Lighting my own flame

I pre-ordered my friend's book, even though I didn't want to read it. I pre-ordered it right in the middle of losing my own faith, her book about losing her faith...and finding it again. Faith has long since ceased to be a cultural acoutrement of habit, tradition, stand up-sit down formalities. It survived thousands of years that way, by being necessary to people. Necessary because they couldn't read for themselves perhaps, necessary because whole nations grasped desperately at religion as a form of collective salvation from unknowns both here and in eternity. In the performance-driven, every man a minister evangelical movement, we are no longer silent participants in a army of anonymous believers who join us for that hour and stare forward. Then you could hear the rumble of hundreds of hands dropping hundreds of kneelers, the scratch of a thousand shoes tucking under pews, the awe of the silence when every head bowed in confession.Norms shift and traditions change. We have always lived in a society where questions were welcomed. You get to choose, the Pilgrims said. We have never been Catholic or Protestant solely based on geography here in the new land. Everyone seemed to politely ignore that we are still born into faith, held there by the glue of family and social pressure. Many of us silently protested, our shoes slow to scrape under the pew. Our heads the last to bow.Evangelicals pull you out of your seat and demand your participation. I suppose that's how I, perpetual d...
Source: Turquoise Gates - Category: Cancer Tags: disbelief belonging being real blog hop ambivalence religion equality love Source Type: blogs