A Seeker

Halloween was on a Sunday this year, 2022. Sunday is the traditional day of worship in the Christian tradition, anyhow. A lot of people are afraid of Christians. And why wouldn’t they be? Many of them are pretty scary people, what with the rules and the angry god and the exclusion and the hell and stuff. I would still argue that we are good enough at creating hell on earth all on our own, I’m not sure why God, whoever he/she/they might be would need to create a separate place. But that’s a different issue.

I have been playing with faith all year. I found this church now far from where I live last year in November while on a bit of a road trip odyssey. I had a few conversations with the relatively new, close (ish) to my age, then single female pastor – a southern transplant preparing for a WI winter – and I decided to give it another shot. I’ve given church a few shots in life and I’ve always ended up walking away in the end because I feel like a hypocrite at the end of the day. Because I can’t imagine that everyone in the world who isn’t Christian is simply wrong or that the Bible is a perfect and literal book for example. And this is a commentary about me, and my struggle with faith, if you are there, congratulations to you, and if you can’t even imagine why a person would want to be there, same.

Although I might argue the world could use a little more empathy or at least the ability to imagine another person’s perspective who might be far different from our own.

When I returned from my road trip odyssey, I threw myself into this new endeavor. It helped that the first time I showed up in person, another woman about my age sought me out and got to know me and that she was a super friendly fun ESL teacher who would go kayaking and have brunch with me and who I could sit with in church, that the singer had a voice like Norah Jones, that the pastor had me over to her house for fires outside and for brunch and that she was young and fun and likes yoga. It helped that I could do bible study with the older people of the church and ask all my questions and face no judgment. It helped that the church was clearly open to all people and respected other faiths. It helped that they were starting a project to help refugee families in the community, and that I care about these issues.

But over the course of the year, instead of growing closer, more stitched in, I’ve felt a loosening of the connections. I still want to explore the Bible and what it means and I want to relate the stories and the messages to life, to other faiths and philosophies, and I still want to go from time to time, but people, of course revealed themselves to be people and groups revealed themselves to be groups and I still don’t feel comfortable calling myself Christian. There are too many things it means to too many people that aren’t what it means to me.

And I still care too much about too many people. I don’t know enough yet. My thoughts and beliefs aren’t well formed.

I’m still seeking. At church. In life. In yoga school. And most importantly, I suppose, within.

Halloween Sunday was my last day in church before yoga teacher training which will occupy weekends for three months.

The topic of the sermon on Sunday was Freedom.

In the United States, when we talk about freedom, we refer back to a declaration of independence, talk about inalienable rights, and the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Independence, rights, liberty – these are all concepts associated with and in some cases synonyms for freedom. 

I’m not interested in making political commentary, so I’m going to steer this away from that here. I simply want to note how deeply ingrained – but perhaps not well defined – the concept is in our collective consciousness, culture, identity. In our nation’s storytelling.  Globally (and in the US) freedom might be seen the same or might be seen differently. There is freedom from – from repression, from violence, and freedom to – to love who you want, to own property, to vote, and freedom of – of thought, of speech. These are just a few.

The sermon was about freedom within instead of freedom without. How do we find freedom from our conscience, from our fear. How do we liberate within when we cannot control external circumstances. When can we control external circumstances? Can we or is that simply an illusion?

The previous day, in a yoga class, we all sat with our legs crossed and bound up in strap to keep them together and restricted – not free – while we moved our body through a number of poses. Some, who have access to lotus, might not have needed the strap, but for many of us, the binding was necessary and in fact empowered us to do the poses we might not otherwise be able to do. At any time we could release our legs. And also we could probably not do the poses then. 

Freedom is complicated. Sometimes, by necessity it comes with restrictions. Two things we don’t necessarily put together. But we are choosing the restrictions and therein lies the freedom I suppose.

And with that messy train of thought, I leave you with some joy. Music, to me, is joy. Music, to me, is freedom. Here is a song about freedom that may just make you a prisoner to joy, to movement, may just force you to smile, tap your feet and shake your booty a little…