What I Meant When I Said "I have no regrets"

"I believe I've reached this point where I have no regrets and no bitterness," I wrote recently on Facebook. A few of my friends questioned that statement, so I would like to clarify. 

Really, there are a few things that I would - if I could - go back and do differently. Definitely. 

Probably there are many things I would do differently, but there are a few that stand out from the rest.

There was the time I told someone I was thinking about what to do with the rest of my life, but what she heard was, "I'm going to take you down". Of course, it was way more complicated than that. But I could have been more careful with my words, and I've always been sad it turned out that way.

There was the time I got caught up in a cult, and because I had to leave my mom, I got mad at her (go figure). 

There have also been simple human mistakes I made that may have caused serious harm to loved ones. 

I would be irresponsible or calloused if I said that if I had all those things to do over again, I would do exactly the same thing. 

But that's not what I meant when I said that I have no regrets. Here's what I meant: 

I no longer beat myself up. 

I'm not only a sinful person but I'm also a fallible person. I guess that's why they call me a human. And I'm in good company.

King David saw a beautiful woman who caught his eye, so he sent her husband into battle to be killed. David repented, and he went on serving God. 

Mary and Joseph, the best of parents, lost Jesus for three days on the way home from the temple when he was twelve. True, Jesus knew where he was and what he was doing. But, although Mary was sinless and Joseph is called "the just man", they were human, and they didn't know where he was. 

Maybe what I meant when I said I have no regrets is that God made me human, and I don't regret being human. 

I laugh. I cry. I get mad. I rejoice. I sin. And I make mistakes. And God "gets that". Sometimes there are consequences to sin, and I might regret the consequences; and sometimes simple mistakes that are not sins at all go horribly wrong. Because darn, we are human. And sometimes I might still be sad about some of those things. 

But I no longer beat myself up. 

Because God is good. And God is love. God loves me. God loves those who have been hurt in some way because I am human. God loves my loved ones way, way more than I do. 

Know that God loves you. Know that He loves your loved ones even more than you do. God loves us every minute of every day - until he will love us every moment of eternity. 

 

How I Ended up in a Cult

Some of you have heard me say, "When I was 18, I went to a cult". Who would do that? Why? Why would I leave my family, and all that I knew? Believe me, sometimes I still ask myself those questions, so I can imagine others asking them, too. Intellectually, I still don't have the answers, but maybe I can share a fragment of the emotion.

A few years ago, I wrote a sort of free verse - poem of sorts - that expresses it the best way I have been able to so far. I don't remember sharing that poem publicly before now. Maybe it was because I didn't think it would stand alone without explanation, and I wasn't ready to write the explanation. Maybe I wasn't ready to humble myself by sharing that pain and confusion. 

When I graduated from high school, I had a car of my own; my part time job had turned into a full time job as soon as summer came; and at the end of June, I rented my own apartment. My middle name was responsible, and I was flying high.  

I had also decided I wanted to become a Catholic, and I was just waiting to receive instructions, so I could come into the Church. But in the meantime, my Catholic friend's mother had read a book about the changes in the Mass, and how "awful" those changes were; and I read it and believed it, along with my friend. 

Then she got introduced to a group that was traveling around the country, giving talks. My friend and I went to hear them. A really nice, upbeat lady, who traveled with them, suggested we go to a ten day seminar coming up in August in Idaho. She said, with such enthusiasm, you can go to Mass every day. Well, I hated to ask for time off work; but when I was growing up I had always loved church camp, and I decided to go, and my friend did too. I asked for the time off, and my boss graciously gave it to me. 

When we arrived, the first thing they did was take our watches. I was very uncomfortable with that. (Imagine someone taking your phone for ten days...and you didn't know ahead of time).  I had been wearing a watch pretty much all the time since I was in third grade. 

We had Mass, as promised. It was offered by a retired priest who, I later learned, was senile and had no idea what this group really stood for. 

Most of the rest of the time we spent listening to the leader, Francis Schuckardt, talk about how awful the changes in the Church were, how awful the world was, how no one who seemed to be in the Church was really Catholic any more. He would rant, "All the bishops are apostates, and anyone who follows an apostate bishop is ipso facto excommunicated!" Salvation was only with him and his group. Sitting here, writing it, I feel very foolish. Sitting there for hours on end, not knowing meal time from sleeping time from listening time, and it felt like mostly it was listening time, all I could feel was darkness and despair. 

And so, when the ten days were over, we had to stay with the group. It wasn't a decision, consciously made; it just was. It was desperation and it was fear. It was...I can think of no other word but craziness. We couldn't go home, except to say good-bye and get a few of our things because, out there, in the world (oh, am I really saying this publicly?)...out there in the world there were all these "humanoids and possessed persons", and we were in grave danger. If you hear something enough times, over and over, you can begin to believe it. And there were all these respectable adults who believed it, so why not us?

Here's the verse I scribbled down a few years ago:

Ten Day Seminar:

Our watches gone,

Time dragging on.

“The wicked world is dangerous!

Be safe with us.”

Endless listening to

Endless ranting.

Free time – one time.

Time alone, with God.

“What should I do?”

“Keep My commandments.”

Moment of connection.

Moment of sanity.

Cling to the connection.

Cling to the sanity.

Our watches gone,

Time dragging on.

“The wicked world is dangerous!

Be safe with us.”

Endless listening to

Endless ranting.

Connection fading.

Sanity sliding.

Endless time ending.

Watches returned, intact,

But broken to our needs;

Our spirits broken, like their usefulness.

Time to go home,

Yet not home, to the world,

Where dangers lurk

And devils dwell. 

***

Does she really go by that long name, Margaret Mary?

Be prepared. You might find this a strange post.

For those who don't know (& for those who do, please keep reading too, if you don't mind a long read)...I changed my name at the age of 18. Peggy is often a nickname for Margaret, but my name was really just Peggy. Yes, I went from shorter to longer, and not only longer, but much longer. 

Yes, it was a crazy thing that happened to me on the way to adulthood. It was the 60's; what can I say? Actually, it was 1971 but I was a late bloomer. So...who calls me what? I'm going to go over this again to reassure anyone who might be puzzled. :) 

1) Yes, I really do go by the long, double name, "Margaret Mary", and I have for over 40 years; but if you are not comfortable with a long name, I answer to Margaret, & I'm not offended in the least. Some people who are very dear to me do call me Margaret; or Mary Margaret...& then apologize & I try to reassure them it's okay. Really. I get it; or MM or MMM, or one friend calls me M squared.  :)   But I prefer not to be called Mary, because that is my daughter.  

2) If you knew me before I changed my name, or you are related by blood, or you live in or near Vancouver, Washington, you are welcome to call me Peggy. Those are the only people 'allowed' to call me Peggy ;) , but from them, I often kinda' like it, you know.  :)  And I often sign that way to those people who "knew me when"...or are related...or...yes, you read all that already. ;) If you prefer to call me Margaret Mary because you got to know me at a high school reunion, or on FB, or because you see it all the time, or because it's what my more recent friends call me, or because you think if I changed it, I changed it; and you feel it's more respectful to go with my change, that's fine, too. Either way works, if you fit one of those categories. :)    

3) Isn't this the craziest thing you ever heard (although many of you already know all this). 

4) I have had people say to me, "I want to change my name". I say, "Don't do it". Please, "just say no". Have I regretted it? The same way I regret having gone to a cult, and so many related things. But then again, I'm not really sure you can call it 'regret', because you can't go back. If I could do my life over again and delete a month out of my life, it would be so very different. But would it be better? No, because everything would not have fallen in place for me to meet the wonderful man who is my husband; to bring into the world the great people who are my children; and to meet so many dear friends, as well. 

And I wouldn't have had two names that I love. :)  I do sometimes wonder, though, how the whole name change thing is going to go when I go to collect Social Security. Yes, I did it in a legal way. It was legal then, but it might not be quite as legal today, so there is another project for me. :) 

5) And I sometimes wonder, when it comes time for me to die, "What is Jesus going to call me?"  :)  It's one of those things I ponder on occasion. But I know. It doesn't matter, as long as he calls me, and it will all be good.

These Were My People

Another historical post, which I am bringing over here from the archives of my other blog. This comes from July of 2007.

As I read the story of these sisters, I wept with joy.

Fifteen sisters of a sedevacantist community in Spokane, Washington have returned to the Church! If you're not familiar with the term "sedevacantist", it means "the seat is vacant". Sedevacantist proponents believe that there has been no valid Pope since Pope Pius XII in 1958. While some traditional Catholics have questioned some of the things that came out of Vatican II and some of the decisions of the Popes, most still recognize each current Pope as the Holy Father of the Church. But sedevacantists reject everything done by the Church from Pope Pius XII to the present as not being "Catholic".

If you have read my post "Color by Numbers - Not" about my religious journey, you may understand why I wept with joy when I read this story. I said in that post: "July 1971-October 1971-Fell into a cult, an ultra-traditional “Catholic” group, run by a man named Francis Schuckardt in Idaho. I was baptized Catholic, while there, by a retired, missionary priest who was just visiting. Left the cult (with the help of the prayers and explanations of the lady who instructed me in the Faith)…but regretfully left my best friend behind (though we are again close today)." The founder, Francis Schuckardt, left this group, decades ago, but the group has remained together and retained their sedevacantist beliefs.

I was only with this group for a couple of months and it was many years ago, but I spent at least a month living as a guest in the sisters’ convent. So these sisters were "my people"...if only for a short time. I don't know if any of the sisters who were there, then, are any of the ones who have been welcomed back into the Church, now, but it's all the same to me. I don't know whether any of them is the sister who told me that yes, I should hang onto my grandmother's quilt because we are supposed to take care of what we have (I was so relieved), or the sister who gave me a whole can of tuna when I had a day ahead of me up on "the hill" (I didn't yet know I had low blood sugar but she saved me that day), or the sister who made the little gift to me from the community when I was baptized: a holy water bottle made from a vanilla bottle, with a holy card of the Infant of Prague, lace, and a flower decopauged onto it (it sits on my dresser still). I don’t know if any of the sisters who is being received back into the Church is the one who held the door, as kindly as she could, to keep my new friend and me from entering their bookstore to tell the sisters why we left the organization (I'm sure she was “under obedience” to keep us out). I don’t know if any of them are the ones who put our things in the snowy yard when we came back to pick them up, so that they could keep the convent doors shut to us (again under obedience, and probably with heavy hearts). I don’t know if any of the sisters from that original, cultist regime are even still there. Probably many attitudes and customs had changed immensely over the past 36 years.

But I only know that when I read this article I rejoiced! I wept with joy. God moves mountains…in his own time.

Please pray for these sisters...and for the sisters they left behind.

Thank you, God, for waiting for these sisters, for bringing the people and messages into their lives that would bring them to this new joy. Your ways so mightily surpass ours.

I Hate Injustice

I hate injustice but I love to learn the history of injustice. Why is that? I think it's because it justifies my hatred of injustice.

But more than that, it makes me realize that the world is really not much better nor much worse than it has ever been...and that most of us are not as good as we could be, in the way that we view our neighbor, that most of us, at one time or another, tend to look at someone else with a prejudicial view...whether it is toward their race or religion or culture; or whether we've risen above that, but it's about someone's economic class or the way they dress or what their politics seem to be. Why do I say 'what their politics seem to be'?  Well, don't we sometimes assume someone holds one view because they say they hold a certain view on a totally different topic?

Don't we sometimes say this person has this bad way of looking at this topic and therefore this person is bad? What if we tried to just look past the things we don't agree with, and look at the person? Fight what we believe is wrong but fight ideas, not people? Because, as Martin Luther King Jr pointed out, hatred doesn't stop hatred.

Only love, respectful love, can really bring about love, and isn't that really what life is all about?

Ten Things I Learned from Joining a Cult When I was 18

When I was 18, in the summer of 1971, I got sucked into a cult. It was a fake Catholic group. It was totally not recognized by the Catholic Church, and hardly recognizable as looking Catholic. Yet dissatisfied, disillusioned people fell for it, both life-long Catholics and new converts such as myself. No, please, don't guess that it's this organization or it's that organization because, as far as I know, it's not in existence today. If it is, it is very small.

Now, not to give you the wrong idea about the gullibility of the people, the group did have a true priest, a retired Catholic priest who was senile. He still had the presence of mind to offer the Mass but not to be aware of what was really going on, or what the leader was really about.

I wasn't with the group long - barely a couple of months - but it was long enough to have a cataclysmic effect on my life...and long enough to learn a few important things. Just to be clear, I didn't learn the following things from the cult itself. I learned them from having had the experience of being in a cult. It's reverse-learning, if you will, or learning from your mistakes and the mistakes you've seen others make.  

1. Don't give away everything you own.

2. Don't try to start your life over from square one. 

3. Don't let anyone mess with your head.

4. Don't be more religious than the religion you profess.

5. Don't let the group talk you into dressing three degrees differently than the rest of the world (unless that's how the religion you profess dresses; for example, I except Amish or Orthodox Jewish people from this one, because the dress is a part of their religious culture, not part of a spurious offshoot).

6. Don't dwell on the negatives in the world.

7. Keep the commandments, or whatever your rules or guidelines are, and carry on. 

8. Keep faith that God is good.

9. Know that you are not less than anyone else, and at the same time, that your group is not better than everyone else.

10. Know that there's a wide, wide world out there and that most of the people in that world are essentially good at heart.

Color-by-Numbers - Not

The following is a brief story of my liturgical journey in a numerical list. It certainly hasn’t been a color-by-numbers life.

1. 1953-1971-Born and raised as a Protestant in Washington State. (My grown children say I shouldn’t say “Protestant” now; so to my non-Catholic Christian friends: I’m not calling you a Protestant, only me, back then, as that’s what we called ourselves then.)

2. January 1971-July 1971-Decided (with the help of the prayers and explanations of my best friend) that I wanted to be a Catholic. I attended Mass, prayed the Rosary, read The Imitation of Christ, read The Autobiography of St. Therese. And I fell in love with all things Catholic.

3. July 1971-October 1971-Fell into a cult, an ultra-traditional “Catholic” group, run by a man named Francis Schuckardt in Idaho. I was baptized Catholic, while there, by a retired, missionary priest who was just visiting. Left the cult (with the help of the prayers and explanations of the lady who instructed me in the Faith)…but regretfully left my best friend behind (though we are again close today).

4. 1971-1975-Attended the traditional Latin Mass of various priests who were retired or had permission to continue to say the Latin Mass.

5. 1975-1982-Grew to love the Byzantine Catholic Mass (or “Divine Liturgy”). Met my husband, who was also a refugee there from the Latin rite, and we were married in a Byzantine Catholic church. We had our first two children baptized there.

6. 1983-1993-Attended the traditional Latin Mass offered by a retired priest in California whose sermons instructed us in how to live the Gospel.

7. 1993-2003-Attended the traditional Latin Mass at a Society of St. Pius X chapel in Ohio, where we met many of the people who are our dear friends today.

8. 2003-2006-Attended my very first “novus ordo”, or Mass of Pope John Paul VI, at a graduation. I found that, to me, it wasn’t the travesty I thought it would be; instead I felt very much at peace, and found it contained the same essential elements. Attended this Mass occasionally after that, but now went each Sunday to both the Society chapel and to an Indult (diocesan) Latin Mass in Kentucky.

9. June 2006-Present time-Moved to Baltimore, where I now attend both an Indult Tridentine Latin Mass in Baltimore (about weekly) and the Mass of Pope Paul VI at my local parish (about monthly). At either Mass I enjoy being in the Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ; offering myself to God in union with the Holy Sacrifice; and receiving Our Lord in the same Holy Communion. I like to say now, “What’s not to love about the infinite Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Mass?”

Note: This is only my own story and does not in any way reflect the views or choices of other family members; although we live very much in peace with one another. Also, this is only an outline. I could probably write a whole book about each phase of my journey.