Confession time: I have the worst relationship with divinity.

It doesn’t make me a great person, but it doesn’t make me a bad person. If anything it just makes me a normal person. I was raised in the Church by an Irish-Catholic father and a Filipino, Roman-Catholic mother, so it’s not to say I wasn’t “raised right.”

My parents were never strict believers, always preaching that women had the right to choose, gay couples had the right to be married, and Dave Chappelle had the right to curse on TV. Nevertheless, they raised me to believe in a higher power, and that the very nature of life was a gift from God.

Then I started discovering things.

I came out as gay in middle school and that sort of sparked my questioning of Catholicism. Naturally, I found it hard to take comfort in an establishment that had a history of criticizing my character when they didn’t really have a clue who I was.

So naturally, I rebelled against the church, dreading the notion of going to Sunday Mass enough that eventually, my parents stopped forcing me. I felt like my issues were nonexistent, I was happy, and didn’t needthe Church to make me happy.

My perspective started changing around the time Pope Benedict retired and the new pope, Francis, was elected to fill his position. I wasn’t extremely interested in the matter as my mind had already been made up about the topic at hand.

Then I started listening.

Pope Francis had spoken with such conviction and such acceptance. I

was shocked that the man in charge of one of the world’s most conservative denominations was saying that Christians actually owed gay people an apology for marginalizing them.

Maybe this was a sign for grander horizons?

When I was a baby, my Grandpa gave my dad a gold necklace of Jesus’ face to give to me when I got older. All my childhood memories of my father include him wearing the chain and to me, it symbolizes both him and my grandpa. When I came out, my dad felt compelled to give me the necklace as a way to prove his love to me and his pride in my adult realization.

To this day I wear the chain.

It might not represent my undying allegiance to the Catholic Church or even my unquestionable divinity. I still have questions, and I still worry about the divisive nature of religion.

I do however think of Jesus as one of the greatest historical philosophers of all time. He taught love, acceptance, equality, forgiveness, courage, and humility; all things I believe in wholeheartedly. And when times are hard, I look to Jesus’ teachings for support.

Perhaps that’s why I still wear his face around my neck.

Or perhaps I wear it as a band of optimism for the day the Church welcomes people like me back into their arms.

Or perhaps I just wear it as an attachment to my family and the bond of love that was there before I was even born.