Up@dawn 2.0

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Mixed Lineage

In Ross Upshur's essay, he talks about coming from a mixed background of the Catholic church and Anglican church. I too come from a mixed background, but mine is a bit stranger.

My dad's mom was a Jew living in Italy during WWII and fled to America to escape the Holocaust. Upon arrival she claimed to be Catholic because she was so afraid she would be caught and sent back. At least that's what we assume. She would never admit it, but one minute with this woman and it's quite obvious she is Jewish. Nevertheless that side of my family was raised Catholic and they are very devout as such, though I wouldn't call them fanatics, they're very nice people.

Now to the other side. My mom's mom is from Germany. She met my grandad after the war, who was an American working as part of the clean-up effort, and moved back here with him. That side of my family has never said much of anything about religion, and I'm still not really sure what they are, if anything. Anyway, my grandma's grandfather was supposedly a high-ranking Nazi official.

So in short, by descent, I'm half Jewish and half Nazi, living in a half Catholic, half I-don't-know-what family. Confused? So am I.

3 comments:

  1. ...something to see.

    I loved the line in Upshur's essay where he said that Pascal and Kierkegaard were perhaps the most honest religious thinkers--requiring at least a gamble or leap respectively to believe in a god.

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  2. "Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." John 20:29

    That's right. Don't look, just leap!

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