EverChanging
Well-Known Member
I wasn't sure where to post this, so I settled with this subforum because I wanted to get a variety of perspectives from different religious worldviews.
I've been through a wide variety of beliefs and religious practices since my childhood. Over the past few years a stable core has developed in my spiritual practice, although some aspects are always in flux.
It has been a hard won battle to find a sense of stability in my spirituality and I have often had a sense of alienation from organized religion. I keep to myself most of the time because it seems to discomfort or even offend people that I cannot be classified into any easy category: liberal, conservative, traditional, whatever.
A big struggle for me has been a sense of alienation, something I think the wider Western society (and others) is suffering from. Historically cultural alienation and new conditions generate new expressions of religious thought and practice or even give rise to completely new religions.
Despite my need for worship and a devotional spirituality my experience of the institutional side of religion, particularly Catholicism, has often been negative. Almost completely negative in terms of Catholicism. I've not been treated well as a gay person. But even more than that I have a deep grief at this sense of a rupture with my Western heritage. I don't know if non-Catholics could relate, but so many of our traditions have been white washed or even utterly abolished.
Much of my religious instinct arises from my sense of suffering in this life. It has really been very positive overall because there are moments in that suffering that I reach a sense of transcendent and create beautiful writings, poetry, prayers, and rituals or come to new insights. But my experience of modern Catholicism -- and of many modernized Protestant churches -- is that everything is sort of a happy social hour, or anything too otherworldly or ritualistic is toned down. Much of my young adult life has been spent with little money or security emotionally or otherwise. I've seen a lot of things. And when I've been to the older forms of liturgy and worship something washes over me and there is a healing there and a beauty and hope. There is a sense in those ancient hymns and rituals that not everything is simple or even happy.
In the modern liturgies and settings on the contrary all I'm seeing and hearing are very bland hymns about a very general notion of justice, very rushed Communion services, very few sacred images or devotions, no regard for beauty, stripped down notions of sacrifice, and a general attitude that everything is well and good. Often times there is no silence after the mass to contemplate, everything just bursts into an uproar of laughter and talking. It's all very banal. Most of the prayers are about something superficially "happy." Not that there is no joy in the older liturgies -- far from it! But something is off about all of this newer stuff. It seems like it's there to pat people on the back, possibly even there to appeal to people that have money or privilege or have an aversion to anything "religious." When I have ever expressed the slightest discomfort with all of this I have often been treated badly. Even a passing mention of devotions such as lectio divina or other interests has earned me scowls, or I've had clergy glare at me or literally turn their back to me.
I really care very little for the institutional side of Catholicism as I have experienced it. Most time I spend in church is spent alone outside of the mass where I meditate, pray, or perform other devotions. That is when I feel closest to the divine.
I had a mystical experience a couple of years ago that doesn't fit into theological or logical categories easily. That experience coupled with my utter sense of alienation from not only the church but modern society has created this intense urge in me to find any way I can to express this sense I have -- of mingled hope and despair, beauty and suffering and elation and ecstasy! And that is something that I find utterly absent in my experience of modern liturgies or attitudes toward prayer and devotion in the Church. Eventually this need started spilling out into my private prayer life.
I create altars with my own ways of honoring saints with my own associations -- having experienced so much homophobia I love gender-bending saints. I also love saints like Christina the Astonishing who traveled through heaven, hell, and purgatory because it reminds me of my own experiences, and she was a little touched in the head. I commune with my guardian angel with liturgies I created to recall my experience and even alter my consciousness in the right settings, offering up my body and soul in sacrifice through votive offerings. I pray for and venerate my beloved dead, I have meals for them, I offer food to express our continual relationship beyond death. I have a need for the palpable and earthy, saying prayers over different household items and putting them into a jar on an altar as a physical embodiment of my prayer, a reflection of the Incarnation. I sing, weep, even scream at times, perform ceremonies in the woods, kiss the stones and ask Brother Rock to pray for me, bless the trees, I talk to the animals I see there, I pray with my animals at home. Anything, anything at all to express this wonderful sense of the sacred and profane. But at the heart of those practices is a very Catholic view of the universe, matter, the communion of the saints, and the goodness of humanity and all things. Some of it might take a little explaining to an outside observer. Much of it seems to resemble folk Catholicism, though I have little knowledge of such things. All of these things come out of my own piety and Catholic imagination.
I am very much a Christian, but reflecting on this I can see that I am not the only one who feels alienated from the Church, from society, or that has ever felt lost or spiritually confused. There are plenty of people seeking, creating new ceremonies and even myths. Folk Catholicism in particular has always had an affinity with the poor, with people who have been marginalized, there are even folk saints that are patrons of gays and the transgendered. I have meant to study it more, but not having been brought up in those traditions I did not feel comfortable adopting them. The neo-pagan movement and postmodern spirituality is also something I find appealing in the abstract, although most concepts I have found therein are foreign to me and I don't relate to them well.
I have hoped to generate discussion about the connection between new forms of religious expression and their relationship to the subversion of patriarchal or other traditional social norms, modern alienation and anomie, perceived or real corruption in traditional religion or the irrelevance thereof. If you have an unusual expression of your own traditional religion or you are an eclectic, a neo-pagan, or member of some new religion, do you see any connection between your practice and any of these issues I have mentioned? Did you find it liberating? Did it give you a sense of the mystical and transcendent? Was mainstream religion lacking for you? What do you think?
I've been through a wide variety of beliefs and religious practices since my childhood. Over the past few years a stable core has developed in my spiritual practice, although some aspects are always in flux.
It has been a hard won battle to find a sense of stability in my spirituality and I have often had a sense of alienation from organized religion. I keep to myself most of the time because it seems to discomfort or even offend people that I cannot be classified into any easy category: liberal, conservative, traditional, whatever.
A big struggle for me has been a sense of alienation, something I think the wider Western society (and others) is suffering from. Historically cultural alienation and new conditions generate new expressions of religious thought and practice or even give rise to completely new religions.
Despite my need for worship and a devotional spirituality my experience of the institutional side of religion, particularly Catholicism, has often been negative. Almost completely negative in terms of Catholicism. I've not been treated well as a gay person. But even more than that I have a deep grief at this sense of a rupture with my Western heritage. I don't know if non-Catholics could relate, but so many of our traditions have been white washed or even utterly abolished.
Much of my religious instinct arises from my sense of suffering in this life. It has really been very positive overall because there are moments in that suffering that I reach a sense of transcendent and create beautiful writings, poetry, prayers, and rituals or come to new insights. But my experience of modern Catholicism -- and of many modernized Protestant churches -- is that everything is sort of a happy social hour, or anything too otherworldly or ritualistic is toned down. Much of my young adult life has been spent with little money or security emotionally or otherwise. I've seen a lot of things. And when I've been to the older forms of liturgy and worship something washes over me and there is a healing there and a beauty and hope. There is a sense in those ancient hymns and rituals that not everything is simple or even happy.
In the modern liturgies and settings on the contrary all I'm seeing and hearing are very bland hymns about a very general notion of justice, very rushed Communion services, very few sacred images or devotions, no regard for beauty, stripped down notions of sacrifice, and a general attitude that everything is well and good. Often times there is no silence after the mass to contemplate, everything just bursts into an uproar of laughter and talking. It's all very banal. Most of the prayers are about something superficially "happy." Not that there is no joy in the older liturgies -- far from it! But something is off about all of this newer stuff. It seems like it's there to pat people on the back, possibly even there to appeal to people that have money or privilege or have an aversion to anything "religious." When I have ever expressed the slightest discomfort with all of this I have often been treated badly. Even a passing mention of devotions such as lectio divina or other interests has earned me scowls, or I've had clergy glare at me or literally turn their back to me.
I really care very little for the institutional side of Catholicism as I have experienced it. Most time I spend in church is spent alone outside of the mass where I meditate, pray, or perform other devotions. That is when I feel closest to the divine.
I had a mystical experience a couple of years ago that doesn't fit into theological or logical categories easily. That experience coupled with my utter sense of alienation from not only the church but modern society has created this intense urge in me to find any way I can to express this sense I have -- of mingled hope and despair, beauty and suffering and elation and ecstasy! And that is something that I find utterly absent in my experience of modern liturgies or attitudes toward prayer and devotion in the Church. Eventually this need started spilling out into my private prayer life.
I create altars with my own ways of honoring saints with my own associations -- having experienced so much homophobia I love gender-bending saints. I also love saints like Christina the Astonishing who traveled through heaven, hell, and purgatory because it reminds me of my own experiences, and she was a little touched in the head. I commune with my guardian angel with liturgies I created to recall my experience and even alter my consciousness in the right settings, offering up my body and soul in sacrifice through votive offerings. I pray for and venerate my beloved dead, I have meals for them, I offer food to express our continual relationship beyond death. I have a need for the palpable and earthy, saying prayers over different household items and putting them into a jar on an altar as a physical embodiment of my prayer, a reflection of the Incarnation. I sing, weep, even scream at times, perform ceremonies in the woods, kiss the stones and ask Brother Rock to pray for me, bless the trees, I talk to the animals I see there, I pray with my animals at home. Anything, anything at all to express this wonderful sense of the sacred and profane. But at the heart of those practices is a very Catholic view of the universe, matter, the communion of the saints, and the goodness of humanity and all things. Some of it might take a little explaining to an outside observer. Much of it seems to resemble folk Catholicism, though I have little knowledge of such things. All of these things come out of my own piety and Catholic imagination.
I am very much a Christian, but reflecting on this I can see that I am not the only one who feels alienated from the Church, from society, or that has ever felt lost or spiritually confused. There are plenty of people seeking, creating new ceremonies and even myths. Folk Catholicism in particular has always had an affinity with the poor, with people who have been marginalized, there are even folk saints that are patrons of gays and the transgendered. I have meant to study it more, but not having been brought up in those traditions I did not feel comfortable adopting them. The neo-pagan movement and postmodern spirituality is also something I find appealing in the abstract, although most concepts I have found therein are foreign to me and I don't relate to them well.
I have hoped to generate discussion about the connection between new forms of religious expression and their relationship to the subversion of patriarchal or other traditional social norms, modern alienation and anomie, perceived or real corruption in traditional religion or the irrelevance thereof. If you have an unusual expression of your own traditional religion or you are an eclectic, a neo-pagan, or member of some new religion, do you see any connection between your practice and any of these issues I have mentioned? Did you find it liberating? Did it give you a sense of the mystical and transcendent? Was mainstream religion lacking for you? What do you think?
