My Spiritual Beginnings: How a Nun, a Stamp, and a Bird Taught Me to Question Everything

The first time in my life that I questioned a religious authority.

San Miguel Mission Church with the little school in the back left, Socorro, NM, from an old postcard

As a very young child I attended Catholic School in Socorro, New Mexico. My teacher for both kindergarten and first grade was Sister Mary Rose, and I adored her. Perhaps it was where my overachieving mentality set in, but I only ever wanted to make her proud. She had a pair of stamps that she would mark on our work. One had a happy angel on it that said, “Congratulations! Well done!” The other—the one I most feared—had a very troubled looking angel on it and said, “You’ll have to do better!”

Thanks to the internet, I was actually able to find images of these stamps. Credit to Marc Schuster.

One day in first grade, Sister Mary Rose spoke to us about the idea of heaven. She talked about how good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. I’d heard this before and accepted it as truth. (A fear of going to hell was probably another reason I always strived for the good angel stamp.) At that tender age of six, it never occurred to me to question any of it.

Then, to my horror, sister Mary Rose said that animals (apparently ranking with the most sinful among us) don't go to heaven. She amended it to say that maybe animals do go to heaven, but it's a different heaven from the one good humans go to. I froze and my eyes widened. How could this be? Does this mean I will never again see my beloved pets who had died? How could I possibly bear an eternal afterlife without birds or cats or fish or earthworms or any of the creatures I held so dear? Even though I wasn't outright disagreeing with her, it was the first time in my life that I questioned a religious authority. 

And the whole thing made me cry.

Shortly after, perhaps to soothe my tears, the class was given a coloring assignment. It was a drawing of a bird that we were to color. How confusing that was for a child. Only moments before, we’d been taught that birds aren't worthy of going to human heaven, and now we were meant to devote time and energy to coloring a picture of them.

In my sadness and confusion, I decided to make my bird into the most spectacular thing I could imagine. Maybe if it was beautiful enough, I could change the rules about heaven.

When I was finished, I handed it to Sister Mary Rose. She looked it over, placed a stamp on it and handed it back to me. For the second time that morning, my young heart was shattered. I'd received the “You’ll have to do better stamp.”

In a gentle voice, Sister Mary Rose explained to me that I received the poor mark because there is no such thing as a polka-dotted bird. With my head bowed, I shuffled back to my desk to start again. Thankfully, however, the bell for recess delayed my second attempt.

I ran out the double doors to the playground with my friends. We were gathering together to play dodgeball when I noticed something lying at my feet on the blacktop. I bent to pick it up and saw that it was a feather.

A polka-dotted feather.

Just as before, I froze and my eyes widened. I gasped as the full meaning of this filled my little mind and heart. God placed that feather there for me to find so that I would know that sometimes even my beloved Sister Mary Rose could make a mistake. 

I rushed back inside with the feather to show it to her. She looked at it carefully, then asked me to bring her my coloring of the bird. I was elated when she changed the stamp to the happy angel. Sister Mary Rose apologized and said that sometimes the teacher learns from the student.

Almost afraid to hope, I quietly asked, “Since you were wrong about the polka-dotted bird, do you think you might be wrong about animals not going to heaven?”

Her only response was to smile and give me a hug. She didn’t say yes and she didn’t say no. She gave me no definitives, no certainty. And it was exactly the answer I needed. In that moment, Sister Mary Rose gave me the reassurance and permission to begin a lifetime of questioning religious and spiritual beliefs. She gave me the gift of forging my own path.

To this day I am grateful to sister Mary Rose, and to her stamps, and of course, to the hand of the Divine that was ever-present through it all. If I hadn't changed course that day, I may never have become the spiritual healer that I am today.

I recently told this story to a beloved friend. The next time I saw her she gifted me a polka-dotted feather, one that she had had on her altar for a very long time. It is now one of my most cherished possessions.

The polka-dotted feather being consecrated on my own altar.

Now I want to hear from you. What events put you on your spiritual path? What experiences first made you question the beliefs you'd been taught?