I was raised in the stilted, unpassionate environment of Catholicism. It brought me together with peers for Sunday school over lifeless preaching and formal instruction. The environment was not at all conducive to fostering connection, real spiritual connection. The formal services were even worse. The closest thing to tapping into the tribal urge to worship, and to use movement as an aid, was slowly switching from seated to standing or from seated to kneeling. The hymns sung from the choir, comprised mostly of geriatrics, did not inspire worship in my 13 year old self, and I wager it did not in many others.
After attaining my confirmation to appease my Catholic-in-name-only mother, I left the church. I left behind practices designed to bring about community and moral education yet I left having experienced neither. What I picked up was some guilt and shame. In around 3rd and 4th grade, for our first confession, we were given a list of possible sins that we may have been guilty of committing, if we needed help in compiling our list of sins that were to present to the priest in the name of seeking salvation. I recall reading that my habit of watching porn and masturbating, no doubt stemming from a hypersexuality aimed at self-soothing a dysregulated mind, were sinful in the eyes of the Church. Rather than confess to the priest my shameful acts, made more shameful by the list of sins, I cocooned it around yet another layer of shame and stuck to the easy admissions of fighting with my sister and using profanity. I am sure I would’ve felt better had I confessed my acts to someone, anyone.
While not missing Catholicism, I do feel a yearning for community, for connection with others over a common purpose. I used to militantly decry the ills of organized religion but in my later years I’ve gotten more sympathetic, more open-minded. This sense of sympathy could be related to a creeping loneliness, or mounting social isolation. I am still very much a social being, but I am no longer in school, my mom no longer hosts my birthday party at Lasertron, I no longer play on a recreational hockey team. Great friends, the type of friends you have deep conversations with, soul-revealing stuff, have moved to follow their careers. There remains a lot of connection, no doubt, but there is also a yearning.
About two years ago, I found myself in the unlikely place of an inner city Baptist church for multicultural counseling class assignment. Notably, I was one of three white people in the crowd. Despite this racial and cultural divide, I experienced a resonance during the service that was quite unexpected. The ingredients were rapturous ones, a jolt from the boring conditioning I was subjected to in the Catholic tradition. There was the fiery and insightful preacher, a musical ensemble of an electric guitar, an electric keyboard and drums churning out soul-enlivening music, along with congregants breaking out into worship, however they saw fit. The experience was deeply cool to witness, a testament to the power of what humans can do when they come together. It was especially cool as, had it not been for the class assignment, I would’ve never mustered the courage, or the curiosity, to attend such a gathering.
I have often yearned that there are regular Buddhist gatherings to provide me, and others, with a sense of community and spiritual guidance. As organized religion is clearly ill-equipped to face these increasingly existential threats, clearly something else is needed. Yoga provides me with a way to attune to my body while attuning to others through shared breath and shared struggle, and it is especially great when the instructor suffuses spiritual elements. At the end of my yoga practice, there is a self-satisfaction, a calmness of being, and a camaraderie with all of those who toiled in poses alongside me. Afterward, when driving home, I can’t see how it’d be possible to experience road rage.
A Mental Health Counselor's Musings 