Bryan and I have been having relaxing Sundays since we moved up here. It is nice to be able to stay in a new town over the weekend and try new things. For example, we went to the Plaza Art Fair a few weeks ago which was really great. They had a lot of art vendors and food lining the streets of the Country Club Plaza. It was one of the first cool days of fall which made it even better to be walking around. Then, today, as I type, we are sitting inside Barnes & Noble while Bryan studies for an exam on Monday and I write. We are listening to an orchestra play pop music covers and smelling the wonderful smell of coffee.
On the way to B&N, I took notice of people in other cars sitting at the stop light next to us. The car to our right had a man in a suit. Surely he had just come from church. People don't normally dress up on Sundays unless they are going to church or a Jewish wedding. That got me to thinking: If I noticed him in his suit, did he notice me in my "Not Everything In Kansas Is Flat" t-shirt? Would he wonder if I went to church while wearing this strategically placed saying on my shirt?
These thoughts somehow transported me back to my days at K-State taking a Religion and Culture anthropology class. The entire semester was focused on the idea of people being spiritual and religious. We did exercises where everyone would stand in the middle of the room and if you considered yourself more spiritual, you would move to one side of the room. If you considered yourself more religious, you would stand to the other side. If you did not know, you stood in the middle. Then we would move on to other topics like why you felt this way. Were you more liberal with your beliefs or pretty straightforward?
I had never thought about the difference between spirituality and being religious. To me, religion is going to church, having someone preach to you, and doing all the holidays in accordance with your beliefs. Spirituality to me is setting your own standard of what you believe in and practicing on your own. In my opinion, I am more spiritual than I am religious. I do incorporate some religion into my spirituality, but for the most part, I am looking just to feel good and not have a standard of what is right and what is wrong.
I know that there are people I am close to who might not agree with me, or might think I need to do more, but that is not what I believe. For example, when Bryan and I first moved up here, my mom would ask me repeatedly if we were going to find a church home. I would then explain that I do not believe that you need to go to church in order to have some kind of relationship with God. I did not mean this to insult her, but I just do not need organized religion to tell me what to do. Finally she stopped asking me, not because I am stubborn, but because I think she knew that this is what I wanted to do and maybe someday I would decide to go back to church. I don't have a problem with people going to church, it's just not something I need to feel like I am being a Christian.
When I was little, my family belonged to a church that my dad and granny had been going to since before I was born. My mom was raised in the Methodist church, and when she married my dad, she started going to the Church of Christ. This was a change for her, but one she accepted. We would not go every Sunday, but for the most part, we were regular attendees. Then some things happened and we ended up leaving the church. My granny stayed, but my mom, sister and I started going to Haysville Christian Church after my friend Austin invited me to a youth group outing. We found this to be our church home after everyone was so welcoming to us. My dad joined the church a little later. Soon we were involved with the church and it was really nice. My sister and I had our friends that we hung out with the most and my parents had found more adult friends. Plus we saved on gas because we were driving only about 3 miles from home instead of 45 minutes from home. My dad took a position as the adult-bible study teacher and my mom started planning groups with the other women of the church. Sonny and I were just old enough to help out with VBS which we found to be really fun.
As I moved on with my education and moved out of the house, I started taking my life into my hands. I felt free to do whatever I wanted to do. Church was not at the top of my list. I only lived about 30 minutes from home, but that is far enough to tell yourself that it is too long of a drive to go to church or I would work on Sunday mornings and study the rest of the day for school. When I did go home for a weekend visit, we would go to church and it felt good to be back. Then I moved to Manhattan, met my future husband, and now he was getting paid to go to church in Salina since he was the music director for that church. We would get up at 5:45 every Sunday morning to make an hour drive to Salina, spend the entire day there, and get home in time to finish whatever homework we had left to do. Most of the time it was really hard to get out of bed so early on the weekend. But then you meet all of the people within the church and you are glad you went.
While going to the United Methodist Church in Salina, I was asked to teach a 2nd-6th grade Sunday School class. I was hesitant at first because I am not a teacher. Then I met the kids and it became a little more enjoyable. However, I was teaching these kids from the very basics of the Bible. They had never had a Sunday School class before and had never learned anything about the Bible, so this was very difficult for me. I started with teaching them what the difference between a verse and chapter was and how to find different books of the Bible. When Bryan and I moved, the only thing I had really taught them that stuck was a song I had learned to memorize the books of the New Testament.
By the time I was teaching this class of young kids, I had come into my own thought on religion. I did not agree with everything that was in the Bible or some of the thinking that I was taught to believe. One of my biggest causes is equality for everyone including LGTB rights (which is quite obvious from my past posts). I also had been taught that people who did not believe had no moral values and were not people we should associate ourselves with. This sermon came from my parents church and it was after I had been married for almost a year. I guess I was just beside myself that someone would tell a group of people that people who do not believe or go to church had no morals or any place in our lives. This made my reasoning for being spiritual a little more evident. I know plenty of people who do not believe in a higher power or any power that know the difference between right and wrong. I did not think it was right for this preacher to tell people who they should befriend and who they should not. In church, aren't you taught to go and make disciples for Christ? How are you going to be that example if you don't have someone with a different belief in your life?
I am not saying that religion is bad, but I enjoy feeling free to think what I want and do what I want. I enjoy sleeping in until 9 or 10 a.m and going to art shows or book stores and not feeling bad for not going to church. I do not feel like religion is brainwashing, but I feel like sometimes you cannot have your own thought process.
Just to clarify, I feel like I should point out what I do believe:
1) I do believe in God. I enjoy praying, but I do not pray to have him produce a miracle for me. I pray to him kind of like how you would give a pep talk to yourself. I know that I can do everything, sometimes I just need to say it to get me going. I don't think he puts things in front of me by divine intervention. I think that when I talk to him, I realize that I can make things happen. I just want to be able to air my concerns. Kind of like when you talk to your best friend about the problems you are having. You don't want them to fix it for you, you just need to vent. That is what I do with God.
2) I believe in the power of prayer. I pray because I need to center myself again. I just need to focus, get my head back in order and do what I need to do to get things done. I feel like yoga is my prayer. I don't do yoga all the time, but the concept of calming yourself down and listening is my form of prayer.
3) Jesus. This is hard. I believe that he was alive. I came to my conclusion about Jesus after taking many classes dealing with religion. Once again, while at K-State, I took a History of Christianity class. My professor is very smart and educated in religion. He did not tell me what to think, but what we learned helped me form my opinion. We focused a lot on all the different saints and how they contributed to religion and how they are celebrated today. Obviously we did talk about Jesus and how he had an impact on religion. People called themselves Christians because they would listen to him teach, but Jesus did not enjoy having people call themselves Christians because he did not want people to follow him. He wanted people to learn about God. This really helped me come to my conclusion that Jesus was a man helping to get the word out on God. He was very good at teaching, but so was Paul. Why are they not on level playing fields if they did almost the same thing? Christmas to me is a celebration of family and the importance of being together.
4) Everyone knows what is right and wrong and I don't think that you need to go somewhere once or twice a week to have someone tell you this. I learned the first few times I was told what was right and what was wrong. I also have an opinion which sometimes people do not agree with, and that is fine, but they don't need to tell me just like I don't need to tell them what I believe. I can reassure myself whether what I am doing is right or wrong because I have a voice in my head that will make me feel guilty or make me feel good.
So to sum is all up, I believe that everyone knows what they need to do to get things done. I believe that having strength in yourself makes you stronger and sometimes you just need to meditate to get where you need to go. I believe in a personal relationship with God and in not having to go somewhere with others to make yourself feel good for a day. I believe in open minds and open hearts.
This was a tough blog to write because I know that there are people who read this who do not necessarily follow me constantly on here, and there are people who do. All of this just made my mind start churning when I saw that man in his suit.
Have a lovely Sunday!
-Dusti
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