What kept me tethered to the Catholic tradition (and what attracted me to the Eastern Orthodox tradition) was the beauty of the liturgy that helped me feel into the transcendence of God. Yet if I'm being brutally honest, that transcendence did not really translate to a love of Christ. I know it was meant to, but it didn't. Jesus was portrayed as so sad and gloomy in all the art, that after a while, it made me question any reference to the joy of the Lord being possible in such places. Now, I am not a fan of the fellowship-as-church approach to worship services either; I am very much a devotee of balance. (It's why I took such a long and hard detour into philosophical Daoism, what with the yin and yang and all ;) )
But the Jesus of these beautiful churches was enshrined in mystery, essentially unapproachable. There was talk of God reaching us through the sacraments, and I certainly felt it with the Eucharist for much of the time, but that actually kept me tethered to a specific institution rather than giving me freedom in Christ. I felt the need to mediate my experience of God through Holy Communion, which required allegiance to a church (building).
I am now in a stage of my life where I realize that these externals, as beautiful as they actually are, fail to deliver on what they promise - at least for me. That is not to say they cannot spiritually feed others, as they are on different journeys from mine. But at this point I am slowly ceasing to compare my needs and resonances with those of others, and simply acknowledging what actually rings true for me.
Now as I revisit the idea of the Episcopalian church, I am faced with the tension of giving up some of that beauty - because frankly, how we define what is beautiful is so subjective, and so many Catholic churches were already lacking in what I find beautiful (which is why I lingered in Eastern Orthodoxy and then found an Eastern Rite Catholic church to belong to). I have to stop expecting any one church, be it a building, institution, or group of people, to check off all the boxes. Life is not so rigid. God is not so rigid. My daughter's ED is teaching me that there is no life, no freedom, no joy in black-or-white thinking.
Instead, I want to know that when I engage with a person I meet at church, I know that person is going to have a favorable understanding of both women's leadership in the church, and the role of sexuality in human experience. The most beautiful churches I've been to have the most repressive and repressed notions of sexuality. It's almost like that repression drives their longing for creative expression into art, music, and liturgical adornment. But the cost is too great.
Not to mention, notice in all these paragraphs, I've mentioned the person of Jesus only a few times, and almost as an aside. Growing up, the Eucharist WAS Jesus. That is where I met Him, that is where He lived, and that is the form of God that I was to worship. With time, I realized this was basically a rehashing of Biblical Judaism that Jesus the historical figure was trying to reform. Ritual is great until it isn't. Beauty is wonderful until it hides ugliness. Transcendence is awe-inspiring until you have to deal with suffering or live your day-to-day life. Again, balance.
It makes sense now for me to seek out the beauty of say Orthodox liturgy, or a silent retreat, as part of the healthy cycles of feeding all aspects of my psyche. But it is insufficient to sustain the hunger of my soul. My soul craves authentic connection, unconditional love, radical freedom. And yes, that involves our relationships towards other people. And yes, that means there will be an element of politics in it, because politics is often a major way that we meet our neighbors' needs. Not candidate-specific or party-affiliated politics, but political issues - yes.
LGBTQIA+ affirmation is a great litmus test for that. If I truly think about "what would Jesus do", I imagine Him bypassing the fancy, the pleasant, the comfortable, and yes - the beautiful (Isaiah 53:2: "He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him," applied to Jesus during Holy Week).
And I have to remind myself: before denominational wars (a la "culture wars"), there was just .... the way of Jesus. That's not to say there's no need for followers to gather together, or for a dedicated building where we may do so. Just that these are not the point. They are the fingers pointing at the moon, so to speak. In other words: I need to fall back in love with Jesus.
And I say that not in the way an Evangelical would. I don't want that sentiment to be clouded by, again, denominational wars. I don't want to belong to a church offshoot, so to speak. I want to belong to God, to Jesus.
First order of business: let go of any concern I have for what atheists or secularists may think of my desire to reunite with Jesus and reengage with religion. I am on my own journey. I have discovered that facts do not lead to truth. Truth is not dissectible into a series of facts that can be proven or disproven. So what if I choose to engage with Life and the Universe on spiritual terms, by giving transcendent reality a form and a name? Is not that Ultimate Source just as present in my subsection of it as it is outside of it? Then why can't I approach the Unapproachable on my own terms? Frankly, I think atheists would support that idea. I'm not being indoctrinated with religion; I am choosing to reenter freely, knowing both the cost and the benefits.
Second order of business: let go of any need to enter into apologetics with other world religions. I do not need to pick apart Judaism or Islam, for instance, in order to build up a Christian worldview for myself again. I have learned the limits of human institutions on my sojourn. I have learned that certainty does not exist, and in fact, it is very dangerous to even suggest that it does. I now know that everyone is on their own journey, and if they are devout Jews or Muslims (or whatever other faith tradition), and that is feeding their soul, then that is where they need to be. But that does not negate my need to be elsewhere.
Third order of business: let go of the in-fighting among Christians. Who's in? Who's out? Who's a heretic? Who has the authority to proclaim the gospel? Are you serious? You need "authority" to share good news? Then it isn't good news, is it? It's some sort of trick, manipulation, and yes - indoctrination, if you gate-keep who is "allowed" to preach it or interpret it. I can now appreciate how a faith tradition can tug on one's heartstrings in spite of it being patriarchal and possibly even harmful in some instances. I am dealing with that myself. Again, everyone is on their own journey. Their denomination is what they need right now. I am in a different place in my journey.
Finally, we have arrived. If I'm going to reengage with Christianity, I must first and foremost reengage with Christ.
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