#im WAY overthinking this but you see my brain and my spiritual background wont let me do anything else

[july-19th-club]

having THE most insane type of scrupulosity situation going on right now which is that. ok for background. i grew up catholic as many know and round about college stopped going to services regularly. and even when i was a kid and therefore obligated to be religious i never had any strong beliefs about it. so i'm the lapsed catholic's lapsed catholic - steeped enough in the cultural mindset to have issues but with no odd hangups about whether god exists (i just don't think he does). so for the past ten twelve years or so the only time i've been to mass has been when i'm with the family for some function or occasion and i've been obligated to go, and due to my general atheism i've never had this huge urge to seek out different kinds of organized religion. i'm intrigued by the reform jewish philosophy but not intrigued enough to formally attempt to join another ritualized congregation etc. but this has been a very trying year and my mother has been on me about Going To Church and i said yeah sure yeah might be a good idea. but i'm not going to YOUR church because i cannot sit through one of your boss's masses and feel anything other than the need to argue theology with him (she is the parish finance wrangler, so priest is her boss. same priest who in 2016 drove my fourth grade teacher to leave the parish entirely bc of his 1st week of november sermon about how you're betraying the Cause (aka antiabortion. that was the only cause) by not voting trump). ANYWAY. so i'm not going to that church. and the only church in my area that i could find that has what i'm looking for which is to say no christian god PER SE is the local Unitarian Universalist around the park from my job. bit of a drive on a day when i don't normally go anywhere but whatever. and on their website it says their summer services are Themed (this year's Theme is The Creative Spirit) and what the service seems to consist of mostly is a bit of drumming and a Chalice (i don't think you drink from it. i think it's ceremonial). and like. folks talkin'. and that's it! which is my ISSUE. like...it seems to EASY. like what i just go there and it's like a weekend class up at chautauqua where some hippie gets enthused about the spirit for a bit and then you leave feeling like you had a fun time but not like, a religiously challenging one? like, is that allowed? is this allowed? like it feels like it doesn't COUNT you know what i mean? like that's not church that's a free music class with a demographic (middle aged ladies who enjoy a good crystal store). what am i supposed to do with THAT. it's too EASY!

the next loosest church is the episcopal one next door to my job. oldest church in the diocese, beautiful dark stone, red door, the works. never been inside but due to its proximity to my work and the great architecture i have had a lot of dreams about what i imagine its interior to look like. this church is like catholic lite as a friend (who i did meet at chautauqua also) once described it. they have a sermon and some prayers and what is called a Healing something after the mass. which i guess is not a mass, it's just a service, huh, because only catholic churches have masses. between where i live and the town where i work are like thirty miles of small "nondenominational" protestant cult churches who are all salivating for new members, which is obviously out of the question. and i'm like in this quandry okay.

which is insane. i feel like i SHOULD go to the episcopal church because a) they said they have some kind of health prayer and i have been particularly concerned with my health over the last month or two which is part of why i'm so stressed i feel the need to go to church, and if i go to the place without the healing prayer i may not have good health. which is obviously a buck wild thought but not one i can easily let go of now that i've had it. and b) because it sounds like Church. like you go there and you say some hail marys, presumably, or something similar, and a guy gets up in a robe and says his opinions on something which you don't really agree with but you sit through it anyway and try not to be too visibly upset when he he hauls off with something really messed up. and then afterward he lays on his hands or something. and maybe this church would NOT have a guy who hauls off with messed up stuff in the homily. maybe he really does accept everybody and pray for peace and all that. maybe so. maybe my biases and my fears are steering me here. and that's the other thing because the UU thing sounds FUN. church is not really intended to be fun in my imagination. it's an obligation that you fulfill in order to get good fortune out of it if you are polite enough to god in the process. even though every religious person i've ever spoken to describes god and grace as non-transactional, the culture tells me that it absolutely IS: when you're low on good emotional stuff or you want some boon you think is ungettable, they'll say 'go to church'. which indicates that there's some transaction taking place, no, that you attend and THEN you receive blessing. blessing does not get to you unless you fulfill your end of a bargain which includes acquiescing to the church itself. the Fun Spiritual Experience sounds too fun to get you that. like i would go and have fun, but would my life get better? would i regret it because it felt like i was wasting time when i needed to be going to a place where i could get a guarantee that i would be healthy during a busy work week which is all i really want right now, to be healthy this week so i don't disrupt the workflow when everybody's schedules are out of whack? it feels like going somewhere just to have fun does NOT net you that. you have to go to a place that does not give you fun and you have to submit to the rigors. or there's no exchange, there's no offering taking place, is there? you're just indulging yourself, at which point you might as well stay home