I didn’t write my first piece for the club until this year, so rather than giving a review of that piece, I figured I would choose one of my favorite pieces: Delaney Pipon's “Searching for Angels”. (You should probably go read her piece first, I couldn’t recommend it enough!)
Delaney writes about her religious upbringing and how there are times where it feels like religion is only meant to tear you down– you walk around in your day to day life feeling a tiny bit ashamed and embarrassed and resentful towards the people who taught you to feel this way.
I only went to Catholic school for one year, but I spent many years in Sunday school. I've noticed that many religious upbringings are similar– you end up with good and bad teachers. There are the teachers that convince you that birth control is wrong, being gay is wrong, wearing short or tight fitted clothes is wrong, premarital sex is wrong, and that as a young girl, your body is a temple. I’ll never forget my seventh grade CCD teacher who stood in a church basement classroom yelling at us until her face turned bright pink- all because some kid asked why is it wrong for a man to love another man. Worst of all, her husband stood behind her with glazed over eyes not saying a word, clearly dissociated.
Unfortunately, for many years, this sticks with you. You feel like you don’t deserve to be where you are and you don’t belong because you aren’t as devoted as others, but then, you start to think about good teachers you had, the amazing people who taught you how to be religious without tearing you down. For Delaney, it was Ms. T, who taught her at the age of 10 to search for angels. For me, it's Ms. Bernadette and Ms. Loretta, Ms. Donna and Ms. Anna, Decan Cliff who would give us high fives after mass on Sundays, and Father Steve who we would see every time we went to Panera. These are the people I think about when I search for angels, the people who taught me that no one is perfect and that there is good in everyone.
Delaney’s piece is beautifully written and I think it encapsulates how you tend to pull away from your religious upbringing while still remembering the good in a more diluted form. The good moments and teachings are the ones you remember, and even if they don’t fully pull you back, they are always there in the back of your mind.
link to original piece:
No Comments.