This Easter I have made the bold choice to stay at school and not attend my family’s holiday dinner.
I have a lot of reasons for abstaining, ranging from the 12 hour round-trip to my disdain for ham as a holiday meat, but the sheer fact of the matter is that I’m not a Christian.
To be clear, I have been a lapsed Catholic since I was roughly 15, although I didn’t actually learn that term until a couple years ago.
For those of you that don’t know, a lapsed Catholic is someone that has been baptized and/or confirmed, but is no longer practicing.
This means that I eat whatever I want on Fridays during Lent, but I still get uneasy watching exorcism movies. And I have no idea if I’m supposed to take communion during wedding ceremonies.
I can’t say I ever bought into organized religion; I was seven when I started causing problems in Sunday school by asking questions about science and evolution. In fact, my curiosity lead to my family changing churches at one point.
Over time I developed my own moral compass and decided that I didn’t need the church to tell me what was right and wrong.
I don’t regret my decision, and to be honest, I have found far more loving and accepting people outside of the church than I ever did in.
For me, a spiritual experience is watching a sunset, genuinely connecting with another human being or witnessing a random act of kindness. I don’t think babies are born full of sin, or that you have to show up to an ornate building every week and put money in a collection to be a good person.
So this year, on April 1, I will be sipping a glass of white wine in my apartment, Facetiming my family, and not eating ham.
Click here for last week’s Chat with the Chief focused on the drinking age in America.