Tag: Religion

It’s a sense that there is a sacredness to life

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It’s the Christmas season, and that means I’m looking forward to going to church. On its own, that might not sound too surprising: Half of Americans plan to do the same this holiday season. But in my case, it might seem a little strange. While I still know all the prayers and when to sit and stand, from my days as an altar boy, I left my faith and churchgoing behind long ago. As a scientist, I wouldn’t be hubristic enough to claim that God doesn’t exist; that’s a question science can’t definitively answer. But neither can I find any objective evidence for God’s fingerprints in this world. So for me, church has lost its luster—except, that is, at Christmas.

When late December rolls around, I want to go to church, even though I don’t believe in much of the creed. And if recent surveys about Americans’ holiday plans are accurate, I’m not alone. Many people who don’t set foot in a church through most of the year show up at Yuletide, including 10% of nonbelieving atheists and agnostics. Why? That’s a question to which I think I’ve finally found an answer.

The Christmas mass isn’t just an entertaining thing to do, like going to see Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular. Nor is it a simple reminder of cherished family holiday traditions. For me, and I suspect many others, going to church at Christmas offers a different kind of experience, one that’s spiritual if not religious.

That might sound like an oxymoron, but in practice it’s not. Following a religion means embracing a theology and often an institution. There’s a set of beliefs laying out what God is and what God wants, and also a list of rules to follow. Spirituality, on the other hand, tends to be more experiential than cerebral. It’s a sense that there is a sacredness to life, something ineffable but not necessarily divine, that we can catch glimpses of or even commune with at times. Religion and spirituality aren’t mutually exclusive; one can often lead to the other. But they are separable.

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No religion except…

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…No religion except whatever Mary Oliver had going on.

Notes:

  • Quote: Monkcore.
  • T-Shirt: Online Ceramics
  • Inspired by: “Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these— the untrimmable light of the world, the ocean’s shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?” —  Mary Oliver, from “Mindful” in “Why I Wake Early” (via Alive on All Channels)

Sunday Morning

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In a May 1952 paper for her religion class, “Religion as I See It,” Plath laid out her “basic tenets”: man was “born without purpose in a neutral universe,” without inherent morals, and was responsible for his own destiny. There was no afterlife. “His mind may live on, as it were, in books, his flesh may continue in his children. That is all.” God was not to blame for man’s evils or triumphs. Plath claimed that she could “never find my faith through the avenue of manmade institutions,” and called herself an “agnostic humanist.” She happily admitted she was a pantheist at heart: “For my security, I resort not to the church, but to the earth. The impersonal world of sun, rocks, sea and sky gives me a strange courage.” For her, the vital world was earthly and present.

— Heather Clark, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath (Knopf; October 27, 2020)

Notes:

  • Plath was 19 years old in May 1952.
  • Photographs: DK @ Daybreak. Jan 10, 2021. 6:43 to 7:20 am. 28° F, feels like 18° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford CT. More photos from this morning here.

Sunday Morning

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The Sun’s rays shimmered through the needles of the tall pine tree overhead, and the grass glistened with dew as Joshua walked through the meadow, deep in thought. Sunday morning was quiet in Auburn. No noisy traffic broke the peaceful silence of the Sabbath rest. Sunday should be that way everywhere so people could give their wearied souls a rest from the nerve-shattering noise of their workdays. The quiet of nature is God’s tranquilizer.

— Joseph F. Girzone, from “Joshua: A Parable for Today” (Macmillan Publishing Company, 1983)

Notes:

  • “Joshua, a Parable for Today” was a gift to me from our virtual blogging friend Ray Visotski. Ray’s Blog can be found at Mitigating Chaos. Ray, I’m grateful for the gift (which will stay with me) and for the friendship. (BTW, to tie into this quote, I looked for a pine tree and could not find one, and the grass was glistening but not with dew but with ice – and the meadow will have to be replaced with Long Island Sound and the Atlantic – – but the tranquilizer was all there.)
  • Photo: DK, Cove Island Park this morning @ 7:28 a.m.

Sunday Morning

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I don’t believe in religion, but the aesthetics of Catholicism have stuck with me. I love the way church incense coats my hair and skin. It is a safe smell, like a blanket, waiting for me to curl up in it. I love stained-glass windows and religious portraits, the colours of Mary’s clothes and the bright red drops of blood on Jesus’s face. I like the Stations of the Cross. I like pausing to run my finger along an emaciated rib and wrinkle my nose at the thought of the vinegar being offered on a sponge. I like prayer cards and medallions and rosary beads. I like advent candles and Bibles edged in gold and the way the skirt over the tabernacle matches the colour of the priest’s robes. There is so much attention to detail.

I envy the faithful. There are shrines dotted around the hillsides here in Ireland, places where saints have supposedly appeared and healed the sick. There are wells of holy water and statues in the rocks, huts filled with prayer cards and gardens filled with painted stones in memory of loved ones who have passed away. I like to visit them occasionally. I sit in the stillness and observe people crying and praying and I close my eyes and try to let some of their hope get carried on the air and through my pores. I would like to believe that everything is accounted for, that there is life after this one, and that all of our decisions hold some kind of significance or moral worth. There is weight in religion. It is an anchor of sorts.

I cannot believe in the vengeful patriarch of the Catholic Church but sometimes, in the daytime, when there’s no one around, I go into the church and light a candle. I like sitting in the quiet and sensing my own insubstantiality against such old and serious things. I am learning that there is a good kind of smallness; a smallness in the face of the universe rather than a smallness in my own body. I like the ritual of prayer and reverence, even though I can’t identify with it. I like the feeling that other people believe in something.

~ Jessica Andrews, Saltwater: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 14, 2020)

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