Not Catholic but Pray the Hail Mary?

I’m a good old United Methodist girl, but have been praying the Hail Mary for about five years now

Why? I was working for a sweet natured priest who runs a pastoral counseling center when I began, but I don’t think that was it. In the office, we talked about client care, insurance payments, and government grants to keep the lights on. Spirituality — in the form of caring for those in need — was thick on the ground, but religion wasn’t.

No, the Mary thing came on its own. In the same way the goddess Hathor grabbed me one afternoon as I walked through the MET, Christianity’s most famous representative of the Divine Feminine issued me a silent invitation. One minute I was wrestling with the Medicaid payment system, and the next I was Googling how to say the Hail Mary. 

This next part is awkward, and I apologize in advance

Another confession: having been raised in the Bible Belt, part of me still rebels at how Pagan praying to — excuse me, “veneration of” — saints feels, on a gut level. That’s not a negative for me, however — I’ve followed the calendar with OBOD Druids, sat with Zen monks, and studied the Baghavad Gita with a couple of Hindu friends from Gujarat. Then there’s that encounter in the MET with Hathor. To quote the old song, is “Jesus Is Just Alright with Me,” — but so is Krishna, Horus, or any other gods who got their start as a famous babe on their famous mother’s lap.

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Let’s look at life in the Bible Belt for a moment. As a girl, I served as an acolyte in the United Methodist Church of our small Alabama town — a town with only four churches — Methodist, Southern Baptist, Church of God, and Church of Christ. A few friends attended the Kingdom Hall out in the county, and because kids in rural America go to each other’s churches on Sunday morning after sleep-overs on Saturday night, we all swam in the same religious pool. And there was no place in that pool for stepping outside the Protestant framework; it simply didn’t exist. I didn’t even meet a Catholic person until college.

Of course, I ended up dating him for three years, for research only. My cousins were like, “Ooh, a Catholic! How exciting!” The poor guy probably never again received so much fangirling in his life once he returned to the Upstate NY whence he came.

So you can imagine how the home folks feel about all this, and it’s not just them.

My Jewish, Protestant, and Muslim friends at Divinity school agree it’s a complete WTF?

Yet the smorgasbord of deities — many moonlighting as saints — has never been a red flag for me. Quite the contrary, in fact; the plethora of representations of the divine appeals to me. It’s flexible, rich, and just plain handy. “Powerful” is perhaps the word I should have used.

Sometimes instead of trying to chat up the Brahman — Source, The Universe, Unity, The All — I want to talk to someone a bit lower in the org chart, someone a bit more accessible, like Mother Kali who’ll happily kick ass on my behalf. Or rather than trying to get God-with-a-capital-G on down to my level to glance over my taxes, I could shoot a quick email to St. Expeditus, or St. Matthew instead. I won’t be bothering the CEO, and I’m also taking the issue to the specialists.

Are you on a zafu or the chopping block?

In my experience, it’s the personal touch that’s most effective when the proverbial shit hits one’s personal fan. Contemplating the genderless, infinite unity is most effective in moments of calm reflection. Reaching out to a personal entity is best when your neck’s in a noose.

Although, if the shit’s really bad, “just being in the presence of God is sometimes all we can do,” as my saintly former boss always said. “And that’s enough.”

Many of my fellow Protestants feel uncomfortable with the memory of all this absorption of pantheons and pantheistic concepts into what had been a Jewish sect. Where many see as “muddying” of the pure waters of the faith, I see as a rich cross-pollination.

Mary seems to agree, or she wouldn’t have tapped me on the shoulder five years ago. Since then, Marian veneration has been a source of strength for me as part of my syncretic, eclectic, and utterly eccentric religious practice.

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Hello, Enthusiasts! I’m a writer specializing in world religions. With M.Div. in hand, I’ve spent the past couple of decades exploring Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, and Shinto, as well as traditional Incan practice. Check out some of my other Religion and Spirituality stories here. 

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