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| in which i attend a theology class at church by ndd 10/07/2011, 4:03pm PDT | ||||
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| Average age of attendees: 58-60ish? I was the youngest person in the room by at least ten years.
Look I learned a lot, but not about theology. I learned that most of the main-line decades-of-attendance UU church ladies sound astonishingly like MM, right down to the non sequitur Zen koans. It was like MM was training me to talk to actual UU people in that earlier debate. They reference Louis CK a little less and shamanism a little more, but... fucking yeah, MM could have walked into that class and been Nerevar Moon-And-Star. For people in a church class about theology, they were breathtakingly anti-clerical, anti-organized-religion. It wasn't a doctrinal thing, as near as I could gather. It was because they'd all been damaged by some organ of organized religion: rejected by priests for being homosexuals, or rejected by hysterical conservative spouses for being too liberal, or sternly condescended-to by private high school teachers, subject to prejudice backed by religious people, etc. They loathed "Religion" and argued variably about whether UU was a religion (but a GOOD religion (the ONLY GOOD RELIGION)) or not (it's just a collection of shared values, not an awful bad stinking religion.) Such Protestant decorum and quibbling is a huge part of everyday church politics. But I chatted and complimented and listened and shared, rather than sulking in smug solitary silence as I usually do at these sorts of things (you understand: I already know everything, right?) And I was pleasantly surprised at the warmth of connection. Aside from managing to tear up yet again, I felt involved and comfortable. But also I felt more like the minister-facilitators than the class members: I have no bad feelings about organized religion, I already understand the importance of community and the gravitation inherent in shared faith and worship, I don't have any unanswered questions about Why Things Are or Why I Am, I don't believe self-led spiritual investigation is an unalloyed positive. After the thing where I learn how to be Not An Asshole, the next Difficult Thing I have to learn is how to tend to this damage and decode this defensive hypocrisy - that of the "I'm spiritual but not religious" churchgoer. Caltrops, I feel this new line of interest and investigation is criminally gay on my part, but it's also the first time I've felt like I was a welcome participant in a meaningful endeavor. Also MM is like four times the Universalist Unitarian that I am. |
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