthy girlfriends.

  The first girl I became friends with was Christine Higley. She had a dollface and the hottest older brother, Alexander. Christine was timid, a real quiet one. I quickly learned why. Her family was not only extremely religious; they were ridiculously overprotective. I thought my parents had me on a tight leash. Christine was on house arrest. Her mom used angel cookie cutters to shape sandwiches and included handwritten bizarre “godspirational” quotes in her lunch every day.

  I remember sitting at the Higleys’ dinner table and observing how disconnected their family was. Christine would try to have an open dialogue with her mom to talk about things that were more interesting to her than God, but she was quickly dismissed and ignored. Coloring outside of the biblical lines was strictly forbidden.

  After several teenage years of isolation and resentment, Christine ended up moving to Las Vegas and becoming a showgirl. But the back pages of a Nevada newspaper clearly illustrated that that wasn’t enough excitement for her since she went a step further and became a full-on dominatrix. Her brother was destined to be gay, and he finally came out of the closet a year later. It was their parents’ worst nightmares come true.

  The point is, Christine was a cry for help and Alexander was way too hot to be straight.

  It was around that time that I came to understand that it was possible to tip your God scale. Everyone needs balance. What was enough to make God proud? What was too much to live by? I had so many questions.

  I constantly looked for guidance and still remember the conversation I had with my new teacher, Sister Nancy, in high school.

  “Girls, we will now refer to God as the Creator, not as the Father,” said Sister Nancy.

  I nearly lost my uterus when I heard this.

  “Yes, Jenny?”

  “What do you mean you changed it to Creator instead of Father? I thought God was a He?”

  “No, we believe God is not a sex. God is a Creator of all. God is.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since now,” Sister Nancy replied.

  “Says who?”

  “Says us.”

  “Who’s us?”

  “Different sectors of Catholicism.”

  “Different what? This is ridiculous.”

  “What is ridiculous?”

  “How you guys change everything, your rules.”

  “Things change,” said Sister Nancy.

  “Yes, I understand that. But when you teach us to follow the Ten Commandments and then switch the meaning behind them, how do we know what to believe?”

  “What do you mean we switch the meaning?”

  “In grammar school, I was taught the meaning of the First Commandment: ‘Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.’ When I inquired as to who that God is, so I don’t accidentally worship a strange one, my teacher said, ‘It’s Jesus’s dad, a guy.’ Now God doesn’t have a gender?”

  “God is not defined by a gender,” said Sister Nancy.

  “Okay, so five years ago if some dude believed what you believe now, a no-gender God, and brought this concept to the Catholic Church saying, ‘Stop worshipping that guy with a beard and a staff and worship the correct God,’ and showed everyone a picture of a light ball, the Church would have said, ‘Stop worshipping that strange god! You are breaking a commandment!’ Right?”

  Sister Nancy just stared at me, not knowing how to answer the question.

  So I continued. “So this dude and whoever else believed in a no-gender God five years ago are now burning in a pit of flames for all eternity. They will suffer because they were ahead of their time.”

  “You are exaggerating the situation,” said Sister Nancy. “If s
omeone was Catholic and believed in God and led a good life, they will not burn in Hell for all eternity.”

  “But if you break a commandment and die with a sin on your soul, you are damned to Hell, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, so this dude appeared to have a strange god. He didn’t match the Church’s concept and dies without knowing to confess it, so he’s currently with Satan.”

  “Go to the principal’s office!”

  “Huh?”

  “Go. Leave.”

  And that was my first day of high school.

  13

  Jesus Was My Justin Bieber

  I was always fascinated by all things Jesus.

  My mom was a pope fanatic, but I was very much obsessed with my man J.C. This was no secret as it was celebrated in my house daily.

  The commemorative I NY T-shirts that became popular in the 1970s gave me the idea to design my own I J.C. shirt. I wore it so much it was practically fused to me like body paint. I rocked that thing like it had to be everybody’s business. That is until Greg Baruch took a match flame to it. Not even my waterworks could save my precious J.C. memorabilia. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Greg broke into maniacal laughter as my bedazzled Jesus top burned to the ground.

  Losing the top wasn’t going to ruin me, though. I had memories of Jesus everywhere. Most of my friends had posters of Michael Jackson on their bedroom walls. Not me. Oh no. My rock star was Jesus. I had framed pictures of my love cut from the latest tracts from the Jehovah’s Witnesses Watchtower Society that I religiously stole from a neighbor’s front porch. If the Avon catalog had a picture of a Jesus pillow for sale, it was getting cut out and added to my shrine. My side of the wall looked like a curbside memorial to worship Jesus, with dried flowers and rosaries held on by Scotch tape bordering the photographs.

  Even though I was embarrassed about religious stuff during puberty, Jesus was the exception.

  Meanwhile, my sisters would plaster pictures from Teen Beat magazine all over their sides of the walls to exalt their flavor-of-the-month crush. Scott Baio lasted a whole season, but I was sure that my Jesus crush would last a lifetime. I was in deep. I even had a Jesus scrapbook, for Christ’s sake. I was snipping out text to complement my shrine like a serial killer writing a ransom note.

  Sex was never discussed in my house, so we girls were left to deal with puberty on our own. So right around the time my boobies started growing, I noticed that Jesus was hot!

  I would stare at his poster and want to brush my fingers through his perfectly blow-dried hippie hair. Those baby blue eyes would look right through me. I dreamed that Jesus was performing live in concert. I was the crazy teenager sobbing in the front row, hoping he would sweat on me while playing his guitar.

  Based on the Bible, Jesus was not only a great guy, but he listened and cared. Chicks dig that. I wish there was a part in the Bible talking about Jesus’s bitches following him around because I would have totally been one of those bitches back in the day. But the Bible talked only about men who followed him everywhere. Hmm …

  Anyway, I mentioned my love of Jesus to a few of my friends and they called me a disgusting pervert. Well then, whoever was in charge of painting his picture should have made him ugly as sin, because if you’re going to put a hot picture of God’s son everywhere, it’s kind of hard to go through puberty and not think he’s sexy.

  One time in high school, I snuck my boyfriend over to make out and dry hump in my bedroom. I closed my door and threw my cheerleading pompoms on the floor as he slowly lowered me onto my waterbed.

  Yes, I said waterbed.

  My boyfriend’s young, stubbly face rubbed against mine as I felt his hard-on through his tight jeans. It felt so incredibly naughty. He pulled my shirt up and started playing with my nipples over my bra. It was sending lightning bolts through my body that were so intense I couldn’t help but moan. With every dry hump, he would press his hard-on against the crotch of my jeans and rub faster and faster. My breathing got louder. I rubbed my fingers across his back and felt his muscles working so hard to maintain the intense rhythm. My eyes started rolling into the back of my head because my body was experiencing such pleasure. I started squirming my body around uncontrollably. Then he leaned into my ear and whispered, “You are so beautiful. You drive me crazy, Jenny.”

  I felt a rush between my legs that made me know I was about to have an orgasm. Just as I was about to surrender myself to this intense pleasure, my eyes spotted Jesus staring at me. Those soft, beautiful blue eyes I had always gazed at in my dreams now looked angry at me, like a jealous boyfriend.

  Oh my God, I thought. Jesus is totally watching me right now.

  The climb of my orgasm had all but disappeared as my boyfriend continued to dry hump me. I didn’t know what to do. I now felt dirty and shameful. I couldn’t continue with Jesus staring me down the way he was.

  I had to do something.

  “Can we stop for just a second?”

  The look on my boyfriend’s face was like he had just been violently awakened from an amazing dream. “What’s wrong?” he said with concern.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do this while Jesus is watching.”

  My boyfriend was silent for a second, and I could see his puberty brain trying to defend what we were doing in the hopes of continuing our amazing dry-hump session. “How do you know Jesus is watching?” he asked.

  “Because I can see him right behind you.”

  “Jesus is behind me right now?” he asked.

  “Yes, and he doesn’t look very happy.”

  My boyfriend slowly began to peel his body off mine and stand up. He pressed his obvious boner into his body as much as possible and then slowly turned around.

  His eyes were lined up with Jesus. They both just looked at each other, like a staring contest in a Western showdown. Then he finally spoke.

  “You’re right. He does look pissed off right now. What do we do?”

  My eyes quickly scanned the room. I spotted a magazine with Cyndi Lauper on the cover. I quickly ripped off the face, grabbed tape, and stuck Cyndi on top of Jesus’s head.

  My boyfriend and I looked at each other to see how we felt. We nodded our mutual approval and then threw our bodies onto the waterbed.

  As the dry humping continued, I looked at the poster and felt good having Cyndi Lauper watch me dry hump instead of Jesus. For security reasons, I thought it might be a good idea to move our risqué activity to under the blanket in the off chance Cyndi’s head fell off the wall.

  Once the blanket covered us, my boyfriend started to unzip my jeans. His hand slowly reached between my legs as he slid his finger inside me. I was so incredibly aroused. I was so grateful that finger blasting didn’t count as premarital sex. I felt my body about to reach orgasm again.

  Then I heard: “Jennifer! What the hell is going on?”

  I whipped the blankets off and standing in the doorway was my mom. I died in that moment. A part of me is still there in that waterbed, dead.

  My boyfriend was frozen with his hand in my pants and I quickly bolted up. My mom started screaming and my boyfriend ran out. My fear tuned out most of what she was yelling, but I remember key words like “disappointed” and “ashamed,” along with questions like “What kind of a girl did I raise?” Then she looked over at my Jesus poster. “What the hell happened to Jesus?”

  “I didn’t want him to see what I was doing.”

  My mom ripped Cyndi Lauper’s face off Jesus and yelled, “If Jesus has to cover his eyes, then you shouldn’t be doing whatever it is that you’re doing!”

  She stormed out of the room and I fell back onto my waterbed, crying.

  When I lifted my head up to take a breath, I noticed my Jesus poster.

  When my mom had torn Cyndi Lauper off his face, she had pulled Jesus’s eyes off with it. Thanks for solving that problem, Mom.

  14

  GOD: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Goods.

  JENNY: But What If
My Neighbor’s Shit Is Really, Really Awesome?

  From an early age, my parents attempted to teach us how to appreciate the things we have and to not envy our friends’ stuff. Unfortunately, watching them envy their friends’ stuff made it extremely difficult for us not to do the same thing.

  My dad grew up in a small house with twelve brothers and sisters. He slept in a closet because his house had only two bedrooms. When Vietnam came calling for him at the age of eighteen, it was like an upgrade. He would have his own bed for once.

  Unfortunately, and as expected, the stories of him walking the front line in Vietnam were nothing short of horrific. It took years to get some of these stories out of him, but eventually the vault began cracking and stories started spilling.

  There were so many people dying around him, he expected not to survive. Just on the off chance he did, he sent his military checks home to Chicago so his mom could put them in his bank account and he could build a life for himself once he was out of the war.

  After two long years of serving on the front line, Dad got to come home. He was never injured during the war, but on the plane ride home he was bitten by a mosquito and caught malaria. As if the emotional scars from Vietnam weren’t painful enough.

  Once back in Chicago, he was determined to start a life for himself. With the money he saved over two years, he was going to put a down payment on a home and hopefully meet the right gal and start a family. This was his lifelong dream.

  Sadly, what took place next was the finishing touch to destroying my dad’s dream of creating a good life. His brother forged his name and spent all of his Vietnam money. It was gone.

  Needless to say, my pop was devastated. This wasn’t the type of devastation that caused him to get mad, punch his brother in the face, and move on. This was the type of devastation that dug deep into the core of his soul and remains to this day.

  My perception was that my father dealt with this by coming to terms with the fact that money is always supposed to be a struggle to get. To him, it always seemed that as soon as he got some money, it immediately went away. He didn’t know what else to do to earn a good living, so he decided to go to beauty school because that’s where the hot chicks were and where he could have as much sex as possible. Smart guy. He obviously had a great time because he married the hottest beautician in the joint—my mom.