question for lapsed christians, page-46

My observations have been coloured as a child of a "mixed marriage" some 50 odd years ago. Mum, the youngest of 11 (surviving) children with strong Irish Catholic parents. Dad's lot were Protestants, Presbyterians I think. God should have helped us, we certainly needed some, this marriage of the orange and the green. Conflicted is an inadequate understatement of my childhood. Some of Mum's family apparently refused to come to their wedding (we never saw much of them), Dad's lot certainly couldn't cope with extended family occasions such as my marriage. I'll never forget our wedding reception, some of Mum's brothers under the tables weeping and drunk, some of them drunk and fighting, some of her sisters discoing together and shaking their booty. Dad's lot just looking on quite askance. The Irish all think they can dance. It's amusing to look back but Mum's family's adherance to arcane beliefs resulted in suicides (one of my cousins got someone pregnant), some of my poor cousins, as altar boys, the victims of pedophilia. Their parents prepared to overlook the behaviour of their parish priests. I have some cousins who to this day haven't spoken to their parents or siblings for 40 years. They quietly left the state and their families as soon as they could. I don't think this is uncommon in Irish Catholic families of this era. Dad's Protestant family, or those "orange bastards" as my grandfather was often given to comment upon, were the flagpole of my most unbalanced childhood as I spent all the school holidays with. They had the good grace never to utter a word of reproach re Mum's family and I basked in the normalcy of their life. I was never asked to go to their church, someone always stayed home with me, nothing was ever said. Which were participating more fully in the life of Christ? Dad's lot, without hesitation. Their religion was not fuelled by ignorance, guilt, fear, hypocrisy, rage or passive agression. What God do I believe in? The one that makes me a better person, the one who understands forgiveness, the one who pulls me up and says try again. The one who understands that I am responsible for my own life path and who understands that the only person that I really need to ask forgiveness from is usually myself and sometimes my family. For we are usually our own harshest critics. Love your family and take time to like and love yourself.