religion: church

When I was five or six and going to Catholic school, I believed that Communion was like the story of the fishes and the loaves. The priest would reach into a small box behind the alter and, miraculously, there would be enough Communion wafers for everyone on a tray.

I used to believe that my cats were catholic. You know how catholic people do the sign of the cross thing, where they like touch their forehead, and their heart, and their shoulders (or however they do that). Well my cats lick their paws, and touch over their heads with it. When they licked their paws I thought they were trying to touch their hearts, and then their forehead,(but they can't touch their shoulders with their paws), so they did a partial cross. Why else do they call it CAThoLIC(K).

In my religion there is a mission training center and they called it the MTC. When I was a little girl whenever a missionary went to the MTC I thought they were going to the empty sea. I couldn't quite understand why they had to go to the empty sea to get training for their mission.

When I first started school, one of my friends told me her family were Taoists. I asked her what that was and she said they believed that the Tao was all around us, all over us, and all inside us. For a little while after that, I used to take long baths to try to wash all the Tao off of me.

When I was little, my dad told me that God was in church with us. Our church guitar player was a guy with a grey beard, so I thought he was God.

The Baptist church I grew up in would often refer to "the church family" -- "the flowers today were provided by the church family," "Saturday's picnic will be hosted by the church family," etc. I thought for the longest time that the church family was the nice Cambodian family we sponsored who always sat in the front pew, and I was impressed by all they were constantly doing to give back to the community. It wasn't till years later that I discovered the "church family" actually meant the congregation as a whole!

My mom always likes to tell this one particular story from when I was young. In the Catholic Church, during the prayer for the Eucharist, they have someone ring bells at each step of the way to signify that the priest is blessing the bread and the wine. I never really knew this was the reason myself until recently. Well, there was one time when my mom took little me to Church with her, and as soon as I heard the bells, I shouted out, "The ice cream man!" Thankfully, people laughed it off rather than casting stones.

I used to believe that every time I went to church, I got "points" to go to heaven.

I used to believe nun's shaved their heads and were completely bald.

When I first went to Sunday School I was frightened and cried. There were some glass globes full of water and bubbles sometimes could be seen. They were only drinking water dispensors, but I thought it was Holy Water and the bubbles were the Holy Ghost.

In catechism class, we learned that God is a Supreme Being. Except for little Ann, who thought God was a string bean.

In church we'd say the Nicene Creed, and whenever we'd say 'On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures' I thought the words were 'in the filming of the scriptures.' I imagined the disciples watching a movie - a film - of Jesus coming back to life, with one of them in the back of the room running the projector.

I went to Catholic School as a child. I also knew that other kids in my neighborhood went to Public School. So, in my eyes there were 2 religions, Catholic and Public.

When I was young I went to a Catholic school and the only other type of school I knew of was a public school. One day I asked my cousin, "Are you Catholic?" When she answered "no" I said, "Well then you must be public."

When I was a little girl, i recall going to my Catholic church. If, you're not familiar with it, before given communion we would shake hands with the people around us and say "Peace be with you". I always thought they were saying "Peace baby Jew" which also made sense since Jesus is Jewish.

I was sad for many years because my aunt once told me I would go to hell for farting in church!