Orthodoxy, here I come :)

In recent weeks, I have returned to the research of Christian Orthodoxy.  My rigid thinking has constantly stood in my way of pursuing what I feel God is calling me towards.  Finally, I realized that the goal, much like the title of this blog, is not perfection but holiness, and that I believe Orthodoxy can help me on that precise journey. 

I once told a therapist that I could not imagine finding the will to live if I did not believe in God.  I often wondered about the details of God's nature or will for me, but the idea of God's nonexistence was pretty nonsensical to me.  I finally distinguished between God and religion, spirituality and religion, and started down the path of finding the best place to be in the presence of God.  Previously on my spiritual journey, when I equated religion with God, I thought I was looking for "the perfect religion".  Inevitably, once I got a little into the research, I would find things I saw as imperfections and abandoned my pursuit.  I always defaulted back to the faith tradition of my upbringing, figuring that it was better than nothing.

But now, since I already know religions are human attempts to respond to God, and therefore are bound to have imperfections in their approach or interpretation, I'm looking for something else.  I'm looking for a place to belong where I can experience God's presence, where I can be challenged to grow in virtue and become a better version of myself, and where I can experience the embodied worship that I so crave.

In the past, I found myself agreeing theologically with Quakers and Unitarian Universalists, but considering how they have no creed or dogma and are quite liberal in their theology, pretty much anyone could find themselves agreeing with them.  What I found lacking in both was worship, and worship in the sense that I understand it - embodied.  I do not just believe in God.  That would make me a Deist, and I already tried that and found it wanting.  I want to worship God. I believe that God deserves it, and that acts of worship help me position myself in a proper relationship with God, my Maker.  Worship allows me to rest in the knowledge that there is Someone bigger than me who is in charge, and the weight of the world is not on my shoulders.

Long story short, I seem to have found that proper worship I so crave in the Orthodox church.  Now, it's a matter of learning all I can about the different types of Orthodoxy, visiting the different Orthodox churches in my area, and finding a place where both my children, my husband, and I all feel God's presence.  I want this to be a family adventure.  I need to get my children into a church that they adore as much as I do, because my almost 8 year old daughter is already tepid in her faith, after finally having received her First Reconciliation and First Communion sacraments earlier this year!  

Right now, my almost 5 year old son is enrolled in a very nice Sunday school at our current Catholic church, based on Motessori methods.  Since it's a great chance for him to be around other children and work with Montessori works (because we homeschool, and so have to be intentional in the activities the kids participate in), we are committed to attending church at the time and place of his Sunday school.

But on the days where he doesn't have Sunday school, we are free to go where we feel led, and right now that is the Greek Orthodox church we have visited a few weeks ago.  I've also gone to Vespers one Saturday at an American Orthodox church.  I'm only getting my feet wet and the idea of joining the Antioch Orthodox church thrills me - Antioch is the place where the Apostles of Jesus were first called Christians!  Talk about returning to the roots of the faith!

The bottom line is that I am choosing to express my faith in God according to a certain organized religion.  It is not a comment on that religion's "factual truth" over all others.  That is not up to me.  Staying so wrapped up in my head is what got me away from God in the first place.  Rather, I am choosing the religion/church/interpretation/application that resonates with ME, where I believe God is calling ME, and that is the Orthodox Church.

I feel as though leaving Catholicism behind this time will be a slow transition, but one made not in anger but rather with a sense of accomplishment.  Catholicism has offered me everything it could, and I am grateful for it.  I am grateful for Catholicism having instilled in me a love of liturgy, a desire for reverence, the idea of a domestic church.... but I am happy to let go of those aspects of Catholicism that I was no longer convinced about, and replace them with ideas and traditions more ancient than those in my local catholic church, but which feel more fresh and exciting to me as a newcomer.  In a sense, it's like I'm returning home after a long journey.  The labels have changed.  A few other details, too.  But all in all, I have found "the house of God" yet again.

What about Monotheistic Taoists?

I'm not the kind of Catholic you want me to be.  I'm Catholic by virtue of the location of my birth, the religion of my family, and the reception of the Sacraments when I was a child.  I cannot opt out of being Catholic, according to the Catholic church, yet fellow Catholics who pride (sic) themselves on being pious, by the book Catholics, argue that I'm not a real Catholic if I don't fully believe in everything the Catholic church teaches.  Well, which is it?  Am I in or am I out?  Because this one foot in and one foot out business is not working for me.  Either let me sever my ties, or leave my conscience between God and me.  But do not forever tell me that I have to be Catholic because I already am, and at the same time, that I'm not a good enough Catholic because I don't actually ascribe to everything that comes with that label.  I am a cradle Catholic, not a convert, which means that I am Catholic by default.  I did not seek out Catholicism, and so there is no reason why I should be held to the standards of Catholics by choice.  Interestingly, this is why I recently realized I couldn't convert to Christian Orthodoxy.  Because if I convert, I knowingly take on the faith as a whole, even if I may not fully understand it, but I at least desire to make the faith my own of my own free will.  Anything less than that would be dishonest, and that goes against my personal ethic, which does not depend on a religion telling me what is integrity, since that has been written directly on my heart, directly by God.

So in a way, I'm the kind of Catholic that has the best of both worlds.  I can claim Catholicism as my identity without feeling pressured or shamed into accepting everything taught by the Vatican, precisely because I did not ask to be Catholic, and there isn't a way for me to withdraw my membership.  Sort of like being a secular Jew.  Except Jews as a whole don't tend to bully each other about their personal beliefs.  First, because they acknowledge this idea that being Jewish is about more than just a religion.  Second, because their religion is about more doing and less believing.  It's about peoplehood and community.  And apparently, this very reason is why I ended up not converting to Judaism when I began to think about it.  To do so would imply that I am joining a group that sets itself apart from the rest.  Jews vs Gentiles.  I would continue to be an ethnic gentile, but a religious Jew.  Essentially, I would not be fully either any more.

Interestingly, Muslims believe everyone is born a Muslim, so any converts are more like reverts.  But this is in theory.  In practice, Islam is so interwoven with culture (as most religions are), that unless one grows up with it, marries into it, or otherwise is able to move into an immersion experience of it, one will feel like "being Muslim" is something one "does" rather than "is".  Well, I can only speak for myself, really.  This is how I would feel.  

The Bahai seem to be on to something by leaning towards omnism, but they nonetheless have a prophet and do not accept same sex relationships on an equal footing with heterosexual couples.  I've often run into this sort of dilemma.  Many religions seem to "progress" in the very areas I would leave well enough alone, while holding fast to tradition precisely where I think progress is needed.  The Second Vatican Council of the Catholic church is an example.  The beauty and mystery of the Mass was done away with, while the priesthood remains closed to women, and marriage remains off the table for same sex couples.  I'd much rather see a woman at the altar and families with two moms or two dads, but with all the pomp and circumstance of the ancient aesthetics that the Eastern Orthodox church has retained.

Then again, there have been modern off-shoots of both Catholic and Orthodox churches where they do just this - keep the external rituals but open up ministry to everyone.  And my upbringing doesn't allow me to feel fully comfortable in that setting.  I know it's illogical.  I'm not even comfortable with a woman priest, much less openly nonbinary ministers.  

Like I said, no matter who you are, I am no the kind of Catholic you want me to be.  I don't even know if I'd want to shed that identity if I could.  I feel like I'd need to replace it with something else.  I've tried on "Jesus follower" in the past, but I think that was more hype.  I don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, and the stock "apologetics" I hear from supposedly well-meaning evangelicals wanting to "save my soul" are nothing if not off-putting.

You know what my ideal worship space would look like?  A group of Tao cultivators who openly personify the Tao with "God" and direct some of their energy to this God.  No moralizing, no creeds or dogmas, but also no denial of God's existence, no avoidance of expressing gratitude to Our Maker.  Perhaps these Tao cultivators could travel as a group to different places of worship to experience spirituality with others, and gather afterwards to discuss their experiences from the point of view of Taoism?

Narrowing Down Beliefs Isn't Going to Help

 In seeking "the perfect religion" for myself, it was recently suggested I start by figuring out what I believe.  I already know this isn't the issue, but if I were to follow this rabbit trail....

Do I believe in God?  What kind of god?

Yes, I believe in a personified, transcendent, panentheistic Creator-God, the Source of that Exists, That Which Sustains the Universe and Life in It.  No other details can really be known.  I don't like the idea of the Trinity, as it is a Western Koan to try to show the unexplainability of God precisely by trying to explain God.  In that regard, I guess I am a Unitarian.

Do I believe that God reveals Godself to humanity?  If so, how?  

Hm. I believe in universal revelation in nature, and I believe in personal revelation directly to an individual's heart and mind.  I don't know about prophets in the traditional religious sense of the word.  I believe that those things that God wants everyone to know, God reveals to everyone through nature, which is assessible to everyone equally.  I also believe that God may have different missions for different people, and therefore reveal Godself differently to different people.  Perhaps the problem is with some of those people taking it upon themselves to act as prophets and try to convince others of the revelations that were given to them personally?  I don't think any personal revelation will be contradicted through universal revelation.  

In this regard, I'm not really a Deist, because I do believe God communicates with us and is involved in our lives, not just through nature. But I'm not a Trinitarian Christian, Muslim, or Jew either.  Each of them believes in representative revelation, where God supposedly speaks directly to select prophets who are then tasked with passing on the message to others. 

What do I believe about the nature of God?  

Other than what I mentioned under the first question, in that God is a mystery and cannot be explained nor defined but only experienced, I also believe that God is love (all-good) and omniscient (all-knowing).  I do not, however, believe that God is "all-powerful", as this would create a logical impossibility with the other two factors and the fact that there is undeserved suffering in the world.  I do not need God to be "all" powerful.  If God is powerful enough to create the universe, set it in motion with natural laws and principles, and sustain life, that is plenty powerful for me.  That is sufficient power for me to believe that such a God is worthy of worship.

Does God expect to be worshipped?  How?

This is I think where we start to unravel, because I do not think that God "expects" it, but I personally desire to worship God.  But I need to back up a minute and define what I mean by "worship". 

To worship God is to remind myself of my relationship to God; in other words, to humble myself before God.  It is to recognize that God is God and I am not God.  It is to express gratitude for my life and all the many blessings God has given me.  It is to express remorse for disregarding Who God ought to be in my life (priority), and for failing to strive to be the best version of myself that I can reasonably be at any given point in time.  Worship is to praise God, which in turn helps me feel safe and secure in a world governed by a powerful, loving, wise God.  I worship because of how it makes me feel, and what it reminds me of, not because I think God will get angry if I don't worship God.  Worship is for my own benefit.  For this reason, I do not believe God "punishes" people who do not worship God "in the right way" because there is no one right way, nor is there even an expectation to worship.  People suffer the natural consequences of not worshipping God by lacking direction in their lives, or by failing to improve themselves, or by harboring resentments against others.  We create our own little hells, in that regard.  We have no one to blame but ourselves.  Worshipping God, or not, does not change the fact that God's arms are always open to welcome us.  We either come to God in our lifetime and soften the harshness of earthly reality for ourselves, or we suffer through to the end, and finally come to God after death.  Better late than never, but why wait if you can experience God's presence sooner?

Religion for me is not about God, ultimately.  I am happy with my understanding of God without the input of religions or other people's experiences of God because I have my own experiences of God.  Religion for me is about belonging.  I don't have a place where I fully belong, and I assumed a place that gathers to worship God ought to feel like a place of belonging.  Only it doesn't.

Awe, Pure Joy, Gratitude, Beautiful Aesthetics, Character Formation, (and Service)

When it comes right down to it, these 5/6 elements are what draws me (again and again) to religion.  To all kinds of different religions.  Because I can see some - or all - of these elements in many different religions.  "Objective Truth" is not a marker for me, as I do not believe that it can be defined, much less described within the limitations of human language.  I think it can be experienced to a degree, but that experience lives outside the confines of organized religion.

And so, with these 5/6 elements in mind, I embark on a renewed spiritual journey - not towards some outward goal located in a conversion to another religion, but in an inward stillness that, after surrounding myself with the various elements, I can truly experience the freedom that Jesus taught and that others since him have called "salvation".

Nature - awe, gratitude, beautiful aesthetics, pure joy, and to a degree, character formation.

Ancient liturgy - beautiful aesthetics, pure joy, gratitude, character formation.

Music - awe, pure joy, beautiful aesthetics, gratitude.

Spiritual reading - character formation, gratitude, pure joy, and possibly beautiful aesthetic (especially in poetry)

Movement (yoga, tai chi) - gratitude, beautiful aesthetics, character formation

I originally started with five elements of religion, and went back to add service after looking over the above experiences.  Though I can find at least several of the elements that draw me to "religion" in the above examples, I am saddened and ashamed to notice that there isn't anything about service to others.  It's all about me and my personal experience, how it makes me feel.  Even when character formation is an element, it's a matter of piety or virtue signalling, making myself feel good about how "good" I am.  Yet when I think about service, something I've long felt a tugging on my heart but have had the hardest time plugging into, I think of human interactions and the difficulties I have in that area. So perhaps that is one area I need to add:

Service - character formation, gratitude.

Or, rather, should service be in the list of religious elements instead?

Litter pick-up - service, gratitude, character formation.  

Look at that, I found an example of a service project that does not involve human interaction.  I need to both focus on it, and look for similar ones.

External Validation, Religion/Spirituality, and... homeschooling?

 Is beauty enough?  Does all beauty necessarily contain goodness and truth?  Does all truth across as beautiful and good?  Is all goodness true and beautiful?  Or is God found at the intersection of all three?

The Orthodox liturgy, as well as the Catholic liturgy *as I remember it* (from Poland, where there hadn't been as many post-Vatican 2 changes implemented), and the Eastern Rite Catholic liturgies all feel about the same to me from an aesthetic point of view: beautiful and inspiring.  Since I do not fixate any longer on isolating the literal truth of any one given dogmatic teaching, that argument is completely besides the point for me on my quest.

In my personal spirituality, I tend to veer towards scrupulosity, and so this is a concern for me.  I feel safety in anchoring my faith on a pre-existing organized religion, where I can have freedom within established boundaries.  Of course, the problem is that my freedom of thought actually crosses these boundaries, but nonetheless I long for them.  It's as if I went to have them to fight against.  

There are churches (denominations/religions) where those boundaries are a lot more flexible, and so you'd think I would be much more comfortable there, but their worship experience simply does not compare to the ancient liturgical style I grew up with and long for.

And so the story of my (spiritual) life is a catch-22.  I simply cannot belong to a religion fully with my heart and mind.  Either one will be lacking or the other.  There isn't a way for me to feel completely whole within the bounds of religion, nor outside of it.

I'm reminded of my time in the Army when my chaplain gave me the Myers Briggs assessment and told me that I was equally happy within the structures of military life as I was unhappy with the lack of flexible freedom.

This should come as no surprise to me.  In other areas of my life, like in homeschooling, after researching the various different philosophies, I am definitely attracted mainly to Charlotte Mason, but I simply cannot commit to being a purist.  So in the end, I am eclectic, which works in the home, but not so much when I'm trying to plug into homeschooling groups.

Perhaps the whole problem is my fixation with external validation.

Spiritual and Religious, but not like you think

Religion need not be a one-stop reality center.  Traditional roles of religion can be replaced by non-religious practices and spaces.  

Morality needs to be an inner conviction.  

Charity needs to be tied to the general community, both local and global, that surrounds us. 

Fellowship can be found in both, religious and non-religious circles.  

Beauty and inspiration and the experience of God’s presence can likewise be found in a sacred space set aside for the purpose, and in nature.  However, there is something to be said about a space specially prepared by humans.  There is a balance to be had between Nature – God’s speaking to us, and Sacred Space - our response to God.  We make an effort to likewise return the favor of beauty and inspiration by creating sacred spaces where we gather with others wanting to commune with God.  

Agreement between the faithful is impossible on all matters, so it’s pointless to use this as a litmus test of where we ought to worship.  

But worship we must.  That is something I feel deeply, the need to worship.  Not just stand outside and take in with awe the beauty of God’s creation, but also to DO something about it. And not just to gather together and talk intellectually about generic faith application.  Worship, to me, means getting lost in the presence of God.  Living the way God intended, in the present moment, with God at the center of the experience.

And when I think of the experience of worship, when I think of how worship should feel, I think of beauty, awe, inspiration, being transported to a timeless space where the mundane falls away and I begin to sense a merging with the people around me, all reaching spiritually for our greater sense of self, all being united in God on a plane invisible to the naked eye.

Truth becomes something that cannot be explained or understood within the confines of language.  Therefore, no doctrine, no theology, no dogma even comes close to the Gospel of the Real Presence of God, which can only be attained through direct experience.  In the end, we cannot come to God, to a relationship with God, vicariously.  

We cannot merely read about it in Scriptures and think we have arrived.  We cannot merely take the word of prophets on their personal experiences of God and think our reading about their experiences is the same thing as us experiencing what they experienced.  We cannot ever use what worked for others and try to force ourselves into it, for the minute we do, we fail to look to God and instead look to mere messengers.  In lieu of observing the moon through the telescope, we gaze longingly at the telescope, thinking we have seen the moon.

When we say we are people of faith, faith in what or whom?  Faith in a religion?  A human organization fraught with imperfections?  Faith in others? If we believe their experiences, why not our own?  Do we believe God has favorites?  I don't! 

When I say I have faith, that I am a person of faith, I mean that I have faith in God.  That God exists, though I cannot tell you what this God is like, other than that God is beyond anything I could come up with in my human imagination.  I can draw comparisons, like God is Ultimate Reality, or God is Truth, or God is Life, or God is Love.  But I like what God is purported to have said about Godself in Exodus 3:14; "I AM that I AM."  In other words, all we need to know about God is that God exists.  That's it.  Who God is, or even WHAT God is, is not at all the point.  We get lost bickering about the details of something none of us will ever fully comprehend within the limits of our minds, yet we insist on using our intellect to try to "prove" a reality that is beyond us in every way.  

The faith that I have is linked with trust as well.  I trust that all I need to know about God IS that God exists.  I trust that God does not try to hide Godself from anyone, myself included.  Therefore, I trust that God is always present to me, and all I need to do is turn my attention to God's presence and I am in communion with God.  I can do so without the aid of others, without the aid of specially "trained" or ordained ministers who claim "authority" that is withheld from others.  I can do so without the sanctions of a special organization (religion), outside the walls of special buildings (church or other "place of worship"), and using my own words or no words at all to arrive "at the gates of heaven".  

My faith tells me that God loves me and guides me and meets me where I am.  My faith tells me that I don't have to have anything figured out in order to enjoy God's presence.  My faith tells me that death, like everything else in life and nature, is a mere transition, and there is no reason to fear what's on the other side, because no matter what, God will still be "there" with me.  My faith tells me that each of us is working on different parts of ourselves at different times, and there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all spirituality.  Judgment is a sure sign of falling away from communion with God, so I am learning not to judge - others or myself.  

But I also recognize that God made us for community with each other.  And perhaps the imperfections of my fellow humans are necessary in a well-balanced spiritual life, to keep me honest and humble, to expand my horizons of spiritual experiences, and to allow me the chance to recognize God's presence in others, so I don't fall into the delusion of thinking that *I* "am" God.  God dwells in me, this is true.  But *I* am merely an incarnation of a small spark of the Divine Spirit.  That one spark (me) is not equal to the whole from which I come and in which I belong.  So long as I am in this human, earthly body, I must maintain a sense of separation between where I end and where God begins, without losing the crucial component of us being intimately connected at all times.  It's a fine line, a nuanced dance, and it is called the art of life.

Therefore, I am both spiritual and religious.  I do not take religion at face value.  I do not "believe" in the teachings of religion as "facts".  Perhaps some of the features of the religion I choose to affiliate with are helpful to others, even if they are not helpful to me.  I cannot judge where others are on their journey.  I can let them be on their journey and stay on my own journey and we can come together in the sacred space and during sacred time of Divine Liturgy, where we gather to worship God and commune in God's presence.

Imagine a God worthy of worship!

 In a Great Course on Philosophy, I encountered the problem of trying to settle the notion that God is all three: omniscient, omnibenevolent, and all-powerful.  If God is all loving, then God does not want us to suffer.  If God is all-knowing, then God knows how to prevent us from suffering.  And if God is all-powerful, than God can prevent us from suffering.  But experience in reality tells us that this is not the case.  Sure, there are a lot of self-imposed sufferings in our lives, for which we cannot in all honesty fault God.  We make bad choices and then suffer the consequences.  But there is also undeserved suffering, forced on us by malevolent individuals or systems or even the "bad luck" of natural disasters.  These, we cannot be held responsible for even a little bit.  So either we have a God worthy of worship who oversees all of this and feels compassion towards us, or we have a distant God who either ignores us or takes some sort of pleasure from watching us "figure it out" on our own.  Or, as many religionists like to say, seeing the compassion of fellow humans coming together for the good of those who have been wronged in some way pleases God.  Yes, but this is GOD, who supposedly should not have to make the victims suffer just so others can prove their worthiness!

After a lot of combinations and thought experiments, I have decided that if I am to worship God in any way, then said God must be all-loving.  Anything less than that is not worthy of worship.  And likewise, God must be all-knowing, for otherwise, God is in no way different from us, only perhaps without the physical limitations of earthly life and a material body.  But I do not see a disconnect in worshipping and loving and serving a God who is more powerful than us mere mortals but nonetheless not "all" powerful to the point of being able to prevent all disasters and suffering and injustice.  In that regard, God does the best God can, by being "with" us in our misery.  Hence, the image of Jesus on the cross as the epitome of compassion - "suffering with".

It irks me to hear Christian traditionalists insist that God absolutely IS all-powerful, and that rather than acknowledging the lack of logic that follows (then God cannot be all-loving, or if God is, then God cannot be all-knowing), they whip out something about God working in "mysterious ways" and reference Isaiah 55:8, where we are told that God's ways are not our ways.  

Ok, but if we are made in God's image, and we experience unjust suffering, then our experience of suffering is not "our way" and therefore a misunderstanding of God's way.  We suffer when things go horribly wrong.  Just like pain in the material body serves a physical purpose of helping to alert us to serious danger, so too should suffering alert us to something having gone terribly awry.  It should "not" be seen as a mere "test of God".  Any god who would test us knowing full well our limitations (remember, God is also all-knowing) is a god that is playing games with us as mere pawns.  In such a scenario, we are no longer children of God but this god's playthings, avatars, puppets with life.

As I think back to some of the more trying experiences of my life, I certainly see an element of how I may have contributed to the experience being a bad one for me.  I also see ways in which God took the lemons of my life and made me some lemonade.  But some experiences cannot be said to fall under this category.  What, pray tell, was the "greater good" of the Holocaust during World War II?  In what ways did the concentration camp victims "grow in character" due to their undeserved suffering?  What about those left behind, having to grapple with the knowledge of the suffering their loves ones went through?  Do you think they appreciate that their loved ones' suffering helped them, the survivors, somehow "be better people"?  Or would such an attitude precisely prove that they are not better people, because what constitutes "good people" first and foremost calls for an unequivocal stance against violence of any kind. And if you disagree with me on the point of violence, then we most likely serve different gods.

Why should I judge My Maker for not being "as powerful" as *I*, a mere mortal, have imagined that God ought to be?  Isn't God nonetheless lightyears more powerful than me anyway?  Isn't God the source of my very being?  What more do I want from God's power?  That is plenty of power for me to respect, reverence, and worship God.

And, not expecting God to be "all-powerful" allows me to rest in God's embrace when things get tough and I cannot find a way out, even through intense prayer.  I do not fault God for not giving me what I asked for.  I do not question God's love or wisdom.  Rather, I rest in knowing that God, too, knows what it is to suffer and be disappointed and feel all alone.  Believing in a compassionate God is what gets people through their suffering.  Insisting that God is all-powerful yet chooses not to rescue us for some mysterious "greater plan" is saying that God is not good-enough as-is.  And by extension, we God's creation are not good enough as we are.  And so we start talking about sin and punishment and forgiveness and merit as if we could ever even begin to approach perfection.  Matthew 5:48 does us no favors when it says, "be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect."  What is perfection?  Lack of blemish, lack of irregularities, lack of any mark of mortality, really.  

In Romans 6:23 we are told that "the wages of sin is death", implying that death is some sort of imperfection, some sort of abnormality that was never part of God's original plan.  But does that mean that everything in the universe is all wrong because Adam and Eve had the wrong snack?  Plant life grows, reproduces, and dies, but in its death it does not cease to exist; it is transformed into something else, something useful, that in turn helps other life grow.  The same is true for animal life.  

How much more so (to use a popular Christian attitude) is human life and death a part of God's great circle of life.  We do not cease to exist at death.  We are transformed.  Even if we believe that we are somehow "higher" than other animal life by having a spiritual component to our being, our death is the birth of something new.  Automatically.  There is no need to "earn" eternal life.  Eternal life is ours by nature of us being spiritual beings.  Nothing on earth (or in the cosmos, for that matter) dies without being transformed into something else.  Recycling is not a hippie sentiment but part of the very design of God!

And so I struggle to find my place in religious spaces that fail to see this magnificent beauty of the real good news, the gospel of God that Jesus taught: "Fear not for I have overcome this world!" (James 1:12).  You know what we can do if we're not busy feeling guilty about our shortcomings?  When we're not kept busy with "penances" and artificial acts of piety that we hope will win our way "into heaven"?  When we feel whole as a complete child of The Divine?  We can live our lives fully for the love of others.  We can be truly humble - without boasting and without groveling. We can actually put to good use the many skills and talents that have been granted us by our Creator for the sake of doing our part to build up the "kingdom" of God.  

Imagine a place of worship where no one feels guilty.  Not because they are ignorant of their shortcomings, but because they do not doubt God's unconditional love.  Imagine a place of worship where everyone gathers for the sake of building each other up, improving their own unique talents, and brainstorming ways to go out into the world to help others do the same.  Imagine a place of worship where everyone comes to be reminded how to be joyful and at peace, so that they can then take that attitude and spread it around everywhere they go!  

Does such a place have a need for a hierarchy?  For rules and rituals?  For an ordained priesthood? Maybe. But only very limited, and certainly with no life-time commitments, so that everyone can have a turn at leadership, at different roles, and "so no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:9).  Imagine a place of worship where everyone gathers because they woke up that day and felt the desire to be in the company of others who share their love of God and humanity.  Imagine a place of worship where ....

Maybe we don't have to imagine such a place of worship.  Maybe we need to "reimagine" our relationship to such a place?  Maybe we need to stop identifying our very souls with such places of worship, and instead make our rounds at different places of worship, each reaching a different need in our souls?  Maybe we go to be inspired and remember to take everything we hear with a grain of salt, since we are listening to fellow human beings.  Ordination is not divination.  We need to stop giving away our God-given power to transform our own lives and those of others!  

Imagine!

Eastern Orthodoxy may have reintroduced me to God

 I used to think that being religious was about following the truth.  In a sense, it is, but not the way I previously thought.  I thought that the dogma, practices, and traditions of the church were what was "true" about it.  In fact, the truth is that which arises in our hearts and minds when we allow ourselves to feel the presence of God.  The liturgy of the church is meant to help us feel God's presence.  It is by no means the only place where we can do so. 

In the same way, I no longer think that one "must" be religious in order to "please" God.  That view of God is based on God being made in our human image, not the other way around.  God simply is.  God simply loves.  God simply forgives and moves on.  God simply allows natural consequences of our actions and the actions of others.  God simply is.  There is nothing we can do to get away from God.  But there are things we can do to become more aware of God's presence.

To that end, I am now reframing my understanding of the purpose of religion.  I thrive spiritually when I am around other people who take their spirituality seriously.  I thrive spiritually when I witness others demonstrating their awareness of God's presence.  I thrive spiritually when I am encouraged to do the same, in public, without drawing undue attention to myself.  What better place to do so than in the Divine Liturgy?  Everyone gathered there is there to pray and worship God, and each is focused on their own relationship with God.  So no one will look at me side-eyed that I am praising God with my body's posture, or with gestures; it is expected.  In that regard, I am free.  At the same time, the ongoing vocal and otherwise material worship rituals that surround me for an extended period of time serve to continuously bring my focus back to God.

I have shown my hand a little already by using the phrase "Divine Liturgy", as this is Eastern Orthodox terminology.  So I'll cut right to it.  Today, my family and I attended our first Divine Liturgy, and it was magnificent.  It was like balm on my weary heart.  I wanted to personify God again.  I wanted to follow Jesus again.  I wanted to forget all the logic and reasoning and just allow myself, my spirit, to be embraced by the Spirit of God.  

The sanctuary was small, with minimal natural light peeking in through a few stained glass inserts here and there.  Otherwise, we were sort of closed off from the outside world.  It was like a little portal to the other side.  The walls were a golden yellow, and a large chandelier and recess lighting throughout kept the space bright.  The large icons all around us gave my daughter something to focus on so she wouldn't be bored, as I found out afterwards.  

The cantors were prominently situated at the front near the altar, and the beauty of their voices was like listening to angel choirs.  It was amazing to have the entire hour and a half set to the soundtrack of their alternating female/male voices, Greek/English lyrics, at times overlapping with the vocal prayers of the priest.  There was never a dull moment throughout the liturgy.  If we didn't hear the priest, we heard the cantors.  It was truly sacred music, as if they were giving us a glimpse of what we'll hear in heaven.

And the iconoclast that set the altar apart was a piece of art.  The detailed engraving designs that surrounded the icons drew my sight to it over and over again.  Such depth, the shadows of the light hiding in the little nooks and crannies of the design.  Four hanging votive candle holders hung above the icons, and two secret doors (as my daughter called them) were opened and closed several times as people privy to access to the altar went in and out.  One of the main icons at the front was creepy as it was holding a severed head (I later found out it was an icon of John the Baptist holding his own head, though not sure why he was portrayed as an angel, with wings).  But even as I retreated from it visually, I immediately made a spiritual association with it.  I thought of husbands as "the head of the family" and Christ as "the head of the Church" and how those heads without the bodies they represent are grotesque, incomplete, and not "the whole person" (for lack of a better term).  I thought of how this translates to God not being something, or even someone, "out there", severed from God's creation, but rather merely that which crowns creation, which brought it into being and rules over it for its own good but which does not exist without it.  But I digress.

As holy communion begun, the priest paraded the elements down one aisle (luckily for us, it was the aisle where we were seated) and up the main aisle back to the altar. People made various gestures of veneration towards the elements, much like Catholics do in Eucharistic Adoration.  But there was no Tabernacle where "Jesus lives".  Jesus lives outside of place and time.  Jesus appears to us in the elements during Divine Liturgy, is consumed by the faithful, and goes out into the world through us.  The lack of a Tabernacle was actually a good thing, in that the focus was on the real meaning of the Real Presence of Jesus, and not on creating an idol out of the physical elements themselves.

The procession of the eucharistic elements and the prominent role of the cantors were two of the ways that the experience was also reminiscent of our visit to a Conservative Jewish synagogue service.  There, the Torah is paraded around the sanctuary and the faithful reach out to touch it.  There, it is the cantor who leads the service, while the rabbi actually seems to take a much less prominent role by comparison, and certainly not the role of a Catholic priest or Protestant pastor.

The Orthodox priest and the cantors (for there were two, sometimes three) seem to share in collaborating the smooth choreography of the Divine Liturgy.  What's more, at the end when the priest addressed those of us gathered in the short (though bilingual) sermon, the cantors finally sat down, and I noticed the female cantor was sitting on a throne, while the male cantor was seated next to her on a much less elaborate chair.  It was then that I also realized the priest had not sat down once during the entire Divine Liturgy.  He had been busy with one ritual act or another for the entirety of the service, and from what I read, he was already doing so before we arrived for the posted 10:15 Divine Liturgy, which lasted an hour and a half.

I liked pretty much everything about the experience.  I shed tears on several occasions.  I knew I wanted to go back pretty early on in the service, and I only prayed that the Spirit was working in the rest of my family, especially my husband, so that they too would be happy to return again.

While I am not a fan of the manner in which Communion is received, especially during a global pandemic (with a spoon, the same spoon for everyone), looking past that, there were other elements of Communion that gave me positive pause.  As people came up to receive the elements, they told the priest their name, so the priest could present the Real Presence to them by name.  They adjusted their height and brought the red cloth (which the priest was holding with the cup of wine and bread) to their chin so as not to spill any of the sacred elements. They then grabbed a piece of decent sized bread and brought it back to the pews.  (We had pews as apparently this used to be a Protestant church - no kneelers, and the book racks had little holes for storing Protestant-style communion cups.)  

Furthermore, at the end, after the sermon, we were all invited to come up and partake of a piece of the blessed bread, from which the consecrated morsels were placed in the consecrated wine for communion earlier.  Real bread!  And if you follow the pious tradition of fasting from midnight, what a meaningful and welcome way to break your fast! What's more, not everyone went up for communion.  (Maybe because of the COVID/shared spoon situation, but still.)

I could go on but I'll stop here.  The point is that I know the Orthodox church doesn't check off all of my boxes for what I wish a church would teach.  I don't know how literal most Orthodox are about Biblical figures, heaven and hell, and similar Christian markers.  But for the first time, that doesn't matter.  I know I am not looking for "a perfect fit".  There is no such thing.  I am looking for a place where I can easily feel God's presence.  Where, interestingly as the priest talked about in his sermon, I can be inspired to do God's will.  He said to remember these words: inspiration, comprehension, transformation, and action.  We come to church to be inspired, to comprehend the Word of God (Bible, but I also believe the words written on our heart (Romans 2:18)), to allow ourselves to be transformed by this inspiration and comprehension, so that we may act in the world, be God's hands and feet, do the work of the Gospel.  

I want to go to church.  I want to go not because I have to, but because it feeds my spirit.  I want to go to be inspired, to learn, to be transformed, and to leave ready to live in accordance with the faith of Jesus (not to be confused with the faith "about" Jesus).  I want to surround myself with beauty.  I want to go to a place that feels sacred and special, where I know others will respect my desire to be in uninterrupted prayer.  Where fellowship will not take over worship.  Where we are there to reconnect with God, not with each other.  (Reconnecting with others apparently happens afterward during "coffee hour" downstairs.)

Let me not jump to conclusions here.  I do not need to convert.  Not right now, anyway.  And without conversion, I do not have to worry about receiving communion with a shared spoon or without fasting, nor do I need to worry about missing Divine Liturgy on some Sundays (though I can't imagine not wanting to do so of my own free will and joyfully!).  With time, if God wills it, I can see that I may indeed convert someday.  Maybe my whole little family of four will.  But not now.  Now, I just want to marvel in this jewel we found and I look forward to our next visit.  

Perhaps it won't be Divine Liturgy, as my son begins Sunday School at our Catholic church next week, and I want him to have that experience as it is a very good opportunity to be around other kids, especially since this time it will be without his sister, and I love the Montessori approach to the lessons. After that, he will begin his two years of preparation for his First Communion in the Catholic church - something I feel the need to do for him because 1) his sister just received her First Communion this year, and I want them to have similar experiences and she does not like the idea of him being allowed to receive communion at a younger age than she was allowed (as Orthodox, they could both receive right after reception into the church), and 2) because First Communion is one of the last Polish/Catholic traditions that we will be keeping in our family, and it allows us time to think about where we will make our permanent spiritual home in three years' time.

To conclude, I suppose I can say this: Eastern Orthodoxy may not be everything I wanted, but perhaps it can be everything I need at this time on my spiritual journey. I do miss a personified God, and maybe Orthodoxy can help me reclaim Him once again, but without the baggage of my "obligatory religion". To God be the glory, whatever that means to a Taoist cultivator! (also me!)