Losing My Religion

I was 32 years old when I first found a church that felt like home. I hadn’t really been searching my whole life. We were Easter and Christmas Presbyterians growing up, and I was perfectly content to spend my Sundays skiing down a hill rather than sitting in a sanctuary. I said my prayers every night (still do), as my grandmother taught me when I was young, and otherwise didn’t give religion too much thought.

When Toby and I started dating, he expressed interest in attending church regularly. His preference at the time was for a Catholic church, but he was willing to try Presbyterian churches as well. I felt somewhat indifferent to the idea of going to church at all and decided to go along with it since it was important to him. We did a bit of church shopping, and ended up at the Presbyterian church after attending a sermon where John Glenn, a member of the congregation, spoke about finding religion in space and the pastor, Dr. Barnes spoke passionately and intelligently from the pulpit. It was a more conservative church than we probably would’ve chosen on paper, but we were moved by the sermon and anyway, we had to find a pastor before our wedding.

When we moved to Maryland, we headed to the Presbyterian church right away, since it had worked for us before. We loved the historic church building, with a simple but beautiful sanctuary, only a quick walk from our house. But the sermons weren’t particularly inspiring and as I sat there every week, I started to doubt what I was really doing there. I listened to the pastor talk about Jesus as the only way to heaven and I told myself that he was saying that metaphorically, since love and understanding are the only way to peace, but it bothered me that we weren’t admitting that we were saying this metaphorically. And maybe “we” weren’t, was everyone else on board with everything we were saying to be true? What did that mean for all the people of the world of other religious faiths? I was sitting in a place where I was supposed to be searching for truth and instead I found myself feeling false. It just wasn’t working for me.

It didn’t help that summer that I read both “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer and “The Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell. Both of the books forced me to question my beliefs, the history behind the Bible, and the way in which a religion is started and then accepted as truth. At the same time, the Presbyterian church was searching for a new pastor in a way that didn’t seem to gel with our beliefs and priorities. (When Toby suggested in the re-visioning process, that we make the church a church known for being open to all types of people, a member of the congregation asked sarcastically, “Should we just put a sign out front that says ‘Welcome Gays’?“) We stopped going to church.

For a while, I didn’t miss it. It’s easy to fill Sunday mornings with trips to the park, bagel breakfasts, jogs around the park. But there is something beautiful about sitting in a room full of people who are all taking a break from their daily routines and thinking about their purpose in the world and searching together for something good. While the churches I had attended weren’t right for me, there was still something good happening there every Sunday morning. I could feel it when I walked out of church and wanted to be a better person for the rest of the week. Plus, I was no longer just going to church for my own benefit. I loved the idea of the girls attending a “school” every Sunday where the goal is not to teach reading, math and geography, but rather love, peace and compassion.

After some discussions and trying out a number of other churches, we finally did find another church. It wasn’t perfect, but Unity describes itself as a “positive, practical, progressive approach to Christianity” and that sounded like it might work for me. When I walked into the membership class and we went around the circle discussing what the word “God” means to you. Some people said peace, some people said togetherness, others spoke of a spiritual body and pure being. No one was telling us what to feel, but here was a discussion, a search. In one class, we brought objects that represented our spiritual journey. I brought in “Power of Myth” and we spent half the class discussing Joseph Campbell. I knew we’d found our church home.

When we arrived in California, we decided to try out another church, as the only Unity church near our house looked pretty small and scrappy and, drained of energy from moving, we thought it‘d be easier to attend a church that was already well established and not as much in need of our help. We went a number of times and enjoyed the members of the congregation and found Evie a wonderful piano teacher, but overall it just wasn’t the same. I read in the paper the other day, that 70% of people “cherry pick” from their own religion, taking parts of it to be true and just accepting that they will disagree with certain aspects of their own religion. This is what I had done all my life and, as a result, church was always a pleasant but not particularly meaningful place. After my experience at our last church, I realized I am no longer able to accept that for myself.

So today, I made the fifteen minute drive to the nearest Unity church. Yes, it is small. Yes, it’s scrappy. But a new minister started there two months ago and her sermon was amazing. I hadn’t realized how much I missed going to a place that feels like a church home until I stepped in the doors. I’m looking forward to bringing the girls back next week. I don’t know if they’ll grow up feeling the same way that I do, or if, as they get older, they’ll eventually embark on their own search for a place that gives them spiritual meaning, but either way I feel like we’ve found the right place to provide the framework for that discussion in our family.