I had very little understanding of the concept of religion and the concept of God at this stage, let alone articles of faith. Nor I guess, was I very interested in the subject matter, as I was following as I was taught. When I was seven, my parents sent me to a Chinese-medium school kindergarten in town next to the town church and on the very first day of kindy I came back crying and protesting, insisting not to be sent back to there. My pleas must've made a impact, for the next day, I was enrolled into the Convent's kindergarten. Thus my parent's hope that at least one of their children be Chinese-educated was crushed. All my siblings, myself included was therefore English-educated (BM was not the mandatory medium of teaching then).
I guess it was since then that my mother brought me to attend masses and Sunday School at the local church, St. Anne's. Although I can't remember the specifics, but kindergarten in the Convent was alot of fun, so was Sunday mass and Sunday school in church. My mother had been born a Roman Catholic and had always been God-fearing. I guess she wanted her children to be saved spiritually and insisted to my Buddhist father that us siblings attended church.
And that served as the basis of my religious upbringing. Although I attended church regularly, prayed and celebrated all the Christian festivities, I was never baptized and had never received the Holy Communion. While throughout all these, at home, our family still practiced traditional Chinese customs and worshiping of our ancestors. So therefore, I guess you could say I was brought up as a Buddhist, Taoist and Catholic.
As I grew older, finished school, left home for college and subsequently joined the workforce, religion played a very small role in my late teens and early 20's. I guess I wasn't going to let youth be wasted on the young. So my attendance to Sunday mass kept dropping until I virtually stopped going to church, except for Christmas eve and day.
Naturally in a melting-pot of a country like ours, we learn early on the customs and religion of those around us. But, it was at this stage in my life that I became more aware of the concept of religion, and developed an interest in the different religions being practiced in Malaysia. In the early days of the world wide web, very little resource are available online, so you had to either ask an actual person or read a book. I did alot of both.
At the age of 24, I met my wife (now ex) and I wanted to give my mother her wish that my wife and I be married in a church as Christians, so we enrolled for catechism of the catholic church at St. Ignatius. The catechism covered the 4 pillars of the catholic faith;
The profession of Faith
The sacraments of Faith; or Christian mystery
The life of Faith; or Life in Christ
Prayer in the life of Faith; or The Christian Prayer
Both of us were eventually baptized and confirmed in 2001, we took the christian marriage course and were married the following year in the historic and beautiful St. Anne's church, where it all began for me - I returned to St. Anne as a Christian. (note on the wedding: It was a beautiful service on a beautiful day in the most picturesque church.)
And throughout the years, although my faith in Christ remained in my heart, my faith in the church waned. And as it were, one day, the questions started to pile on. And as I took on myself to search for answers and searching for God; the more I knew, the less I knew.
In the end, the best I could answer myself was that there is only One God; an energy or a matter that is omnipresent and omnipotent.
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