I come from a long line of working-class Catholics (mother's side) and Protestants (father's side). My paternal grandmother was first a Baptist, but joined a Pentecostal church later. She could talk in tongues and taught bible study for children. Cool, but kinda scary.
My Tennessee Grandma was the best person I ever knew. She told me that she once chased the devil out of her house because he was trying to turn her against Jesus. Yeah, I know, sounds a little fanciful. I'll tell you what, though, if anyone could pull off a caper like that it was her.
She was a die hard Democrat until JFK ran for president - my Grandpa made them both switch to Republican because he hated Catholics. She was raised to submit to her husband as the head of the household. Plus, I'm sure her pastor was raising (un)holy hell over a Catholic trying to get elected president.
It's the nature of our reality that evil has always existed in this world, and always will. We have to choose to walk away from it in our own lives, but it still exists out there. Sometimes people are fooled if they don't exercise their mind and search for the truth. Grandma might have voted for Donald Trump the first time, because he pretended to be anti-abortion and folks were preaching conservative politics from the pulpit. However, I'm confident she would not have supported him a second time. Why? Because he's a liar and a cheat. He's filled with hate and tries to spread it around. Grandma knew the difference between good and evil.
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| Sometimes good people come together, regardless of propoganda, dogma, or belief systems |
This is quite an eye opener, always and again, how religion shapes outlooks (prejudice) and the directions in people's lives. I never experienced much of it growing up, religion played no role, church was a curiousity various members of my family occasionally attended, more like a social club.
ReplyDeleteWhen I married into a catholic Irish family religion hit me face on, the confusion and initial despair I caused my inlaws, no church wedding and so on but there was also the devastation, hungerstrikes, imprisonments, loss of lives and so much hatred as a result of The Troubles, an actual civil war caused by two Christian religions, just a short drive from Dublin to Northern Ireland.
Thank you for sharing this, Sabine.
DeleteGrandma was a smart cookie it sounds like.
ReplyDeleteShe was great.
DeleteMy maternal grandparents were never precious about religion...they taught me to think critically. My paternal grandmother was fire and brimstone and one can draw a direct line between her stance and my father's atheism. I grew up knowing nothing about religion and that's somewhat problematic too since, imo, we need multiple perspectives on how to recognize dishonesty, selfishness, and evil (Trump, etc) and find ways to counteract it.
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