I went to Catholic school as a kid, which meant confession.
You'd go into a dark little box and tell a grown man all your sins.
Except sometimes I couldn't think of any.
I was a kid. How much sinning could I possibly have squeezed in since the last confession?
But I couldn't exactly sit down and say, Nothing this week, Father. Crushed it.
So naturally, I made something up.
Which means I lied during confession because I couldn't think of a sin to confess.
Well, shit.
Sin accomplished.
And now I've sworn while talking about confession.
Uh oh. Another sin?
Probably explains why I swear so much now. It's the rebel sinner in me. ;)
Even as a kid, there were parts of religion that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
As I got older, there were parts that bothered me even more.
The rules that seemed arbitrary. The exclusion. The patriarchy. The ways women were sometimes (ok, most times) diminished. The idea that there was one prescribed way to believe and behave, and someone else got to decide whether you were doing it correctly.
I remember being a kid and genuinely confused about some of it.
Like, why would God care if I ate meat on a Friday during Lent?
Seriously.
We were being taught about this enormous, loving God, and then somehow that same God was concerned about whether I ate a hamburger on a Friday?
I couldn't make those things fit together in my head.
There were other rules that felt the same way. They seemed completely disconnected from the God we were hearing about in the sermons. I couldn't understand them. I couldn't rationalize them. They just didn't make sense to me.
As I got older, I started to wonder how much of what I had been taught was actually about God and how much of it was people making rules about God and religion.
Maybe that's why I always had questions.
But there were parts of church I loved.
And when I think about those parts now, one of the first things that comes to mind isn't the part where we all had to sit on an uncomfortable wooden bench and be perfectly still and quiet.
It's the coffee and donuts afterward.
Maybe the Best Part Was the Coffee and Donuts
That's where everybody gathered.
People stood around and talked.
You knew what was going on in each other's lives.
Someone's husband was sick.
Someone had a new baby.
Someone's mom died.
Someone needed meals brought over.
Someone needed a ride.
Someone was going through a hard time.
And people helped.
Sometimes just because.
There was something really beautiful about that.
You belonged to each other a little bit.
I miss that.
And I don't think I'm the only one.
There were other parts I liked too.
I liked hearing stories and then talking about what they meant.
What can we learn from this?
What does it say about how we treat people?
How do we live a good life?
How do we forgive?
How do we love people better?
What are we supposed to do with suffering?
What happens when we die?
Those are pretty good questions.
I still want to talk about those things.
I'm just not particularly interested in someone handing me a list of the answers.
So Where Do We Go With the Big Questions Now?
I think a lot of people have moved away from organized religion but haven't necessarily moved away from wondering.
We're still thinking about God.
Or Spirit.
Or consciousness.
Or the universe.
Or whatever word feels right to us.
We're still wondering what happens when we die.
We're still looking for meaning.
We're still trying to figure out why we're here and how the hell we're supposed to live while we are.
Oops.
Hell.
Another sin.
See? Rebel sinner.
When people say they're "spiritual but not religious," what do you think that means?
Maybe We're Missing the Gathering
Community.
A place to belong.
A reason to get together regularly that isn't work, school, sports or somebody's birthday.
Ritual.
Stories.
Music.
Shared experiences.
Helping someone simply because they're part of your community.
Sitting around talking about things bigger than what we're making for dinner and whether somebody remembered to switch the laundry. (it is not me I did not remmber)
A place where it's completely normal to say:
I've been thinking about what happens after we die.
or … Something weird happened and I can't explain it.
or … Do you think consciousness continues?
or … I have absolutely no idea what I believe anymore.
And instead of someone telling you what you're supposed to believe, maybe somebody just pulls up a chair.
Cool. Let's talk about it.
I think we're hungry for that.
At least I am.
I Don't Think We Need to Agree
And maybe that's one of the biggest differences for me.
I don't want to gather with people because we've all agreed to believe the same thing.
I'd rather gather because we're willing to wonder about the same things.
You can believe in God.
Someone else can call it Spirit.
Someone else can talk about consciousness.
Someone can believe our loved ones continue after death.
Someone else can say, I don't know, but I'm curious.
Fine.
Pull up a chair.
I don't think curiosity requires consensus.
And I don't think community should either.
Actually, I think it gets a lot more interesting when it doesn't.
Maybe That's What I'm Looking For
I don't know exactly what this looks like yet.
And I kind of like that.
I don't think I'm looking for another institution.
I'm definitely not looking for another list of rules.
And please don't put me back in the dark closet with a grown man asking me what I've done wrong this week.
We've established how that turns out.
But I am interested in creating more places where people can gather.
Where we can talk about life and death and intuition and consciousness and love and grief and purpose and all the weird stuff we don't completely understand.
Where we can learn from each other.
Where we can hear that somebody is struggling and ask:
What do you need?
Where we can hear that something wonderful happened and celebrate it with them.
Where nobody needs to have all the answers.
Maybe we don't need another institution telling us what to believe.
Maybe some of us just need more places where it's okay to gather and talk about what we don't know.
Places where curiosity is allowed.
Where different beliefs are allowed.
Where we can explore some of the bigger questions and maybe become a little better at being human along the way.
Maybe that's what some of us are missing.
Church without the church.
But I'm keeping the coffee and donuts ;)
