Going back to God?

Went to church again this weekend to see my sister graduate.

It's been a while.

All the old feelings were still there - the childhood defiance, the childhood adoration.

Wanting to sing the old homilies, wanting to murmur the old prayers.

And biting back sharp retorts when the priest sent out the eighth graders with admonitions that they are nothing without the one true God, that the world is nothing without God and Christ and that they must spread this message of "love" to the world.

Words so familiar and worn and ingrained in me after years of attending mass that I can whisper them along with the priest. Words I have long rejected.

The Bible was the first book I read - literally book after book.

My family was the kind that knelt all through communion, never took communion unless we were confessed and never left church until the last echo of the closing song had died.

Hard-core traditionalists.

But in church I would see us, the lone band of dark people among suburban whites, and at night I'd read about converting heathens and savages and bringing them to the cross and all the time I'd see the brittle hard self-righteousness of organized religion.

Of proselytizers who murmur in mass about the mystery of God in the same breath that promises to preach to the world that there is only one true God, One Truth (their truth) and that is the truth that this "Chosen" people are privvy too. All others are benighted, ignorant fools stumbling in darkness.

Arrogance. And worse, of course. How can you know God? I was convinced that organized religion soured spirituality with all the brute force in humans, all the hunger to dominate and subdue and say one group is better.

So as soon as I could, I surrounded myself with "intellectuals," who decried organized religion.

Rebelled. Ran away. It's easy to do that when you're a kid.

But now I'm not a kid anymore and I'm not running away anymore. There's something about getting old and needing faith - the more you know the more you need it. So many around me in college now are either sure in their faith or searching. Me too, I guess.

And every time I happen into a church, the music moves me, the words are like whispers still caught in my memory, and I'm just moved, really moved. It's spiritual and I find myself slipping.

But then the archaic words of a proselytizing faith are said and I swear again I will not be a heathen brought to kneel before the conqueror's cross.

I tell myself, even Hispanics, with Catholicism woven so richly and vibrantly into their culture, Hispanics, whose Catholicism is as lovely and close to spiritual and honest as earth or sunrise - even Hispanics are practicing the faith of their conquerors.

Of the conquistadors who crushed the kingdoms of their Mayan ancestors in the name of right, under the banner of the cross.

But the blood is mingled now and they kneel side by side in the same church.

Good or bad? Peace or progress? Triumph of love or ultimate defeat?

I puzzle over these questions with a particular desperation these days. Trying to figure out what's right and what's honorable.

At times, the questions gnaw at me - like last week, when at a church wedding of families not particularly religious but inexplicably drawn to the church at the highlight of their lives. In this church ceremony myself and two Asian friends were the only ones who bowed our heads and whispered the Our Father with the priest.

Wanting to link hands.

At these times I stop myself and think of Atheism in Communist China. Cultural autonomy and sovereignty in Communist China. Hey, the house gods may be smashed but the new order is spun by the people themselves. And I wonder about cultural pride and identity - even though my parents were Nationalists, the sworn enemies of Communists.

Tangles and tangles of thought. I love America best. Love the land and the strong, buoyant people, the heated no-holds-barred discussions, the boldness, the youth. This land is my land. Not China. But the dominant people, the dominant religion?

Can you just close your eyes and your mind and be swept along by the voices that move you?

I don't know anymore. I just don't know. Maybe the brain just spins and spins, twists and wraps and defines and confines everything into little ugly packages, bound by pre-set principles, preset angers and hungers. Everyone appeasing their own demons.

The fervent proselytizer. The iron atheist. Same thing. Maybe. I don't know.

There's singing in church tonight and I know all the words by heart. Every note, too. Under Christ Crucified and the blazoned Sanctus, the fresh-washed man beside me is mouthing the white priest's benedictions in Spanish. Every beat, every measured tone matches - and is heartfelt.

I think of the thousands across the world this night, mouthing their prayers right now in perfect time, in low and fervent whispers.

I am praying too.

Mary Fan is a journalism and molecular and cellular biology junior. Her column appears weekly.