So many times, this life has taken the church out of this kid, but it can’t seem to take the kid out of church.
Like most people my age, I’ve grown to have a complicated relationship with religion. Straight-up doubt is the usual culprit. And then there’s the dogma that many in my generation simply can’t accept.
A few months ago, I had a conversation with a friend about going to church for mass. Although we both agree that there are significant parts of religion that just don’t sit well with us, I told him about a shift in perspective that totally changed my relationship with going to church.
For a moment, forget about what church stands for. Forget about the stories and the history and the symbols. One might even try to forget that it has any connection with the divine. What are we left with?
A building.
It’s a place where people come to to be silent together, to sing together, and to remember together. Remember what? Remember that, individually, we’re not the centers of the universe. Going to church has this effect on me. It invites me to be centered and to reflect, while at the same time not be the center. There is something much larger taking center stage.
There’s one other activity that makes me feel almost exactly the same way: meditation. Meditation is about awareness but it’s also about acceptance of the present and connection with reality. In meditation, you are centered, but also not the center. Many times, it is our senses, thoughts, and feelings that become the center, while we simply receive and notice them.
The way I see it, these two fall under the same category. Mass is a meditation, specifically, a large communal meditation guided by ritual. Every Sunday mass has the same format. Respond, sing, kneel, stand, give each other the sign of peace, repeat. The difference between routine and ritual lies in repetition. And that’s what this is, a ritual. To take part in it is to take part in the meditation and be one with others.
Recently, I found a church—北堂 or The North Cathedral near the Forbidden City—in Beijing through my friend Leonardo from the Congo. The night before my first mass here, Leo told me that I didn’t have to go as early as he does. Mass starts at 11 AM, but he leaves at 8 AM and takes the subway to make it in time for choir practice at 9:30. I asked if I could go with him, and if the choir wouldn’t mind me intruding.
So I now sing with the choir on Sundays—an added element to my weekly meditation ritual.
Sometimes, I ask myself whether I’m missing the point completely by looking at church this way. But a part of me also thinks, if this is what enjoying mass looks like to me, denying myself that experience does no one any good. If this perspective creates the best conditions for the divine to reveal itself in ordinary reality, to each his own, I guess?
During the mass, there is a level of mindfulness that crescendoes during the homily, and peaks during the communion. At this point, the choir would sing a song or two, but sometimes there is only silence. I think of this as the time for recollecting and coming back to the self just before the mass ends. It’s also in this moment that I feel most connected to the source of all energy and good, whatever—or whomever—this may be. Centered and de-centered at the same time.
It’s still a struggle. I think faith will always be a struggle for me. Maybe all this doubt will challenge and strengthen it when it’s all said and done. For now, even if it’s only for these few minutes of clarity and community towards the end of mass, I’ll be up early on Sundays, and I’ll be on that train to the North.