Worship

I set foot in a Christian church (Baptist, to boot) without feeling required to go (say, because of staying with someone who goes, for example) for the first time in several years this Sunday. Now, understand that, while viewing all interpretations of spirituality as equally valid (while vehemently disagreeing with some), this is one I have rejected for myself, and so my not attending is not based in hostility or hurt with the core of Christianity - it's based simply in the fact that I needed something more personally edifying.

So, this particular church is a very old church, and had a very different feeling about it from the ones I have been to. Most of the churches I have attended regularly have either a) been very small and simple or b) been large churches built in the past twenty or so years for the purpose of accomodating a large number of people.

This church was clearly built to accomodate a large number of people, but it was built towards the end of the last century, and, as such, had a completely different feeling that felt more in touch with the cathedrals I visited in Paris than with modern churches. The feeling was of a place that was not meant as a simple meeting place, but of a place that, with or without people in it, was created as an painstaking act of worship, with love truly at its core, in order to seek communion with and to show reverence for God. It really is an awesome (as in, the literal awe-inducing) sight to behold.

Now, the reason that I went to this church (with my atheist boyfriend, by the by, so I wasn't the only one of these things who was not like the others) was to attend an annual event: the singing of Handel's Messiah as both a performance by professionals and with the participation of the congregation in the choruses. I simply wanted to go to enjoy the music, as did my boyfriend, and both of our fathers came (it's his father's church). I had never heard all of the Messiah, and have also never been to a live performance, much less participated in it.

Let me just say that the music fit the building perfectly. I was used to going to churches and singing either hymns that have little life to them (and there are notable exceptions in the hymns themselves, but people rarely sing them with any of the enthusiasm that may have been originally intended) or canned contemporary Christian music that simply drones on and on the exact same thing with no real creativity or tune (and, again, there are a few notable exceptions to that, but my musician-self rankles at this lack of creativity - if God is any sort of God then He knows when effort is put forth, I would presume). In the face of what I grew up with, this absolutely blew me away - this is clearly a piece of music that was written in adoration for God, with the express intent of demonstrating this adoration. It was truly created as an act of worship, just as the church was, and it was very appropriate. I was very moved by being surrounded by such tangible devotion - it always seemed to me that creation should be an act of love, and that is the heart of worship.

Another interesting aspect of this to me was the fact that, having not set foot in a church for a very long time, and having engaged in ritual largely outdoors, there is a very distinctive difference in the feeling of an indoor location that serves the purpose of worshipping a male deity (especially the Biblical one) and an outdoor location that, at times, serves the purpose of worshipping a different concept of deity that includes the feminine. It seemed, again, appropriate, that one would worship this particular God in a building with ceilings that soared above your head, reaching to the heavens, with an orchestra and a choir and soloists and a congregation. Similarly, it feels all the more appropriate that one would worship a goddess outdoors, beneath trees and on grass, with simplicity and intimacy. I felt as though I was in the right place at the right time, experiencing a different sense of the religion I was raised in.

And the performance was just beautiful. It was something where, as a pagan, I allowed myself to be wrapped up in a feeling of worship that is seldom, if ever, a part of the rituals to which I am now accustomed, and, instead of simply directing that to the God to whom it was written as a love letter, I allowed it to flow all around me, and was washed in the feeling of shared divinity with everyone there, whether in their belief in their redemption through the shed blood of Jesus or in my belief in our shared communion with Deity through our humanity. I was grateful to be part of something so extraordinary.

Christianity has power. You just have to work very hard to dig through all of the bullshit trappings we have thrown on it in our culture (and preceding that, for that matter). That's the problem - I think many monotheists think of power as something that happened in the Bible, when God supposedly spoke through burning bushes or came to earth as a human, walked on water, raised the dead, and was resurrected after his own death. I don't think most people understand the power that is found in their own ceremony, whether it is in singing the "Messiah" with hundreds of other people or taking communion (transubstantiation, anyone?). Christianity has its own beauty, and it has magick, whether it is acknowledged as such - and that's the real difference there, is miscommunication. We use different words for similar things. What is it that Dar Williams sang? "And you find magick from your God and we find magick everywhere?"

Blessings.