Insert George Michael joke here

Faith is one of those things you almost can’t catch.  You glimpse it in the corner of your eye, turn your head and it’s gone, sometimes.  My Faith is like a butterfly.  It flutters around me, sometimes miles away and then flies closer and closer still until I want to grab it in my fist and crush it, knowing that having it this close will lead me to rely too much on it and make silly errors of judgment, like crushing a butterfly in my hand.

I grew up with no real religious transmission around me, either inwards or outwards.  I was christened, along with my brother.  I think it was perhaps only because it gave my mother a chance to be centre of attention for a bit, get some new knitted cardigans for me and my little brother and christening cake, made by my grandmother with ice white royal icing, a trellis Moses basket on top with a blue-blanketed fondant baby inside.  I was put out because it was blue and evidently my brother.

Apparently, the guests gave us 50 pence each, hundreds of 50 pences. I am unsure whether this was a gift of the time, or location or what.  Whatever. 50 pences in pint glasses, stored in the second hand sideboard in the weeks following the ceremony.

My earliest memory is vivid.  I’m sitting on an uncarpeted tiled floor in our new house on the council estate. I am facing the front door along the hallway. On the doorstep, I see my mother throwing bags into the drive, my father looking harassed but smirking, as if to say ‘Here we go again.’  He had stolen the 50 pences for drink. I saw him a couple of times aged 12 at which point rumours abounded that he was ill, missing or dead.  He turned up on our doorstep when I was 18, knocking quietly on the door, asking ‘Is your Mum there?’  I went and fetched her and 15 minutes later asked who had been at the door.  The next time I saw him, he was in a coffin, last year, New Years' Day. I was too young to have faith, the day my mother threw my dad out.

The church, religion was something that never reached our house, bar watching Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve.  Mum was scornful, thought Christians, in particular, were ‘odd,’ yet was fascinated and respectful of my friends’ religions, be they Muslim, Hindu or Plymouth Brethren.  It was as if Christianity was one of those nights where you end up snogging someone you shouldn’t. An embarrassment, something to be brushed over and something that didn’t apply to us anymore now we’d been christened and could get into the local school. I can remember asking my Mum on the night of the Big Storm why she was asking God for help. I asked her that every time something went wrong, thought it fascinating this God chap didn’t exist yet he was always meant to save us when we were in a pickle.

My faith was purely invested in my mother when I was younger.  She was our protector and security, working hard to keep us fed and clothed, dragging us round by the hand to the front gardens’ of bullies, facing down other parents, organising petitions to stop climbing frames instead of computers being bought for school.  She fostered children, sometimes 3 at a time, in addition to my brother and me.  I had no one else to admire, she was an icon for me, not painted on three bits of folding wood, but right there, eking out money, making Halloween costumes from bin bags, going without so that I could go on school trips.

Then she got sad and she started to drink and my Mum and any faith I ever had in her was chipped away, every night, with every text, voicemail, and broken promise.

I was faithless and remained so for years, trusting no one because they left, either physically or more esoterically.  I never allowed myself to rely on anyone, tell him or her my secrets or allowed myself to relax and anxiety and sadness and blue days and mean red days came and went.  Then my grandfather died and all of a sudden, I found it again, or at least I thought I did.  The weeks leading up to his difficult death were lonely, except on Sundays.  I’d crept into the back of the local Anglican Church and sat down and breathed in the scent of old wood, chrysanthemums and fairy cakes and just felt safe.  It was confusing, I had no clue when to sit or stand, sing or speak, or even how to pray. 

Nevertheless, I made it through an hour and a half and left feeling a little lighter. When my Grandfather died, it was a comfort to believe, or try to believe that he wasn’t ashes in a memorial garden, but that some essence of him was out there, cogent and checking I wasn’t getting up to too much mischief.

The Anglicans were all a bit literal. They believed what the Bible said as it was written and after a while, I started feeling a little uncomfortable, like a fraud. There were a couple of arm wavers, a couple of very devout people there and I just didn’t ‘feel it’.  I left after I had missed two weeks and got an earful from the secretary about my commitment.  Once again, I couldn’t keep my trap shut and gave her one of my grandfather’s best lines.  ‘If I sit in a church every Sunday, it doesn’t make me a good Christian, the same as if I sit in a garage every Sunday doesn’t make me a good car.’

I had a break for a bit after that, wondering if I believed or not.  I am weak, perhaps in that I need to believe that of all the things in my life that have been bloody awful have been for some purpose, otherwise I fear I would flip into ‘Falling Down’ mode, a nihilistic puddle of despair.  I couldn’t bring myself to think that this was it.  I am rational, intelligent, think Darwin really knows what he is talking about but for me, the unexplained, mystery, wonderment, hope, desire….all of that, that’s my ‘God’, to assign the popular name.  I know HOW things come about through Science, but the WHY BOTHER of it all made my head implode.  I liked believing that there a reason for my not understanding things and that something out there was keeping an eye on me, ready to pounce when things got really bad, or really good, or just to say ‘Hi.’

I went along to the local United Reformed Church one Sunday morning, after a particularly low week. They had a nice clock tower and the chimes sound the hour across my town.  I’d never felt so welcome or so at home.  The Minister asked my name that first day and never forgot it afterwards. He looked like Alan Bennett and sounded a little like him.  Listening to sermons, hoping there would be a reference to a small car park, a garden bench, and a squeezy tomato ketchup bottle made things fun.  I went to bible study classes and was made a member of the church 6 months after I’d started in a ceremony.  I became more involved, baking cupcakes for meetings, helping with tea and coffee after services and eventually asked if we could renew our vows there. The minister had changed by now but he was over the moon, came to our house, and talked about Nimrod, hymns, words, and flowers and even my most scientific of husbands agreed that they had done well in making me feel good about myself.

In May last year I emailed the minister to say that unfortunately due to changing circumstances we would have to cancel the ceremony.  I never heard anything from anyone from that church again. My understanding of Christianity, as preached at that church, was about kindness, understanding (the URC is perhaps the most liberal of denominations), forgiveness and looking after your neighbours.  Perhaps I just found a dodgy minister, or a dodgy church, or a dodgy denomination or even a dodgy religion overall.  I raged internally for months and months that no one had even bothered to reply to my email. I felt rage as I imagine quite a lot of people feel who have been forced or cajoled into experiencing organised religion and then fought their way out from it, or had fallen out of it, as I did.

The past year has been horrific, with illness and loss and silly little things like MOT failures, arguments with friends, injury and depression and every time something else ‘bad’ happened, I prayed. Prayed that we could get a break, prayed that this would be the last thing, and prayed that everything would be ok from January 1^st 2013. I prayed just as hard as I had done when in and out of church earlier. 

A couple of months ago, as I woke up from a general anaesthetic for an operation on my back performed by wizards with lasers and scalpels and oxygen and painkillers and the ability to shave a disc so it didn’t press on my nerve anymore through a one inch cut and I realised I’d been talking to myself for far too long.

My faith has all but gone again, at least in the religious paraphernalia, language and ritual that go with it. I don’t believe in an all-seeing God anymore, the ‘something’ that is out there making things happen.  However, I’m starting to have faith in people.  In my husband, who has put up with an Everest of my faults for 11 years now.  Faith in my Aunt and my Nan, knowing that they always have my best interests at heart.  Faith in long-time friends who I rarely see because of geography but who still squeal with delight when I suggest a weekend together. Faith in people from twitter, strangers who have spent time, money and effort in checking in on me, noticing if I am down, sending gifts and letters. Someone who has given me the opportunity to admire another’s mind and the confidence to write again and write as me, not as a caricature. A new friend who makes me laugh every day with silly pictures, a previously unnoticed speech impediment and dreadful shaggy dog stories.  

The biggest change though, because of all of those people, is that I now have faith in me. I finally have faith that I am worthy of my place on this big ball of rock. How’s that for a God complex?