religion

I used to believe…

When I was about five years I liked to make funny faces to parents (actually to everybody) until my parents told me that if the church would start its chiming and I was making a funny face my face would stay like that forever.

I used to believe…

In the Catholic Mass when you have the consecration, you say �Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.� Until I was about 9ish I firmly believed we were supposed to be saying �Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall believe you.�

I was taught to pray as a 3-year-old, but I learned what the word "afasha" meant ... as in "Afasha die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."

Rote memorization isn't always the best method.

I used to believe…

Growing up, I would sing "He is Exhausted" instead of "He is Exalted." It wasn't until I belted it out in church one day that my mom about choked trying not to laugh...needless to say I was informed that God doesn't tire very easily. <><

I was 3 or 4 at the time of the Manson killings, and since the followers of the psycho insisted that he was Jesus, or the son of God, I thought Jesus was some killer psycho. It didn't help that there was some backlash against "Jesus Freaks", either.

I used to believe…

when I was about 4 or 5, I thought Jesus must have had a fancy-dress policeman's uniform just like mine - "The little law Jesus
Laid down his sweet head"
- and obviously, being God, he was allowed to sleep in it

I used to believe…

When I was young, I was raised in a Christian household. My aunt died when I was nine years old. Later that year my family was sitting around talking about heaven and how one day they would be there and be reunited with my aunt. I told them that I didn't understand how they could find her since everyone in heaven had their own cloud that they sat on when they played their harps. They all got a pretty funny laugh at that one.

I used to believe…

My friend told me that when she was about four she was looking at a picture of her cousin. She asked who he was, and her mother told her it was her cousin Rob. She heard 'cousin God'. For years she thought God was her teenaged cousin.

I used to belive that ALL married people were Jewish. (I went to a Jewish dayschool) It never occoured to me.I was abt 4 at the time it made since. All my friends parents were married. However if there were seperated then they hadn't found the right person.

I used to believe…

My family is Jewish, although we werent a religous family, the idea that we where different somehow from our neighbors in our New York neighborhood fascinated me as a child. I remember asking my neighbor Mary what her family's religion was. With her 5 year old New York accent, she responded "Catlick".

From then until I was about 9 or 10, I truly believed that Catholicism, had sometyhing to do with licking cats. As I was deathly allergic to cats, this both confused, and slightly frightened me.

I used to believe…

When I was a kid, my mom always threw the left over quarters from the past week in to the collection basket. I always thought the preist used them to go play video games at the arcade.

I used to believe…

When I was a little girl, my parents told me that God could see and hear everything. From then on, I had this picture of God as a giant man who was completely covered in eyes - even the bottoms of his feet.

I was very little; we were at a Catholic mass for Ash Wednesday. My mom carried me up to the front of the church, and while the priest was rubbing the ash cross onto her forehead, I pushed his hand away and yelled, "Why is God putting dirt on your face?!"

I used to believe…

"Our father, who AREN'T in heaven."

Dead people went to heaven, but I figured maybe God lived some place even higher. But I still didn't understand the bad grammar.

I used to believe…

At age 9, I used to believe that there were only three religions in the whole world: Catholic, Jewish, and Satanist. My best friend was Jewish, and one day I asked her about the Jewish faith. She leapt into the subject with much enthusiasm. She said that Moses and the Israelites were forced out of Egypt by the not-Jewish pharaoh. She described this in gory detail, gleefuly recounting rather more deaths then there were people. I asked her whether the pharaoh and other Egyptians were Satanist, to which she said no. Therefore, I reasoned that Catholics had driven Moses out of Egypt.
And that, my friends, is how I decided that devil-worship was not as bad as those cruel, awful Egyptian Catholics made out. (I was only disabused of this notion in the 5th grade.)

I used to believe…

When I was a toddler, my grandmother took me to the Easter service, at which everybody holds candles. At midnight, lighted candles are brought from the altar and everybody lights theirs from these. When this happened, I burst into "Happy Birthday to You", much to the amusement of all, including the priest. (I have heard of one other kid who did the same, and I'm sure there have been others.)

I used to believe…

When I was 5, I attended a Catholic Shcool in NYC. Back then, the nuns wore long black habits. They seemed to glide around the classroom and you could never see their feet. So, I believed God had given the nuns wheels instead of feet.

I used to believe…

Hymns were my problem:
I am the Lord of the dance settee (rather than 'said he'), and picturing Jesus jumping upand down on a sofa.

Then there was 'goat tell it on the mountain'...

I was a very pious good Catholic little girl. So I thought the idea of dying and going to heaven would be very nice.

I envisioned lying in a bed with elaborately carved golden posts at each corner. Then when one died, four angels would appear--one at each post--and would fly the bed right into heaven. I think I got this mixed up with the doctrine of Mary's assumption into heaven, which the Church was proclaiming at the time.