Snippet of a memoir: OCD and religion, getting saved, or not

  Note: I’ve written before about my relationship with religion, especially as a young girl trying to make sense of God while obsessive-compulsive disorder was running my life. In this vignette, I write about an early religious experience.

  I found out about rededicating one’s life to Christ on May 2, 1975. I was almost 12 years old. It was a Friday, and revival had been going on all week.

  My church had mustard yellow, walk-in carpet, the thin kind that wears well. The floors were dark hardwood, remnants of the church’s past. I sat in the youth choir section, which was directly across from the adult choir section.

  The altar was on my right between the two choirs. A railing encircled the altar and the chairs for the ministers. On the outside of the railing was a section for kneeling sinners, for those coming to get saved or to rededicate their lives to Jesus.

  Every night, as we sang the last hymn, the visiting minister, the revival speaker, put out the call to the altar. As we sang, people would put down their hymnals and walk up to the altar. Some would be crying, some looked scared, some looked relieved, some looked determined. But afterwards, they all looked relieved.

  I hadn’t gone up to the altar all week. I had been baptized when I was about nine, and I wasn’t sure how that played into salvation.

  From what I was hearing from the revival speaker, it didn’t mean anything. I was still a sinner and still far from God and still not saved.

  And there was a specific way to be saved. One had to accept Jesus into their hearts to be saved. Believing that he existed wasn’t enough either.

  During the final hymn all through the week, I had felt intensely anxious. I would feel a growing dread as we sang a hymn such as “Just As I Am.” My arms felt numb, I couldn’t concentrate on the words of the hymn and I felt afraid.

  I wondered if the fear was God’s way of telling me that I needed to be saved. I wondered if I needed to go to the altar.

  I wished I knew what the people going forward had prayed. The preacher usually talked to them, too, at the altar.

  This Friday night, we sang the final hymn, and I felt that now-familiar fear and dread and anxiety. I was afraid to go up to the altar. I was shy. But I was afraid not to go up, too. And some of my friends had gone up earlier in the week and seemed happy for doing it.

  In a daze, I put down the hymnal and walked the short walk to the altar and knelt down. I didn’t know what to do. I closed my head and bowed my head, but I didn’t really know what to pray.

  The prayer that came out without thinking, out loud, in a whisper, was something like, “Oh, God, please forgive me.”

  I remember opening my eyes and seeing the minister smile at me. I looked behind me and saw my parents, who had come up to stand behind me. They were smiling, too. I heard the minister talking to my parents, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

  Then I heard my parents tell the minister that I had been baptized. The minister looked at me and told me I had rededicated my life to Christ that night.

  When I got home, I opened up my Bible, the white one with my name embossed on the front that I had received for Christmas one year, and in the front wrote the date and that I had rededicated my life to Christ on that date.

  This was the beginning of my obsession about being saved. I couldn’t resolve within me how getting baptized was something that had saved me when I heard ministers and then, when I started going to Christian schools, school officials and teachers say that you had to accept Christ in your heart to be saved. I knew I hadn’t done that when I was baptized. But I hadn’t prayed that on May 2, 1975. All I’d prayed was for God to forgive me. Was that being saved?

  But what I was learning at church at revivals and at school especially was telling me that one had to pray a certain prayer and ask specifically for forgiveness from sins and for Jesus to come into your heart. That was the only way to be saved.

  I don’t know how many times I prayed for forgiveness and for Christ to come into my heart. I was looking for the feeling that I was saved, for a reassurance that I didn’t need to worry about it any more.

  That was a reassurance that I knew others my age had who were saved. They didn’t seem to doubt their salvation at all. They could point to a date or an age and say with certainty that they had been saved then.

  How did religion affect you when you were a child?

Learning: The role of ritual

The word ritual can have terrifying connotations for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The compulsive rituals we perform to try to alleviate the anxiety caused by obsessions result in even more anxiety. They become the source of much pain and much waste.

Religious rituals are especially difficult for me. I’ve written about my scrupulosity and my particular problems with praying.

Lately, however, I’ve been thinking about religious rituals in a more positive light.

In the years after I left religion behind in my 20s, I made brief forays back into spiritual practice, but I continued to eschew what I considered to be meaningless rituals.

During church services, I wondered what was accomplished by response readings, recited prayers and ceremony. What did those rituals have to do with finding God, with learning to live a good life?

I came back to formal religion over seven years ago, for various reasons. One was that I wanted to have a home for my spiritual questions.

I have been happy with my decision overall. I must admit, though, that the rituals in my United Methodist tradition at one time did not mean a lot to me. They were exercises to participate in until we reached my favorite part of the service, the sermon.

I think differently now.

What I have been learning is that rituals have a way of bringing me to a place where I am ready to seek God’s presence.

The book “The Case for God,” by Karen Armstrong, helped to launch my meditation on ritual.

In the book, Armstrong traces the ways that God has been perceived and practiced since man had the first inklings that there was perhaps more to the world and to life than what he could see or experience with his other senses.

Armstrong writes that before the matter of belief became so important, ritual was deemed the way to make myths come alive and become meaningful. She places a great deal of importance on the role of ritual:

“Religion is a practical discipline that teaches us to discover new capacities of mind and heart. . . . It is no use magisterially weighing up the teachings of religion to judge their truth or falsehood before embarking on a religious way of life. You will discover their truth—or lack of it—only if you translate these doctrines into ritual or ethical action.” (The Case for God, page 10, e-version)

She writes further about the role of ritual:

“Many thousands of people find that the symbolism of the modern God works well for them: backed up by inspiring rituals and the discipline of living in a vibrant community, it has given them a sense of transcendent meaning. All the world faiths insist that true spirituality must be expressed consistently in practical compassion, the ability to feel with the other.” (The Case for God, page 14, e-version)

I am learning that one way I can prepare myself to practice compassion is to attend my church’s services and participate in the rituals. Doing so helps to prepare me to listen more intently to the scriptures, to the sermon and to the quiet voice within.

During the service, we listen to the reading of the scriptures based on the lectionary. After the reading of each selection, the leader holds up the Bible and says, “The Word of God for the people of God.” The congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.”

We sing hymns. We sing the Gloria Patri.

We listen to the minister’s sermon, based on the scriptures that we have heard.

We read as a congregation an affirmation of faith, usually the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed.

All of this gives me much to ponder, including the unity of us all.

During communion, we first pray for forgiveness. We then greet each other in peace before taking part symbolically in Christ’s Last Supper.

There would normally be all kinds of red flags flying around me with any talk of forgiveness and prayer.

And to be honest, I have yet to begin a personal prayer practice.

But in a group setting, I can follow along with the words that were written long ago. I don’t have to make up the words and worry that I haven’t said the right ones.

Being with others also helps. It’s not a ritual that I’m doing alone. I don’t feel alone.

What do you think of rituals? Do you participate in any rituals that are comforting, that go beyond the rote to become meaningful? Or does the thought of participating in any rituals make you uncomfortable?

Lent lessons: Filling in the gaps

This year I gave up two things for Lent: playing solitaire on my phone and getting food out of a snack machine at work.

Maybe I should say I am fasting from them, a term my minister used in his sermon this past Sunday to refer to anything given up in order to prepare ourselves for self-examination and the sacrifice of Jesus.

I am fasting from solitaire because I have days when I spend way too much time playing it. It’s like a nervous habit. When I don’t want to do anything else, or when I’m stressed, I grab the phone and start fiddling with the electronic cards.

I am fasting from the snack machine because I do too much mindless eating at work, out of stress and sometimes boredom. It’s easy to stick my dollar or coins in the machine and have instant “food comfort.” But I’m eating when I’m not hungry, and I’m turning to food rather than more healthy choices to cope with life.

Giving up the snack machine has been the easier of the two. I can always take the time to fix healthier food choices at home to eat at work, and I am trying to eat only when I’m hungry.

It has been more difficult with the phone. I’m not having trouble resisting the call of solitaire. I’m having a difficult time knowing what to do with myself without the game.

My plan was to spend the time with more useful and meaningful pursuits, like reading and writing, or, if I’m at work, with work.

That’s hard for me when I’m tired and feel anxious and I just want to avoid doing anything that takes effort.

During Sunday’s sermon, my minister talked about giving things up for Lent. He said something like, if you’re fasting from food but not praying, then it’s just a holy diet.

Therein lies my problem.

Should I be praying during at least part of the time that I could be playing solitaire? What do I do since I have such a hard time praying, and I haven’t really prayed much since I realized how compulsive I still am with the process?

I’ve written about the obsessions and compulsions I have about praying. I’m working to no longer attend to the compulsive prayer thoughts. How do I bring in real prayer?

That’s my quandary. What other ways can I reach out to the divine?

Meditation is one way, but I’m still at the 10-minutes-at-a-time stage.

I’ve tried prayers that someone else wrote, like the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. Sometimes I still get lost in the words, though.

I’ve considered writing prayers.

I still think reading and writing are meaningful and have a place in my Lent practice. Prayer is not the only way to learn and grow.

But I want to do some kind of praying too.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions?