Easter Reflections: Sunday Musings 4/24/11
Sunday musings…
1) “Start Anywhere”. Zen.
2) Happy Easter. More on this to come.
3) Easter Bunny. Mrs. Bingo flew “The Heir” home for a surprise visit! What a great surprise; clan bingo was assembled en masse for the first time since Christmas. Great gift.
4) Church. It is 10:45 AM in Cleveburg and I have not yet gone to Easter mass. Indeed, I have been describing myself of late as a “recovering Catholic”; religion as punch line. In truth I have been struggling for some time with this, treading water in the shallows between religion and faith.
Once upon a time I found the Catholic mass to be a sanctuary. A home away from home, if you will. In church I was in solidarity with millions of other people, all doing essentially the same thing at the same general time. The sameness, the ritual, the knowledge that it was ever as it was and ever shall be was a comfort. That consistency was a touchstone of a sort. For decades I never missed mass.
Although there are significant differences in the basic faith beliefs across the religion domain I have found essential behavioral modes that consistently surface in most, if not all, of them. Be kind. Treat you neighbor as you would wish to be treated. What you do unto others you do unto me. Gaia and her children are to be cherished and nurtured. The circle of life. As soon as humans congregate in units >1 these essential social modes of behavior exist, and in many corners of our planet are reinforced through religion.
So, too, is the faith domain in some way consistent. There MUST be something more than this life. There MUST be something greater, something at least watching. There MUST be something that comes next. There MUST have been something that came before. Indeed, I have written elsewhere that the absence of this faith is a ticket to madness.
The process was gradual, unconscious, unplanned, but over time a less defined yet stronger faith arose, while religious fidelity weakened in the face of its stricter definition. I got less and less out of each visit to church, and more and more out of deeper, more private, more personal explorations of a broader, more expansive faith. Indeed, my spiritual life grew and my adherence to those general behavioral niceties grew, kind of like a plant removed from the confines of its pot that grew to be a tree once planted in the garden.
There is nothing inherently wrong, or bad with the Church of my upbringing. It brings joy and comfort to many of my loved ones as well as countless millions around the world. Nothing wrong with the many other religions and the peaceful practice of their tenets. It’s just that I, like that emancipated tree, find it difficult to fit any more.
It’s now 11:10 here in Cleveburg, and I’ve not yet been to Church.
I’ll see you next week…
Posted by bingo at April 24, 2011 8:15 AM
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