Story of my Life: Giving Penance

I grew up in a red, single-story house in the New Jersey suburbs. As of writing, my parents still like there, but it has been shingled blue. I was raised Roman Catholic by my mother, who took my older brother Christopher and I to church weekly from a young age. My pop would come too, on special occasions, like Easter Mass and for Christmas. He was raised Protestant, but has seemed to identify with it.

A classroom at Universite Heights. I think this was third grade.

Our church was connected to a Catholic school, called St. Gregory the Great's; the school taught kindergarten through eighth grade. My brother went to middle school there, and also to a Christian high school called Notre Dame. I went to neither of these schools; I attended Crockett Middle School, which was public, and next to the private high school Solebury. Both Christopher and I went to the same elementary school, University Heights, which is directly across the street from our house. Once a week, we would be pulled out of our classes at University Heights to go to an after-school program at St. Gregory's. During the end of the day in elementary school, there was not much learning going on anyway. In springtime, during the last half hour of school, the teachers would let the children out to play in the big field behind the school. And one by one, parents would come to pick them up.

That's Chris, getting on the school bus to go to middle school at St. Gregory's. They had a dress code, I don't think he actually dressed like that for fun. I guess it was the first day or something, since they are picking him up just outside of the house.

So when my brother and I were pulled out of school early, it usually felt like a second day of school succeeding the first. A few of our other friends went to the same after-school program every week, and we usually carpooled with them. The program was referred to as CCD by our mother, and I can never remember what it stands for. I don't think I ever learned; but I just looked it up, and it is the abbreviation for "Confraternity of Christian Doctrine". Once we arrived at the St. Gregory's, everyone gathered in the school cafeteria. As the CCD students were arriving, the kids who actually attended school there were just being let out; so it was easy to lose my mom or dad in the crowd of students, all blocking up the narrow middle-school hallways. It was the worst when we carpooled with other parents, and I was lost in the crowd and I wasn't even looking for my own mother. Somehow that was the most unsettling.

All the tables in the cafeteria had sheets of regular A4 paper on them, designating which table belonged to which grade group and teacher. I would part from my brother, and find the table for my grade and teacher. Usually whatever parent had taken me there had left by this time. So if I couldn't find my table, I had nobody to go and ask for help, except for the big crowds of strange kids and strange adults.

I was very intimidated by the other students, even those than were my own age. They made me feel estranged. A group of kids all sitting at a table, and I don't know any of them. I didn't have any clue how to approach that, so sometimes I just wandered in the aisles between the tables, until one of me friends called to me, or the teacher found me.

After the tables were all filled and the teachers arrived, they all walked off to a classroom somewhere in the school. If I was lost, I might run into my class' line at this time. But sometimes, they left me behind, and I had to go wander off to the classroom on my own. I guess they moved in packs so that none of the kids were abducted or lost or something.

The classes were two hours long. They started at 4pm (University Heights let out at 3:30pm, that's why we had to leave a bit early) and lasted until about 6pm. Sometimes we went down to a music room and learned to sing hymns from a woman who had an accent. That was the first person I ever remember meeting that had an accent. Sometimes we read Bible narratives from big colour paperback books, and they had illustrations to go along with all the Bible stories we read. Sometimes we played games, and got candy.

I remember one time, we all sat in groups memorising the Nicene Creed. We were preparing to give Penance in church for the very first time, so this was a big deal. The teachers told us that we had to recite the Nicene Creed to the priest or bishop or whatever who was in the confessions booth. This wasn't true. When I did give my first confession, I waiting anxiously in a pew with my Christopher and my mother. And I was repeating the Creed under my breath with sweaty palms, and interspersedly praying Hail Mary so that I might remember the Nicene Creed. What would happen if I didn't recite it proper? But I didn't have to recite it at all. And the whole process of giving my confession was much easier than anyone had told me. I expected some challenging rite of passage, comparable to reciting the whole Koran or being scalped. But all I had to do was confess something. Of course, I hadn't really thought about anything I wanted to confess. So I said that I didn't always get along with my brother, which wasn't really true at all, we've always gotten along alright. The whole thing lasted maybe thirty seconds, and it felt that short, too. Not like one of those anxious moments that lasts weeks and years for each massing minute.

But, while we were memorising the Nicene Creed, we were lining up to take candy from the teacher, and when it was my turn I went to take it from her hand, but I suppose she must not have really handed it to me yet. And so I was reprimanded for impatiently snatching candy, and she gave me some kind of candy that was not at all what I wanted, something negligible like a single, stale and tacky tootsie roll, not the long kind either. Here I was, learning to recite a whole creed, whatever that is, and just when I thought there would be some time to relieve the tension of my young mind cramming a poem I was poignantly wrong. Then I cried. The teacher and her aid, of course, thought I was crying because I got a little piece of candy and not a big one, and tried to remedy the problem by (hesitantly) awarding me a bigger lollipop or candy bar or something.

But they entirely missed the point. It wasn't about what I had or what I wanted or what they had given me. There was some underlying unrest, and a tension that was just stressed from trying to do well for the church and my Lord and all of those sorts of things. And then, after all my hard eight-year-old work (or however old I was, but I could could it on two hands) I'm told off by the teacher.

And I guess those things still happen all of the time, when I am so tense and dedicated. There is a breaking point, and that is what everyone focuses on, totally distracted. I imagine that this happens to everyone, and I try to be mindful of that. But it is so easy to look at things on the surface, to gauge upset by its external appearance. I suppose that is just we understand things, sometimes.