Sanctuary

I'm sitting here at a Theravedan Buddhist monastery enjoying the peaceful atmosphere.  Historically, churches have been a place of peace and refuge, but these days this is the only place of sanctuary I have found where I am welcome.  It's sad that churches seem to have lost their way over the centuries particularly in the last couple of generations.  So much of the kindness and caring has turned into just another big business.

In the late 1950s, the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance to distinguish the USA from the godless communists of the Soviet Union.  Since then our society has not only become non-religious, but actively anti-religious.  While there have been a large number of horrible things done in the name of religion, it has also provided us with a moral and ethic basis to reach the success we are enjoying today.  Along with the loss of religious beliefs, we are seeing a precipitous decline of Western society.  Maybe they are connected or maybe not.  Personally, I think they are connected, I think we have lost our way and our dedication to something greater than the individual.

I can't say that I know what to do about this situation, but the problem has become so acutely obvious that it's a significant part of my motivation to go to seminary and try to do a little bit of good in the world.

Visiting other churches

I have started visiting  various churches in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of what religion means to different people.  It has been quite an interesting experience.  Here are a couple of them.

A minister I know pointed me at one church that turned out to be rather Pentecostal in nature, it had the whole "speaking in tongues" thing going on.  A number of people I know would have been seriously freaked out by the service.  Personally, I found it interesting.  Most of my history has not included what I've heard described as "the ecstatic experience" of religion.  It was also one of the most racially diverse congregations I have seen.  I'm very glad I went.  I've written a more detailed review that I sent off to my friend, but I'll be brief here.

The other church I visited was a "non-denominational" Christian church that is being "planted" by another branch.  This was the first service and most of the attendees were members of the preacher's extended family, which is quite large.  It's a very family oriented church, which is something I think our society needs more of.  On the other hand, their God is a lot more meddlesome than what I believe.  It was also a very evangelical service, which is yet another approach I need to understand in greater depth.  Learning to communicate in a way that influences and inspires other is one of the many things I need to learn to do.  I expect I'll be going back to other services there.

Both churches had live musicians playing some very modern kinds of music with lots of electronic amplification.  I'm not quite sure what I think about that.  Maybe I'm a bit too old fashioned.  I also need to develop a deeper understanding of the effects that music can have in religious services.  I know I'm not wired the same as a large number of church goers, so I'm going to have to go about understanding in a very deliberate manner.

At this point, my plan is to continue visiting a very wide variety of churches.  There is still so much more for me to learn.