Naomi and Religion

I started writing about my mother in saying that I anticipated in a way that it would be difficult for me. And what I try to put in words at this point is the most difficult of all.

My estimation of my mother is somewhat ambiguous — on the one hand I have the highest regard and appreciation for her unquestioned devotion to providing for the well being of her family, both the children and as a partner in the marriage union with her husband. Her concern for her children was unqualified and she acted with integrity to her ideals in her treatment of and relationship with them throughout their lives.

On the other hand she was the product of the social milieu into which she was born and what to my thinking was the stultifying religious outlook of the Peterson household. I think this outlook transcended that of the Swedish community of which she was also a part. My observation of other members of the church — such as my uncle Reuben and his family — was that they had sort of a pro forma acceptance of the teachings of the church. It provided for them a viewpoint of the world around them and a framework in which they could live their lives in a fruitful and reasonably psychologically satisfying way. That is to say their rather unconsidered acceptance had utility for them — it wasn’t required that it was correct nor that they should strive for utmost consistency between what they thought and did and what the professed in words. They never really thought about their religious commitment, it was just something that had always been a part of their lives.

For my mother and her siblings the situation was quite different. Partly this was because their intellectual level was higher and this provided a basis for greater consistency between what they thought and did and the actual teachings of the Bible and Lutheran theology. But more important was the subtly repressive influence of my grandmother. She, too, was the product of her position in life which led to her conditioned retreat into Christian piety as a means of meeting the vicissitudes of her life. She influenced her children to an unthinking (from the standpoint of analysis of the world around them, both physical and social) viewpoint characterized by consistency to selected and limited religious dogma.

While this parochial outlook did provide a framework for handling the problems of human existence, it also restricted the opportunity or likelihood of a realistic assessment of nature in general. Maybe the latter is not a worthwhile or significant goal for some — it is for me. It is perhaps, in the last analysis, the only real and ultimate goal (if there is one at all) of human existence. The extreme commitment to Christian theology typical of my mother’s family resulted in some quite unhealthy viewpoints such as the attitude toward dying, because of the fear of judgment of God.

I recall hearing my mother speak of this personal fear when close to the end of her life she was contemplating what she considered what she thought was in store for her. I was saddened for her, and at the same time incensed at the hundreds of years of highly egotistic and intellectually sterile Christian theologians who because of their inadequacies in capability had foisted on humanity not the inspired revelations of a deity, but their own stunted views of the cosmos.

So I have a very mixed assessment of my mother — very appreciative and thankful for her aspects of love, care and concern for family, friends and humanity but saddened by the persons, clergy and institutions that restricted and stultified her thinking and the development of her personality. I am now in almost total disagreement with her on what was to her the most important segment of her philosophy of existence. I suppose I should have realistically the same assessment of my father, however I have the intuitive feelings that his commitment and attitude toward Christian theology didn’t have quite the depth or unhealthy involvement that was the case for my mother.