Welcome to the Misadventures of Widowhood blog!

Welcome to my World---Woman, widow, senior citizen seeking to live out my days with a sense of whimsy as I search for inner peace and friendships. Jeez, that sounds like a profile on a dating app and I have zero interest in them, having lost my soul mate of 42 years. Life was good until it wasn't when my husband had a massive stroke and I spent the next 12 1/2 years as his caregiver. This blog has documented the pain and heartache of loss, my dark humor, my sweetest memories and, yes, even my pity parties and finally, moving past it all. And now I’m ready for a new start, in a new location---a continuum care campus in West Michigan, U.S.A. Some people say I have a quirky sense of humor that shows up from time to time in this blog. Others say I make some keen observations about life and growing older. Stick around, read a while. I'm sure we'll have things in common. Your comments are welcome and encouraged. Jean

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

God, Religion and Growing up Without a Church

 

When I was a kid, my parents didn't go to church but we lived within walking distance to four-five different denominations of Christian churches and for a couple of years my brother and I were required to walk down to which ever church we wanted to on Sundays until we turned 10 or 12. We tried them all and we also went to some summer day camps sponsored by churches and I still have a silhouette of praying children I made at one of them. I'm not sure if my folks ever found out but there came a point when we'd sometimes go up to the Indian mounds instead going to a church where we spent the time looking for arrowheads, which I count as part of my spiritual growth. You can't walk on those mass graves sites without thinking about the cycle of life, other cultures and our places in the world.

Back in those days the town I grew up in was called the City of Churches and when it comes to religion it was a source of anxiety for me whenever the topic came up. My earliest memory of religion being a hurtful thing was on a playground when a pigtailed little girl told me she could no longer play with me because my parents didn’t go to church. I’d been to her house after school the day before and I guess her mom determined my family was unfit. In high school I had the same thing happen when a boy I dated took me home and his parents made him quit dating me after they found out I wasn’t tied to a church of their liking. In between those two incidents I worked at honing the skill of ducking all questions and conversations that involved religion and I kept that going until just a few years ago when I flat out told a Red Hat Society sister that I didn't go to church, when asked that dreaded question. She was kinder than the little girl with pigtails of my youth but the shoulder she gave me after that had cooled. Or could it have been my pre-programed imagination working overtime? Some childhood scars never really heal.

In college I took three classes on comparative world religions, one was at a large university, two were at a small Catholic college. They made it clear---at least to me---that at their core all religions have the same basic values. And when on a debate website two years ago this question came up: 'Is the world better or worse off because religions were established' this is what I wrote, “The evolution of morality was well on its way thanks to the Great Philosophies before the major religions were founded so I believe the world would have been just fine without the introduction of religion. However, Christianity tends to translate the messages taught by its founder into a worship of its founder and I have a real problem with that. Jesus, like the founders of other world religions, was a link in the evolutionary progress of societies trying to develop their sense of right and wrong. He just had better a 'press corp' than other founders of the major religions preaching with similar creation stories and parables. Religion is a living entity, changing and growing in acceptance. Some are just farther along in that process than others, but they all have there dark moments in history."

The way I was treated growing up by ‘good' Christians, makes it hard for me to respect any Christian denomination that claims that a belief in Jesus is the only path to finding God or salvation. I also have a hard time with the personification of God, even calling him/it the Supreme Being which is inclusive of other cultures and religions is too super-sized humanizing to me. I prefer to call it the God-Power which takes away the image of a man in the sky controlling everything like I was taught in those early years at Sunday school. I was in my mid-twenties when these thoughts jelled for me after a minister at a church where I was setting up flowers for a wedding told me, "The secret to understanding God is there is no secret. God is love and love is God. It's as simple as that." After our conversation is when I started using the term the God-Power. The power of love can save the world.

Up until the Great Book Purge last summer I had an unread book on my shelf titled, The God Delusion. I don't know much about Hitchens other than he also wrote, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. But I know enough about finding new friends to know I shouldn’t have that book sitting on my shelf when I move to the continuum care campus. The place is a non-profit supported by a deeply entrenched denomination here in town. So I know that I’ll have to go back to my lifetime ways of not being completely open about my views on religion, of avoiding conversations about churches.

Rightly or wrongly, I label myself an agnostic because I don't believe in a heaven or hell---we make our own heaven or hell right here on earth by the way we live our lives. And I define God as the combined goodness of mankind (love) and the devil as the combined evil of mankind (hate)---I got that definition from my dad. I see God more as an internal force, a power that drives us all to try to do good in our lives. If people need to go to church to be prompted to do good things, fine. I can respect that, even admire that as long as they don’t in turn look down on me because they think I need saving or educating. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the Bible quoted as if the quote was a slam-dunk ending all logical debate no matter the topic under discussion followed by the words, "Read your Bible!" Thank you very much but Charles Heston read it to me during my search-for-the-meaning-of-life era.

My parents were good people with good reasons for not going to church and while my dad and I had many “God and religion” conversations I never had any with my mom. When I asked my niece, this week, if she ever did she replied, among other things, “Whenever I read John Wesley’s famous quote, I think of Grandma. ‘Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can.’” I didn't really appreciated all the good things Mom quietly did for others until her funeral when I heard story after story from people she’d helped. I had hoped my niece could shed some light on which of my parents thought it was important for my brother and I to walk up to the churches. She couldn’t. But after our talk I'm guessing it was my Mom's doing. I'm guessing it was after the playground incident when I cried about it at my mom's knee when my brother and I started our Sunday mornings routine. Either way I’m glad they did send us. The Bibles stories and parables are so much a part of our western culture it would be hard not to know the references/code words. Eve and her apple. Noah and his ark. The speck and the log. And, yes, thanks to my parents I know that Mathew, Mark, Luke and John were not a '70s rock band. ©


52 comments:

  1. +1

    I firmly believe that "..at their core all religions have the same basic values." and it is true for Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.

    I steer clear of those who are overtly religious - my experience is that they are generally the most evil.

    I also don't believe you have to go to a place of worship ... rather, show it in your actions and deeds!!

    I find it interesting that Christianity and Islam are in the same 'group' ie fervent proselytizers. I think if a religion (or a club" is great, others will be eager to join, rather than being indoctrinated. Live, and let live!

    The Methodist saying you've quoted (one of my favourites) was quoted by Hillary Clinton during her campaign. If you replace the word "good" with "evil", I suggest it could be the guiding principle of a certain administration. ~ Libby

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    1. Glad you weighed in from the other side of the globe, Libby.

      I did not know or remember that quote being used by Hillary but I do know she's a far better human being than the guy in the Oval Office.

      I had an uncle on my mom's side who was 'overly religious' and was a traveling salesman who sold religious material to churches. He borrowed some money from my dad once---a couple of hundred---but when it came time to pay it back he used the excuse that he was doing the lord's work and my dad shouldn't want it back. I don't think he ever got it.

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  2. This could've been me writing this. Your words, thoughts, echo my upbringing & living life as I see it today.

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    1. Wow, I wonder how many others are out there who were brought up in a similar manager and who feel the need to hide it at times!

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    2. My upbringing was very similar, although we kids were sent to Sunday school and church more sporadically. As the youngest, I was not the ringleader when we spent the money intended for the offering for candy at the corner store. I had the same unkind treatment from classmates and took a similar path of avoiding the topic. My parents also had good reasons for choosing not to attend, but I preferred their pure, honest lives to my friends' parents, who struck me as hypocritical even as a teenager. Today my two closest friends from those days are extreme evangelicals; it must be said that in our youth they were much more experimental with sex at an early age and serious drugs after high school than I was (tho I did play around with a little weed). I really don't understand how they can consider themselves religious while also supporting the current Republican party, which is trying to strip health insurance, extreme reprehensible behavior at the border, on and on. Sheeplike, they will accept whatever the Rs dish out. And I, the one who doesn't attend church, am left to ponder - how can they hate middle eastern people so much? In churches, the portrait of Jesus with blue eyes and blondish hair is a fantasy. Jesus would look like a modern day Iranian. And however one thinks about a Godlike figure, he/she/it is NOT an American.

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    3. Gosh, two posters in a row brought up like me!

      I don't get it either, how religious people can support a man like Trump or hate so deeply entire groups of people. Love every word you wrote.

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    4. I love the offering money going for candy story. When we were young, we were sent to Confession every Saturday and strictly told not to go to the candy store nearby. We faithfully collected pop bottles along the way, went to Confession, and then turned in the bottles for popsicles (thus giving ourselves the sin of disobedience to start with next Saturday...LOL). We generally couldn't eat the whole popsicle before we got home (although we took the route that was out of my mom's line of sight) and ended up throwing part of them in the bushes near home. I'm sure our lips were red or orange when we arrived, but somehow we never got called out on it. It's one of my favorite memories.

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  3. This is long, so you may not want to post it, but describes how I believe the. World would have been so much better off if religion had been like this and not how it has been and is today. I mean just look at the Evangelicals and their love of trump.

    This is from philosopher Spinoza

    Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes.

    (Spinoza) : God would say:
    Stop praying.
    What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you.

    Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you.

    Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything they made you believe.

    Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son's eyes... ➤ you will find me in no book!

    Stop asking me "will you tell me how to do my job?" Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry, or bothered. I am pure love.

    Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive. If I made you... I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies... free will. How can I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that?
    Respect your peers and don't do what you don't want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that alertness is your guide.

    My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, nor a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now and it is all you need.

    I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record.
    You are absolutely free to create in your life. Heaven or hell.
    ➤ I can't tell you if there's anything after this life but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist.

    So, if there's nothing after, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won't ask if you behaved right or wrong, I'll ask. Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?...
    Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea.

    Stop praising me, what kind of egomaniac God do you think I am?
    I'm bored being praised. I'm tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise me.

    Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you've been taught about me.

    What do you need more miracles for? So many explanations?
    The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.

    - Spinoza

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    1. Thanks for sharing that! This would have fit right in on the debate site question post. I prefer reading the philosophers over the Bible. They allow and encourage debate for a deeper understanding of our core values.

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  4. Your post so resonates with me. Unlike you I did grow up being taken to church by my parents although a liberal Methodist one in a university town once we grew up they never went again, I tried to talk to them about it as an adult but all I could ge t was that they thought it was important we be exposed to a mainstream religion. These days I do declare myself an atheist. My values are universal positive ones.

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    1. You are braver than I am, labeling yourself an atheist. That's a word that would get you ostracized very quickly where I live. Although if you're like me you probably would never use the word around certain people like I've never used the word 'agnostic' to anyone but my blogger friends. I do think the term fits me, though. I do believe in a higher power I just don't believe in the popular definition of that higher power.

      If I had had kids I probably would have done the same thing our parents did with exposing them various churches, but I probably would have also done some 'home schooling' in addition. I regret that my mom and I never talked about the topic like my dad and I did.

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    2. I don't know about bravery. I used to say I was a Humanist but that got blank looks so I "came out" as what I have believed since about 8th grade.

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    3. I went through the calling myself a Humanist, too. Even got the Humanist Bible and you're right few people know what that means. LOL

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  5. As I was reading your background I was thinkig how I woul dhave loved parents who didn't go to church. Instead I had to follow them in their religion and if I asked questions - ooh that was not welcomed. You do not ask, you just follow. I can't do that. I firmly believe organized religion is an evil of the world. I see no good come from it. Wars galore, false profits that tell you to have 7 wives, and on and on. If it brings you comfort, good, but please keep it to yourself and not try to convert me. I will never ever believe in this. This weekend the folks at our home are aetheists. I have no problem with them because they believe in right and wrong and the fundamental good in people etc. They are far more kind and open than any christian I've ever met. Look if you have to tell me your Christian - you most certainly aren't. I don't walk around telling everyone I am a nice person. My actions will take care of that you know? So those who have to tell you who they are you may wish to watch because generally they are the opposite. My guests asked me if I believed in God. I said I'd like to because it's a nice story, but I'm not 100% certain so I call myself agnostic. But overall there is no good evidence that organized religion is a good thing to me. Ask an alter boy.

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    1. A lot of evil things have been done in the name of religion and by so-called religious people over the centuries and even now. I'm thinking of my in-laws who don't give a damn that over 500 children were separated from their parents and the Trump administration has no records that can help reunite them. How do they go to church every Sunday and rage day after day about abortion yet not care about kids taken from their parents with no way to return them?

      Never had anyone tell me that they would have loved having my growing up background with churches. That was nice to hear, Margaret. Thanks.

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  6. I can't imagine being raised in this city without going to church, so I can understand why your parents tried to get you involved. That said, I've never lived anywhere else where the first question people ask you when you meet is "What church do you go to?" It's just kinda odd. I confess to being a little disingenuous about it, but really I'm just stretching the truth a WEE bit. And then I change the subject, although after all those years I can talk religion with the best of them. LOL. You are smart to know your new neighbors are likely to be asking. But I also find many people who are disenchanted and become "nothing" as the new phrase goes. They're just not as apparent around here.

    I grew up in a tiny town in a VERY Catholic family. My mom was a convert and there is no one more fervent than a convert. So it really was a huge part of our lives. Everyone in that town was either Catholic or Protestant and I had many cousins on each side. I became a church organist at a young age and attended Mass daily to earn part of my spending money. Skipping waaay forward, when I got divorced, I was pretty disillusioned by how people treated me, although a lot of it was subtle, and I know from my extensive background that divorcing an alcohol doesn't condemn me. Over the years, I've just been very discouraged by a lot of what I've seen. and the abuse scandal just broke something inside me. Now I consider myself spiritual and am involved with an interspiritual group where I can be myself. I still think some of the moral and ethical grounding I received growing up is part of my being and always will be, but I don't necessarily think it needed to come from that religion.

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    1. Oh, yes, since we live in the same general area I know you understand how the 'what church do you go to?' is one of the first questions asked. Not so much in the past ten years but it still comes up early on when meeting new people, doesn't it. I got good at avoiding the question and/or fudging an answer but now that I'm older I am resenting that I had to do it to fit in.

      My dad was brought up in a small town like you grew up in...one Catholic church, one Protestant. His entire family went to the Catholic Church but after an incident with a priest (not sexual) my dad at a young age started going to the Protestant church because my grandfather wouldn't let him not go some place. All my cousins are Catholic and I know what you mean about how they treated divorce. You stayed with abusive spouses or gave up your church and the respect of your family. Just crazy!

      Our area does have two interspiritual groups that I know of and I toured both and was quite impressed. The one right downtown, a couple of my Red Hat Sisters (back when I belonged just two years ago) thought the one downtown was 'evil' and doing the devil's work.

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    2. It's kind of how most right wing Catholics treat gay people now...don't ask, don't tell. And just talk about something else.

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    3. Did you hear that the Pope just approved gay's getting married in civil unions? Can't wait to see how that goes over with my in-laws where are Catholics.

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    4. Yes! I love this Pope. Sadly, there are many in the right wing camp who despise him and his open mind. Oh well. He is still the Pope. :-)

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  7. I was raised Catholic (grammar school, high school, college - all Catholic institutions). I was involved in my local Catholic church when my kids were young and they received religious education classes but... as I got older and my children got older we have all (on our own - not all together) left the Catholic church and most of my kids (and myself) have no religion at all now. For me, after a while so many of the rules made no sense to me and I just couldn't believe anymore in the folklore of the Bible that so many take as actual facts. I now just have my own three beliefs that I try to follow: Love one another, Be kind to each other, and Treat others the way you want to be treated.

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    1. Those are three great beliefs to have. Before the big book purge I used to have one with a titled "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Wish I still had it.

      I don't get how so many people can believe as fact the stories in the Bible that were passed on by word of mouth for four hundred years before they were written down. If you ever played the game of (Telephone) Party Line you'd know that Man put their spin on those stories and edited out and added stuff. New translations come out and people pick and choose which to believe. There is a wonderful passage in East of Eden that talks about the translation of a single word (timshel)in the Bible that influenced the direction two denominations went. One translation orders men to triumph over sin and the other translation gives men free will to choose goodness over sins.

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  8. I was raised Catholic, all 12 years in Catholic school. I just didn't like being TOLD what to believe and the final straw was in high school when my Mom became pregnant. She got "permission" from the church to take birth control but he told her to just take the pill on her ten fertile days. Welcome baby brother.

    WHO would take medical advice from a priest? So, I went to church every Sunday but I chose the church. Now I don't make time for organized religion because there is corruption in every organization!! Agnostic ... a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

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    1. It never made sense to me to have a priest who'd have experienced the stresses of parenthood (or marriage) weigh in on how many children a couple could raise both financially and emotionally.

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  9. I've discussed my spiritual situation on my site before, but likely before you found me. Here it is, in a nutshell:

    I was raised Catholic. I left the church as soon as I could. I call myself a Recovering Catholic. I used to call myself an agnostic, but only because I thought it sounded less harsh than atheist, which is really what I am. My children never went to church and thankfully, never heard a word about it. They are both atheists, and two kinder, more empathetic men you have never met. They are loving, honest, supportive feminists who vote Democrat and decry racism in all forms.

    Of all four of my parents' children, only one of us is still Catholic, and that's the son. I think that's rather telling.

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    1. The Catholic Church really broke themselves when they protected their pedophile priests by moving them around instead of letting them face the law.

      Love your description of your sons. You and your husband did good raising them.

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  10. Here's another person brought up like you. My dad was raised as a Baptist and had to go to church every Wednesday and twice on Sundays. He always felt that religion had been "crammed down his throat" (his words). After he grew up and left home, he didn't set foot in another church except for weddings and funerals. My mother attended whatever church was near where they lived when she was young. She went mainly for the music. So we were the classic "unchurched" you hear about. Except for one year when my parents sent my older brother and me to Sunday school at a Lutheran church that was within walking distance. (My parents got to stay home and read the paper and have a second cup of coffee.) I went every Sunday for a year and still have the little pin they gave me for perfect attendance. Lol. I thought our Sunday school teacher was kind of a doofus who really didn't teach us much. The kids were kind of silly and I was disappointed that nobody seemed to take it all very seriously.

    When I was in high school I was in a YWCA club (even though we had two Jewish members) and the fact that I didn't attend church was always good for a laugh. Invariably, when we would be electing club officers, my name would be put up for club chaplain. Hilarity ensued and I would have to sheepishly grin and say "I decline the nomination." Every damn time.

    When we moved to Texas my husband and I did attend a Lutheran church for about 4 or 5 years because my daughter and her husband went there and it was fun to go out to lunch with them afterward. We loved the pastor because he seemed so inclusive and his sermons were something else. (He once did a whole sermon in character as Forrest Gump sitting on a folding chair in front of the congregation.) But then politics raised its ugly head and the gay bashing and anti-abortion crap took over and we couldn't abide that anymore. So we left. I suppose if I'd grown up "churched" like other people, it would have bothered me more to completely sever myself from it. But it hasn't. My parents were good people despite not being church goers and I consider myself the same. I did meet a number of church types who would sit in the front pew on Sunday and sing the hymns loudly and pray and then go out on Monday and screw somebody over in a business deal. No thank you.

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    1. I'd forgotten about the YWCA Clubs.

      Some pastors are really good at writing sermons and build memberships because of it. I used to hear some of them practice when I'd be setting up wedding flowers like the guy I wrote about up above. I think going to church becomes like social club for many people.

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  11. I was raised Roman Catholic, with a ton of guilt thrown at us. I too avoid people who try to force their religion on others.

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    1. I used to try to hard to try to understand Catholics. My dad's whole family was Catholic and my best friend growing up. A church bus used to pick her up after school to go to church catechism classes and I'm wondering why I never went with her. I went to other churches any time someone would invite me along.

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  12. I went to church as a child I am Anglican and as a 14yr old I was confirmed as a young woman I also attended church a lot dragging the girlswith us

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    1. I don't remember ever hearing about an Anglican Church around here, but according to Google we have three in the area that are Anglican Catholic Churches. Learn something new every day.

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  13. Ooooh boy, I could write a novel in this comment space full of my thoughts and experiences with organized religion. Let’s just say religion has not been kind to my family and I have given it a wide berth from a very early age. I am hard pressed to find another human construct that has caused as much pain, death and suffering for people as organized religion has, over the millennia.

    Deb

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    1. Isn't that sad that something that claims to be so good for society can have its dark side that ruins lives. Not all organized religions but enough to give them a bad name.

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  14. The only "church" that speaks to me is Unitarian Universalism. I attended the local UU "church" for 23 years. I've stopped going, but I haven't stopped identifying as a UU....which is basically how you describe yourself. All religions may have something to offer, or none do. You can believe in God or not. You can build your own theology based on ethical principals. But above all, we affirm that all are inherently woven together into the independent fabric of life and respect and regard for the inherent dignity of each is paramount. Plus, most UUs are pretty politically liberal which is a plus for me. Do-gooders doing my kind of good.

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    1. You and I have had this conversation before and after which I did tour a Unitarian Universal church. I liked the vibe and what I saw but it's location just wasn't in a place where want to drive to.

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  15. My mother sent me to Sunday school at the Baptist church about 4 blocks from our house, but didn't take me to church once my parents divorced and we started moving around. I distinctly remember in those Sunday classes, when I was only 7 years old, thinking the stories were just too hard to believe. I wanted to though, so I converted to Judaism in my early twenties because it was a 'thinking' religion. That didn't take either. Each religion has it's own culture and like many of your other readers I've witnessed far too much hypocrisy to think organized religion has much value. I know there are many very good people with a strong faith and I admire them, I just think the Golden Rule covers just about everything. Fantastic post. Clearly this is something we've all given lots of consideration.

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    1. I've always thought the most interesting leaders of churches that I've talked to over 20 years of servicing weddings were the Jewish Rabbis. they reminded me of logic and philosophy classes I'd had in college in the give and take.

      The Golden Rule definitely does cover it all but I remember in grade school being hit on the hand with a ruler that had the Golden Rule printed on it. I was being hit for writing left-handed.

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  16. This is a terrific post, Jean, and the comments are as fascinating as your own words. As a child we "shopped around" for a church home and found on in in the Congregational church. It was about as liberal as protestants get (and had gone a long way from the Puritans!). I think it was the music program that kept me there and for some time a great minister. But when I got older I realized that for me, church and faith isn't done in a building on a Sunday morning. It is what you do every day in how you live. These days,I believe that more than ever as I hear so much hypocrisy in so many "religious people." It just doesn't sit well.

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    1. I love that so many readers shared their experience growing up...felt like a 'conversation' between good friends, at least my dream team of friends.

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  17. Yes...such a wonderful group of people who think like me..oh why can’t we all go to a retirement home together someday. I think of a CCRC someday and can’t imagine being with people who are all religious and probably voted for trump back in the day..wish they had liberal retirement homes..oh well dreaming I’m sure..

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    1. Wouldn't that be great! Although, I don't believe we all have to think alike to get a long good. It's a matter of accepting everyone---meeting each other where we're at. My Gathering Girls pals are a good example. They all mention in passing praying or reading the Bible occasionally but never in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. One lady is a Trump supporter and the few times it's come up there came a point where I've said, "We need to quit talking about this subject."

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    2. Agree....just want to be around people who most of them do or at least are not fanatic the other way. Maybe because I now live in a red area that is quite religious as well. Lots of trump signs...churches supporting him...it becomes discouraging to say the least.

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    3. Same here. I'm scared we'll have him again for four more years.

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  18. I grew up much the same way, many we knew went to Church and we did not growing up. My Dad was Native American and very Spiritual, but his experiences growing up on a Rez with varied Denominations considering the Indigenous Tribes as Savages and indoctrinating them in all Western ways with the Respect of their Culture, Ways and Spirituality, made it confusing more than anything. In his latter Years he and his Younger Sister who lived with him, when she became Widowed, went to a Church she had connected to, I think they were Southern Baptist Denomination and he went for several Years and did a lot of Charity Work, which he liked. The Pastor of that Church he was now a Member of refused to get out of Bed to be there for my Dad as he lay Dying in a Hospice because it was an inconvenient Hour... so a Catholic Priest showed up and gave Dad his Last Rites until my Pastor could drive all across the Valley at 2:00 A.M. to be there for us too. That's my take on how a lot of Churchy folks behave... not everyone who goes to Church has a close Relationship with God per se, but they do have 'Religion'. I can wear a string of Pearls but it doesn't make me an Oyster is how I describe Churchy folks, a form and a fashion, but no substance. Mom's Religion isn't in this Country so of coarse she didn't connect with any American Religion... until late in life after meeting my Pastor and First Lady and asking me if she could start going with me, she Loved it, but then, they are Godly people who walk the walk and not just talking the talk... they have a Street Ministry that Serves the marginalized in Society who might never be Welcome thru the Doors of any Organized Denominational Religion and would be harshly 'Judge' by the Congregations. Growing up our Parents did as yours did tho', they lived what I call their Spiritual Lives Daily and used anywhere/everywhere as their Temple, to quietly connect with their Creator without fanfare. We always had Altars in our Home and things from each of their Cultures that was Spiritual and part of their Ancestral Experience. Mom's Dad grew up Buddhist, having been raised by a Chinese Family in North Wales. I guess they wanted us to go as Guests to every Church, warning us to only avoid the 'Cults', so we could Learn about the Major Religions that connect Mankind with a Creator. I look at all of Creation and see the Magnificence that had to have something Divine Create it all in the Order and beautiful Life Cycles that all intertwine so fabulously. I think just being out in Nature is my preferred place of Worship and I can connect with my God anywhere at any time, doesn't have to be a specific Day in a specific Building with a specific exclusive group of other Humans. But, like you, it's a Topic I rarely engage in, because like Politics, it can be so very controversial and hurtful, excluding too many and not always filled with Goodness or Love.

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    1. What an interesting background you have. I know parts of it but the above really explains some things I've been curious about, like why the altars.

      Street Ministries are a special kind of unselfish giving, from what I've seen in my own city. I and my husband before me has given them money for decades. They are the ones out giving blankets to the homeless, setting up soup kitchens and recruiting people to help the mentally ill living in the streets.

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  19. BTW: I added a pix to that Blog Post of the Anime Game/Cartoon that the Granddaughter referenced in her Jack O'Lantern and the Name of it, in case you never found it during your Search? *LOL* Now we're both Enlightened! *winks*

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    1. I will check out the photo. Thanks. I didn't find the character she based her Jack O'Lantern on in my search but I didn't want to write that in my comment in case your granddaughter reads your blog. LOL

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    2. Thankfully they never read my Blog... well, except mebbe The Young Prince. I don't even think many of my Friends read my Blog. Us Blog People are like many specific groups that enjoy something this specific, so either you do or you just don't.

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  20. Since the Indian mounds are the remains of spiritual sites, going there instead of to a mainline church seems to me to be in the spirit of the religious exploration your parents were encouraging.

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    1. I'm not sure my parents would have seen it that way but they didn't put up any resistance when we gradually quit going.

      As an adult I've been to Indian mounts in several states and back to those of my childhood and I felt like they were very spiritual places. To bad so many of them got destroyed in past centuries.

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