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I had long planned to someday visit Temple Beth Israel. The website calendar listed a class with the rabbi on Thursday followed by Shabbat on Friday, so I emailed to say that I would like to attend both. I arrived at the synagogue behind another man. The door was locked, so he rang the bell, told a disembodied voice why he had come, and was buzzed in. After the door closed behind him, I went through the same procedure. I thought my bookpack might invite inquiry, but it didn't.
At the start of class, the young female rabbi asked me pointedly why I had come, and a kindly woman named Gail said, "Nothing like being put on the spot." I said that I enjoy interesting religion classes. I added that I last attended a synagogue in 1969, and that despite both the synagogue and the rabbi's home being bombed by the KKK two years earlier, I received a warm welcome. I told about my grandfather having arrived in Mississippi with a wife, two kids, and no money in 1908, and how Samuel Abrams of Abrams' Mercantile extended him credit when no one else would. I told of a dream I had as a teenager in which I entered my town's synagogue and found it beautiful beyond imagining.
The rabbi said that I was welcome to come to any of the synagogue's events without giving prior notice, and Gail offered to sit with me at Shabbat. The class was over my head, but I participated as much as I could. When it ended, the rabbi said that there was nothing on the handouts that couldn't be recycled. I asked her what would have happened if there were, and she said they would have to be buried.
I was so tired on Friday evening that I wouldn't have attended the two hour service had Gail not expected me. This time the door was unlocked, but a man was sitting just inside. As is my habit for most things, I arrived early, so upon seeing a courtyard adjacent to the sanctuary, I went in and immediately spotted a large and distressed jade plant. Upon finding that the soil was bone dry, I went looking for something to carry water in. The man at the door found a bucket. I thought that the plight of that plant cast the synagogue in a bad light.
On my way into the sanctuary, I donned a yamulke and was handed a hymnal. There was a box of tzitzis, but the service didn't require one. I took a seat in the back, but Gail, who was down front, looked for me and motioned for me to sit with her. When the rabbi walked over, I stood-up, thinking she would welcome me, but she ignored me entirely while speaking to Gail. Gail told me as much about the service as she could as fast as she could, but I was too busy soaking in the atmosphere to listen.
Nearly all of the service consisted of singing joyously in Hebrew to the music of banjos, guitars, and mandolins. Some people danced. I knew that Hebrew was read from right to left, but I was momentarily thrown by the hymnal's page numbers running from what is normally the back of the book toward the front. Alongside the Hebrew text, the hymnal contained English translations and an English guide to Hebrew pronunciation. Christian songs tend to focus upon sucking up to God, but these were love songs of trust, tenderness, and longing, and I was unprepared for how beautiful they were. My tears started to fall with the first song, and they kept falling throughout the service. Because I sitting in the middle of a row in the front of the sanctuary with the pews being arranged in a semi-circle, I was in view of many eyes, and because I had no handkerchief, the tears ran down my face and onto my shirt. I wiped my nose on my fingers and wiped my fingers on my pants. When I noticed that my pants were glistening, I asked Gail if it was an appropriate part of the service to excuse myself to the bathroom.
When I returned, I sat in the back, in a chair that was at the end of a row. I thought I had regained my composure, but I was wrong. When I leaned my hymnal against my chair leg to wipe my eyes, a woman crossed the aisle and handed it to me, saying that putting a hymnal on the floor was not permitted. I later thanked her, and she said that it had been hard for her to say anything. When I got home, I learned that, while I was at synagogue, a man 300 miles to the north had intentionally crashed a plane onto an island after telling air traffic control, "I'm just a messed up guy." I found it harder than usual to grasp the fact that such extremes of happiness and misery can co-exist.
Why did I cry? I cried because I have never experienced a more beautiful service. I cried because the seemingly ancient music was filled with romance rather than abasement and supplication. I cried because Gail was alive with love for her religion. I cried because those with whom I stood retain the courage to be happy despite the suffering of their people. I cried because Jews live under an increasing threat of violence, and I cannot protect them. I cried because I grew up being told that, unlike Christianity, Judaism is coldly legalistic, yet I had never experienced such passion and adoration.
The next evening, Saturday, I attended an Episcopal "circle communion" for the first time since December 15, 2012 (I remember the date because the Connecticut school shooting occurred the day before, and the group was consumed by grief). In an ordinary Episcopal mass, the priest and one or more attendees serve the elements. In a circle service, each person serves the bread and wine to the next person in the circle. It's the kind of small group atmosphere in which I thrive, and I only stopped going because I was expected, while serving communion, to say a single sentence in which I didn't believe. I shared my dilemma with someone I trusted and, in her outrage, she told others, the result being anger on their part and a feeling of betrayal on mine. For years, I wanted to return, but I knew I would be unwelcome. Now, I think of the words that I objected to as a gift rather than a statement of faith.
The group recited, "When I searched for Love, the Beloved answered within my heart. Look to the Beloved, and your face will radiate love," and I was again overwhelmed by emotion. The songs of the previous night, the words of that night's circle service, and the writings of Anglican bishops John Robinson, James Pike, and John Spong, all emphasize the concept of the God-Within to the point that the God-Without disappears. It's theology made poetry. It does not believe; it awaits. It does not fear external hell; it fears internal emptiness. It does not obey dogma; it obeys conscience.
As I cried, the woman to my right, a stranger to me, laid a comforting hand on my leg, but I couldn't return her touch because I was in the latest throes of a struggle that has lasted for over fifty years. On the one hand, I need church, which is to say that I need the Episcopal Church, but on the other, I feel that I have to renounce my integrity to attend.
During the Shabbat celebration, and then the circle communion, I realized that I simply must find a middle ground between being true to my intellect and being true to my heart because this internal war is becoming unbearable. The mere fact that I can be so moved by the beauty of worship that my life doesn't work well without it, suggests that I have an unalterable need to attend, and that no compassionate person, including myself, can deny me that right.
19 comments:
' The mere fact that I can be so moved by the beauty of worship that my life doesn't work well without it, suggests that I have an unalterable need to attend, and that no compassionate person, including myself, can deny me that right. ' says it all. Do what works for you.
I think you are over-thinking. To appreciate the sense of community and comfort of a worship service does not separate you from your brain. Even if you are worshipping a perfect being you are surrounded by imperfect people. Imperfect people devised the rules of the churches you attended. You need to maintain your logic while at the same time you can find the solace you look for in the religious services.
Yes do what works for you Snow.
I go to church but I still miss the Latin Mass I grew up with, it was so beautiful especially when sung. In English it just seems like chanting which isn't me.
I go to Anglican services in a cathedral nearby on occasions some I like others I don't.
We are all different & are moved by different things. Go where you feel comfortable it may be different places at different times.
Quite a moving post, Snowy old chap.
Takes me back to when I was about 12, living in a cramped ground floor flat rented by my Dad from Mr. Richman, a Jewish chap living in a large detached house in Lodge Road, Croydon; just him and his wife. I often did 'odd jobs' for him, in his huge garden (which I loved), or fixing slipped slates on some of his properties, anything to earn a shilling or two. He was a decent enough bloke and we got on well together.
One day, he asked me to help in doing some bits of polishing and cleaning in his nearby synagogue and my main memory of this place, a medium sized house near Lodge Road, is the heady incense aroma that lingered inside. We were the only two people in this place at the time. This is my only experience of a synagogue, but it has stayed with me for over 70 years. You,ve now aroused my interest. I shall investigate locally.
On a similar theme, I love sitting in a church or cathedral when I am the only one present. Thinking of the peace and beauty of the building, wondering how the heck was it built, how many workers may have died or been injured in its construction.
Your emotional reaction to the warmth of the community, the sounds and the singing and the feeling of kindness is understandable; it shows, in my view, a need for a certain kind of friendship. Something that you now get from your beloved cats and, of course, Peggy. You seem, to me, to be continually searching for answers to your needs. I wish you well, and hope you find the gold at the end of your rainbow.
Philip
You do not sound like an atheist to me.
This is a beautiful post, Snow. As for the internal war between intellect and heart, I, a certified high school valedictorian, say go with your heart.
I do not mean this to sound harsh at all but you remind me of the apostle Paul who persecuted and put to death many Christians before his Damascus Road experience. And one part of that experience, as he related later, was hearing God say to him, "It is hard for you to kick against the goads" (or, in good old Mississippi-style King James Version, against the pricks). Old southern farmboys (which neither you nor I are) know the allusion is to a farmer helping a reluctant ox to decide to move forward.
I wish you well on your journey. Again, this is a downright beautiful post.
If you enjoy church or synagogue there is no problem with integrity when you attend and enjoy it. Let it wash over you, bask in the beauty, accept the offered comforting hand......
it doesn't have to be hard.
I echo Robert.
xo
"You do not sound like an atheist to me"
Oh but I am in the sense that I don't believe in a supernatural entity that has fatherly feelings for his creation and answers prayers. I've heard it said that if the hope of help in this life and the hope of heaven (if not the fear of hell) in the next was taken out of the equation, the churches would empty. Perhaps, this is mostly true. What is definitely true is that religion is largely unimportant in countries in which people know that the state will take care of them from cradle to grave.
My own feelings for religion are a mystery to me. Maybe the answer is in some combination of upbringing, social factors, personal psychology, and/or evolution. I wish I knew because religion has brought me more misery than joy. How would you feel if you felt compelled to go to church, although you were unable to accept a word of the creeds, songs, prayers, and sermons, literally? Surely, you would find it more than a little crazy-making, and you would also know that, no matter how well you were treated, your continued welcome would depend upon your willingness to keep important parts of yourself secret, because if you shared them (in a class for instance), your listeners' eyes would get big, and, after an awkward silence, someone would invariably ask, "But if you feel that way, then why are you here?" and you wouldn't have a great answer.
"you remind me of the apostle Paul who persecuted and put to death many Christians before his Damascus Road experience."
To criticize isn't to persecute, but while we're on the subject, did you know that, despite owning both houses of Congress, the presidency, and most state governments, evangelical Christians regard themselves as the most persecuted group in America? That's right, on the persecution scale, they rate themselves ahead of gays, blacks, Muslims, atheists, transgenders, illegal immigrants, and everyone else. Why do they feel this way? It is because, as a group, they regard any criticism of their beliefs, or any limit on their power to impose the symbols, rituals, and morality of their religion on other people as persecution. In their minds, the only way to avoid persecuting them is to go along with everything they want. Does this not the case in the minds of the evangelicals whom you know?
"Again, this is a downright beautiful post."
Thank you. It was certainly heartfelt.
More later...
I have experienced such moments of joy and beauty within churches: Eveningsong in the Cathedral in Canterbury; walking into a mass filled with beautiful organ music in Notre Dame Paris not to mention the sheer beauty of old European churches yet I am not a believer. I have felt similar moments listening to live symphonic music: Saint-Saen's Organ Symphony when the organ finally appears. What can I say? You seem to have a great need to belong but to a faith that you do not have? It is a puzzle.
But the Jewish people do have a special place in my heart. If I had to belong to a religion, that's what I would choose. My husband is a secular Jew and thus my kids are genetically Jewish though are not considered such except by the reform arm as the mother has to be Jewish. My 2% doesn't count much (though on my mother's maternal side so that's something).
Hope you find where you are happy and I appreciate your telling of your journey. As others have said, a beautiful, heartfelt post.
Going to a service after a long absence can be very emotional. With all the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church, difficult for me to attend a service. I miss communion the most. Kris
Snow, you are correct, to criticize is not to persecute, but please note that the full phrase I used was "persecuted and put to death." Paul was not forbidding them to say grace at meals, he was overseeing their deaths (as in the case of St. Steven). The eleventh chapter of Hebrews also mentions several unpleasant actions -- tortured, scourging, imprisonment, stoned, sawn asunder, slain with the sword -- that rise above being forced to bake someone a wedding cake. Full disclosure: Hebrews 11 refers to Jews, not Christians, but you get my point.
Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.
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"Even if you are worshiping a perfect being you are surrounded by imperfect people. Imperfect people devised the rules of the churches you attended."
Good point. I just finished my second reading of the biography of Episcopal bishop James Pike who, for his day (the 1960s), went way out on a limb trying to separate theological essentials from added baggage. For instance, he discarded the Virgin Birth and the Trinity, and he referred to the church councils that wrote the creeds as being instances of "theology by committee." Yet, this was a hundred years after the advent of what might be called modern Biblical criticism, which by now has robbed the Bible of nearly all of it's once supposed certainties, not that this matters to most Christians, who really don't want to know. If they can deny global warming, which is happening all around them, how much easier is it to deny the truth about the Bible.
"I still miss the Latin Mass I grew up with"
The Latin mass disappeared before my first Catholic mass, but my impression of the Catholic masses I've been to as an adult was that they seemed less like what I expected them to be than does a "high church" Episcopal mass. The Episcopal church I attended yesterday was celebrating the feast day of St. Mary, for whom it was named. While a strong young man spread incense by energetically swinging a thurible, an elderly woman deacon walked the aisles sprinkling holy water on the congregation with an aspergillum. Near a side altar, every one of perhaps a hundred votive candles twinkled in their red holders. A candle in a blue globe shone over each of two beautifully decorated altars signifying the presence of the host. Five clergy were in attendance, and as the choir sang 500-year-old Latin hymns, sunlight shone through the brightly-colored stained-glass windows. After I took communion, I watched as row after row of others knelt for it, and it seemed to me that the supposed truth-statements in the Nicene Creed simply didn't matter. I doubt that many Episcopalians believe every part of the creeds, and some prominent clergy don't believe anything, the time being long past when they would have been excommunicated. To them, I suppose, the creeds are like the stained-glass windows and the votive candles. Perhaps, there are those who really do believe that lighting a candle will make it more likely that God will attend to their prayers, but it's not necessary to believe such things in order to appreciate the beautiful reddish glow or the agehold tradition. The main thing I get from church is an aesthetic experience, and none offers it so well as the Episcopal, which, like others of what used to be called "the mainstream churches," is being replaced by high-tech "Big Box Churches," the very churches that voted heavily for Donald Trump.
Philip, I loved your comment. I was astounded to learn that there is no theistic requirement in Judaism. Surely, most Jews who participate in most kinds of Judaism believe in God, but there's even debate as to whether the founder of "Reconstructionist Judaism," which is the kind of synagogue I visited, wasn't himself an atheist. In any event, if you attend synagogue and adhere to the customs, you are, in a Reconstructionist synagogue at least, considered a good Jew. Probably you have Unitarian churches where you are. In many of them, theists would be a minority, so although the Episcopal Church is fairly liberal, there would be places where, belief-wise, I would be a better fit, but such places lack the beauty of the Episcopal service. They tend to be social events with little in the way of reflection. As for Judaism, I'm afraid I missed the boat on that, partly because I have no interest in learning Hebrew, which is the language of my one local synagogue, but more importantly, it's not my tradition. I can attend sometimes, and I can love it, but I don't think I could ever make it mine.
"What can I say? You seem to have a great need to belong but to a faith that you do not have?"
You probably remember the old TV show Rawhide. On one episode, the drovers held a mock funeral in order to convince some hostile Indians (who were watching from a nearby hillside) that the Indians had succeeded in killing Wishbone's brother. As the drovers stood around the grave (while Wishbone's brother sat in the bottom of it, prompting them what to say in praise of him), Mushy started crying. The audience was surely intended to laugh at Mushy, yet Mushy wasn't crying for Wishbone's brother, he was crying because death is in the world. I am a lot like Mushy. Like you, I can have religious-like experiences away from church, but church gives me is a communal setting and a sense of human history that is unlike the history I feel when I look up a 40-million year old volcanic intrusion. Like in that church I attended on Sunday, I was stirred by many things, among them watching all those people kneel, one after another after another, for communion. I assume that people have been doing that for upwards of 2,000 years by now.
"Snow, you are correct, to criticize is not to persecute, but please note that the full phrase I used was "persecuted and put to death.'"
I know what Saul/Paul did, but I was trying to tactfully downplay the fact that you had just compared me to a prolific murderer. I assumed you had other similarities (than murder) in mind, but I didn't know what they were, so all I could come up with is my hostility toward religion inasmuch as it enters the public sphere in the form of right-wing politics. That aside, Paul is like a character in a Kabbalah story about a wise rabbi who held out more hope for a man who let another Jewish sect's prayer book lie in the mud than for the man who picked it up while saying, "After all, it IS a prayer book." Like the former man, Paul was driven to be all one way or all the other, while the man who picked the book up was more like the "lukewarm" people of whom Jesus spoke.
I'm more in the lukewarm direction because whatever church means to me, it is not something to which I would give my all, or even very much of myself. If I had to compare going to church to something, I would compare it to going to an art museum, my emotional experience being similar. Indeed, one of my quandaries about going to church at all is that, as with an art museum, I would never give much money to a church because it's not a cause that I'm deeply invested in, and therefore I feel like a thief for even going. I can understand why you would think I'm not an atheist, and according to some definitions I'm not, but I think that when you say it, you have in mind a deity who cares about you. My deity, such as it is, is not one that exists outside of myself. To go back to the art museum comparison, when I feel moved by great art, I'm never under any illusion that the art cares about me. It would be nice to think it did, but I see no reason to think that it even knows I exist, and such is my concept of God. What I mean is that, to me, God is a subjective emotional experience, and while it's very much true that I would like to believe that God is more than that, if I were a gambler, I would bet heavily against it. I suppose you might say that, "Well, I think I see in you that which you don't see in yourself," and I can't say that you're wrong. I think you are, but I don't pretend to know everything about my motivations or the forces that are guiding me.
Thank you, Kylie, and Child.
"With all the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church, difficult for me to attend a service. I miss communion the most. Kris"
I know what you mean. Las week, I heard a Pennsylvania bishop (a state in which a grand jury recently found massive and longterm clergy sex abuse and coverup) say that sex abuse isn't a church problem, it's a societal problem. Well, of course it is, but anything short of a complete mea culpa comes awfully close to trying to minimize responsibility by saying, "Everyone's doing it, so why pick on us?" and it completely ignores the fact that the Catholic Church gives every appearance of having a severe systemic problem that most likely goes back a long, long time and that includes the current pope.
Ah, Snow; the eternal challenge of "being true to my intellect and being true to my heart." I so understand that. That's what I love so much about you. That desire for integrity and honesty. May you find the space you need, and the place you need.
Blessings and Bear hugs.
"Ah, Snow; the eternal challenge of "being true to my intellect and being true to my heart." I so understand that"
Rob-bear! It's you! A blast from the past as it were. Speaking of blasts, I hope the air is better where you are in Canada than it is here in Oregon. There's so much smoke that I don't even go outdoors if I can help it because it burns my throat, and the heat has been pushing 100 for weeks, making this by far the worst summer I've ever experienced in Oregon, which is not a place that's known for its heat.
As for your comment, it's so true. I don't know how believers can look at the same evidence--or the lack thereof--for a caring deity that I look at and come to such a different conclusion. I'm reading a book by Harvey Cox entitled "How to Read the Bible," and although the book is, as I interpret it, very much a debunking exercise, he's a church-goer and a believer of some sort, although he doesn't say exactly what that means. Maybe you're familiar with "Progressive Christianity," which Wikipedia describes as, "a "post-liberal movement" within Christianity "that seeks to reform the faith via the insights of post-modernism and a reclaiming of the truth beyond the verifiable historicity and factuality of the passages in the Bible by affirming the truths within the stories that may not have actually happened." Did you follow all that!? Like Cox and Bishop Spong, I can read the words and know what the sentences mean, but I get lost when I try to think of it as religion, perhaps because I can't break away from my childhood upbringing in a church that claimed to know so much about God that it seemed as though he were there among us, approving of our every word and deed. Whereas the Church of Christ, for all its faults, was--and still is--a rock to those who could accept its doctrines, liberal Christianity is like sucky mud to me. A man like Cox has a much greater awareness of the Bible's weakness than I, yet he still identifies as Christian, whereas it seems to me that when the literal truth of the Bible is thrown out, why should one believe that the spiritual truth remains? Do I only imagine that there's a horrible chasm between Point A (denial of the Bible's literal truth) and Point B (a belief that, among all the Biblical chaff of misogyny, racism, slavery, ethnic cleansing, and homophobia, there remains a kernel of spiritual truth)? Continuing with the Wikipedia entry, which I will mercifully shorten...
"Progressive Christianity...emphasizes the Way and teachings of Jesus, not merely His person; emphasizes God's immanence not merely God's transcendence; leans toward panentheism rather than supernatural theism; emphasizes salvation here and now instead of primarily in heaven later; emphasizes being saved for robust, abundant/eternal life over being saved from hell; emphasizes the social/communal aspects of salvation instead of merely the personal; stresses social justice as integral to Christian discipleship; takes the Bible seriously but not necessarily literally, embracing a more interpretive, metaphorical understanding; emphasizes...right actions over right beliefs; embraces reason...instead of blind allegiance to rigid doctrines and dogmas; does not consider homosexuality to be sinful; and does not claim that Christianity is the only valid or viable way to connect to God."
So, Progressive Christians believe in a literal transcendent deity and a literal eternal life, although, depending upon the individual, they might discard much, if not most ,of what's left of the Bible as being literally true? How do they pull it off, Rob-bear? Indeed, such "religion" is like sucky mud to me, like the last desperate grasp at a tree branch before being drawn down into the mire of nihilism, yet I wish I could find comfort in it.
Well, there you have it; write me a paragraph, and I'll respond with a book. I'm so glad that you're still alive and kicking.
So profound and beautiful, Snowbrush. I cried too. Thank you for sharing your soul with us. May peace come unto you. It's all within, it truly is.
As a former believer who turned atheist after studying my religion, I can relate to much of this. I miss the community, the music, and the ceremony of church, though mine was a much more liberal new age church. I also continued to attend for a while after deconverting but it became too difficult to listen to conversations that frankly seem demented once you don’t believe in a personal god...
For a while I was president of my local humanist group and that was nice to bring like minded people together for various programs and socializing, but it lacked the emotional/feeling components of church. It’s a common enough complaint for former believers and there’s no good solution as far as I can see. The advantage religion has in creating ceremony is that you have a supposed mandate from on high to do certain things. Whereas otherwise you have to rationally devise essentially irrational experiences. If that makes any sense. Definitely I feel that communal music (especially song and dance) is something that humans do for a very deep fundamental biological reason, and outside of a church you almost never have that anymore.
I feel like I may start attending a local Buddhist group but there again there’s so much dogma. Sigh.
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