🌞Just some light summer learning...religious literacy 🌞

I'm seriously excited about taking this course "Religious & Cultural Bus Tour".   I truly love learning and feel pretty lucky to get this experience.

One of my first assignments for the course is to consider why it is important for educators to develop religious literacy.  Being a citizen of of the USA, I feel I'm truly blessed to have the freedom to believe in whatever religion I choose.  I also understand that if I truly believe and intend on making a positive impact toward democracy and peace, I should be knowledgeable about all religions, not just my own.  More than 1/2 of my caseload includes students who have a language other than English spoken in their home.  Additionally, almost 1/2 of my students and their families practice other religions than Christianity including: Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, or are Agnostic.   Religious illiteracy facilitates prejudice, hostility, and conflict which is completely counter to democracy and peace.

I was raised Catholic and attended a Catholic grade school.  Our family moved as I was beginning my freshman year or I would have attended a Catholic high school as well.   While I loved the Catholic traditions, as I became older, I began to question some of the church's practices.  When I met my husband who was not a Catholic but rather a Lutheran, it wasn't a big deal to me but it was a big deal to my grandparents.  My grandparents said they wouldn't come to our wedding if I wasn't married in the church.  As I was a practicing Catholic and because it was really important to me that they attend our wedding, we agreed to do so.   We attended "pre-cana" classes and attended the church just about every Sunday.  I can remember distinctly one particular mass watching my soon to be husband: kneel, sit, bow his head, kneel, stand, etc. for me, I can remember thinking "wow, this guy really loves me" and "does he really understand why he is doing all of this?".  While being a Catholic was important to me, it was more important to me that my husband and I have a relationship with God.  After we married, and had some great conversations, we began looking for a church that would work for us and our someday family.   As we were both were Christians, we didn't search for different religions but rather a different way to express our devotion to God.  With that said, the opportunity to observe various Christian churches, their traditions and practices was quite interesting, eye-opening, and at times intimidating.   After attending many different churches, we found "our church" 18 years ago.  My faith and relationship with God continue to be a big part of who I am.

As I consider my overall goals for this course, I really want to learn about other religions so that I can continue to grow as a person.  I believe it's important to have a greater understanding and awareness of religions so that I can promote peace and and democracy in this diverse world we live in.  As I've said my faith and relationship with God are a big part of who I am.  I do not believe that my religion is the "best" religion or the only one.  I believe everyone's faith or lack there of is a very personal one.  In order to best understand one another, we should learn from one another.  The history, the practices, the why...I want to better understand others.

Becky