T.M. Shannon

Hi everyone,

Welcome back to the blog for another Sunday, I’ll be your author, the exit can be found in the big X in the top-right corner of the screen, or the Home button on your phone.

But I do hope you’ll stay, even if this is my first Faith/Religion post – a guaranteed proselytisation-free zone, and being bisexual, you know I’m not about to smack you in the head with Leviticus or something Pauline.

Anyway, how’s the blog going?

Those heady, boosted post heights are well and truly over, views in the hundreds every day a distant memory, and it’s trusting God’s timing instead. But it’s for the best, I can’t leap off the temple, I’ll go splat.

Humble it is for now.

Feels good to get that out, and I don’t feel it so intensely. And with that, I’ll sharp-segue over to the post itself. Happy reading!

This Whole Faith Malarky

Don’t mind me, I pilfered that from the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions mini-book AA published on how the steps work, and how the traditions were formed – most of them after experimental failures.

Anyway, one guy coming across believing that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, exclaims he doesn’t get this – and gets kicked out of the meeting.

And it resonates with me.

I’m guessing the guy was an atheist, maybe agnostic (the Big Book has a chapter to such people, as well as those who walked from/got kicked out from a faith following), like I was.

I had no notion of a faith, spirituality screamed “Religion!” at me, and my few times at a service was either a wedding or baptism, once on Christmas Eve, and I took Scripture because the school didn’t have non-Scripture.

All I knew of faith or religion were from Christmas carols, watching the semi-denominational cartoons on Christmas, King of Kings because it was on over Easter, the story about Moses in the reed basket.

Oh, and a bit hard to miss some poor guy getting crucified.

I heard of the whole dying for our sins thing, washed feet, miracles, an Immaculate Conception, and a resurrection. I knew of said guy getting born in a stable, mainly from Silent Night.

But for all my Church non-attendance, and not being in a place to know it better, but I loved O Come All Ye Faithful – its range is beautiful, the words wonderful, but I’d grow up not going to behold him, born kings and angels.

Life just took me elsewhere, and that story of the OT God flooding His creation because he had a bad day was enough to keep me away. Then I found Him, or more likely, He found me.

A Door Always Open

I came earnestly into the Catholic Church three days out from my manic episode – and a bunch of linked coincidences – with my brain still running on full power though the meds were helping me sleep again.

It was a very religious episode. I’d found Jesus on Wikipedia, I’d given an impromptu sermon outside St Mary’s in Sydney, I saw myself in the Passion narrative – and related to it wholly through experiences in my life.

But why the Catholic Church? Wasn’t I bisexual, and wouldn’t it mean no longer pursuing a meaningful relationship with a guy? I went willingly, not because of the rules against me, but the healing relationship.

I stand firm that I don’t need “healing” from my sexuality. God wants me just as I am. I have my writing to explore, and I have my compassion to share love to anyone that doesn’t involve dating, sex, or marriage.

Admittedly, the Church was just down the road and near a cafe, a kebab shop, an Aldi, and a pub. But my choice was to get close to Jesus, and I couldn’t figure anything better than the Church of his Apostles.

I was resolute, though my brain was still running at a million miles an hour, when I opened the door and entered into stunning silence, cold but inviting, and I knew I’d come to the right place.

It’s a feeling I’d come across before, too, when I went to The Alamo – an old mission in the middle of a loud, bustling city that is quiet and serene.

Why is the door always open? So that a sinner, a human who makes mistakes, can come in. And God not being in the smiting business, there was no impediment, I was just another person at a service, no burnies.

Learning Church

So, I attended the service, stood when everybody stood, sat when everybody sat, made the sign of the Cross at the beginning and end, and said the Lord’s Prayer.

Rosary was next, and I hadn’t ever seen that. I was taking notes – and because it was the Sorrowful Mysteries, from Pilate’s Judgement to Death on the Cross, I turned to the Stations and worried we were going to do all fourteen of them.

It was just five Mysteries, phew!

But Rosary finished, and the son of one of the acolytes there gave me The Secret of the Rosary, likely prompted by his dad, but nonetheless it was a beautiful gift.

Then I fronted up to the priest and said I wanted to be baptised, and the learning began.

The faith course was just rereading the booklet, and we got a laugh out of Adam throwing Eve under the bus, simple formation but easy to understand.

The literature was better, and reading the Compendium of the Catechism I found my compassion and world values matched the Church’s, I accepted the divinity of Christ, the Immaculate Conception, and other teachings.

The homophobic bits were uncomfortable, but I knew I could live with them – currently it’s just the “intrinsically disordered” passage that hurts, while the others can be wrapped up in teachings on marriage and adultery.

At least, for me. There are affirming and accepting Churches, and I go to the Acceptance ministry to be around people like myself.

So, I got through all that in about 8 weeks, and was baptised on the day after my birthday.

Learning Faith

This was the tricky part, as going to frequent services and getting some good homilies were good, though I hungered for a deeper understanding.

One Friday, I was looking for the Priest about something, couldn’t find him, but smelt coffee, and heard voices from the meeting room. I popped my head in, people turned, and I said, “I smell coffee, may I join you?”

It was an alright chat, but it steered me into the Tuesday discussion, and me joining some Church nannas to do a study on the Sunday to come Gospel, using the Lectio Divino method to better understand the faith.

And it was the most formative thing ever, turning the study into an intellectual exercise I, preferring an intellectual view, couldn’t get enough of.

I’d go into every Sunday mass with views and understandings to strengthen participation. The priest would give his homily giving me the next insight, and the Daily Reflection in the bulletin added a third.

I was certainly well on the way with faith, starting to pray, finding saints who inspired me, going to church all but two days a week.

It would falter as I started getting more work, church attendance relegated to Sundays, and I still miss hanging with the Church nannas who threw my baptismal party with cake and delights, my birthday celebration for 2018.

But, through times I’d hide away from service when addictive behaviours hit, skulk back to Confession where I felt my recital of the Act of Contrition were just empty words, I kept with it, and found it satisfying, nourishing.

Finding God Outside of Church

Along the way, my own problems resurfaced, particularly parental angst.

I was triggered the night before going to a first therapy session about my mother, needing that dopamine numbness, and in the post-clarity, I wondered, “There has to be a 12-Step meeting about this.”

I looked it up. There certainly was, and there was a meeting that Thursday night. A drive into the city, parked in paid parking bays, the door opened right as I was about to push it.

I asked if this was the meeting, the answer was of course yes, and I said, “Then I’m in the right place.” And my journey into meetings began, me scared S-H-I-T-less of all those steps, making amends, and surrendering.

Like losing days going to Church, it didn’t work for me, the meetings too late, me distracted on the Zoom sessions when Covid hit, hiding away after behaving addictively and crawling back, and a lack of sponsor luck.

I fell off for a time, struggled on my own, got nowhere, and looked for a convenient meeting – and found the LGBT meeting on Sundays. I left for it in earnest, a first real step into community involvement, and I shared.

I went back, felt more at home, and the Monday meeting was suggested to me. It came with finishing at a reasonable time, though by the time I’d get home it would be late, but I still went.

And you think I’d be comfortable? Nope, rabbit dazed in the headlights. The meeting was huge, so big not everyone can share, and I worried as I sat through that meeting.

Then they did the introduction of sponsors, and half the room stood up. Having found no luck with a sponsor in the other fellowship, here was what I craved and knew I needed for the 12-Step journey.

And one evening, with a few sponsors suggested to me, asked my sponsor if he could take me in – and told we’re starting the journey the very next day.

I was scared. I was nervous. I was hopeful, I was excited. The only other option being floundering, and being a person who likes to get stuff done, I accepted, and began 37 days of questions that took 45 days or so.

And with conscious contact of the Higher Power, first God in the very idea of 12-Step, then God who I met in Church, I made it to 68 days sober, not my longest period, but the most attuned to what God wants for addicts.

As Things Currently Stand

Well, I work 4 days a week now, so I have Fridays and Mondays to enjoy Church and the Eucharist, though it’s been a while what with starting counselling and having that book of mine to finish.

I will get back to it, but the big start has been the time to go back to Acceptance, when my Friday shift was a 1pm start/6pm finish and I couldn’t wake up in the mornings and getting into Newtown was a nightmare.

I’m two meetings a week at 12-Step. I’m making outreach calls on my way to work, but I have to do calls on the way home from work, and my days off.

Most of all, I’m making the conscious connection to God as much as I can, sending up my triggered moments, praying my litany to the Trinity and asking the prayers from my saints.

I used to have a massive team, but I narrowed it down to St Mary, St Anthony of Padua (who I took as my consecrated name), and St Mary of the Cross MacKillop (Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!).

Do I have a long way to go in my Christianity and sobriety? Absolutely. But I’m practicing getting it right, or at least adopting “Progress, not Perfection.” I’m not a saint, just willing to move along spiritual lines.

And it’s working for me, doing great things already, one addictive behaviour lost to the ages with thanks to God I don’t have to descend to it ever again.

Sincere Spirituality

Yes, religion is spirituality. But not all spirituality is religion. And not all of it is good, but likewise not all of it is bad.

The good is feeling and seeing divinity in the world and the people in it, the life savers, the unnamed heroes, those who call for peace and love, those who challenge oppression, even from the Catholic Church.

And let’s face it, some could try and ostracise me for my sexuality if they knew, never mind me living by Church rules.

You might dispute God, have no time for Him, be cut off from Him, even deny Him, but spirituality can be lived by just about anyone who wants to see the goodness in the world and humanity.

We all have our flaws, and all make mistakes, and have to improve them or learn from them, sometimes in very hard ways, and that’s part and parcel of being human.

But where I feared it before assuming spirituality meant religion only, I know in different circumstances I might still end up in 12-Step, but I would find the God of my own understanding, maybe in an affirming Church.

If you’re interested in spirituality, look into it, find an understanding that speaks to you, it’s quite a journey. Thank the universe for your life, the air in your lungs, peace in your heart.

It’s not the be all and end all, you may need to approach life holistically, use multiple means to get through – I need my meds, my counselling, my partner and 100% support, my meetings, my spirituality to grow and heal.

But don’t be scared of it, and don’t be ashamed of needing the whole holistic. And if you like what I wrote, or up for a discussion and meeting of different ideas, there’s that comment section below.

Go In Peace

Well, I hope you enjoyed that. It went in a different direction than I planned last night, but well, so has my book – and it’s all the better for it.

Wherever you are, whoever or whatever you might be, peace be with you, may you have good life and good health, and if not, know that even if these are just words on a website, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

Take care everyone,

T. M.