TASK #35
“Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, place or creed”. Bertrand Russell.
Some of us worship in churches, some in temples, others in mosques. Some don’t worship at all, and some of us don’t believe in any religion. I myself am a Cat-lick, as pro-nounced by my friend Eric who hales from hills of northern West Virginia, where ignorance is blissful and Cat-licks are as rare as Democrats.
I didn’t come by Catholicism by myself, it was bestowed on me by my parents, and I’m glad they did–not because being a Catholic is better than being, say, a Protestant, or a Muslim; but it does have a lot of cool mysticism and rituals and rites, like fish on Friday, which meant frozen fish sticks when I was a boy, but it was still cool…(please
save the comments on nasty priests and papalism and the secrets of the Vatican–I am a Catholic from backwoods Ohio, which meant drinking at the Sons of Italy, wearing a cross and super sexy Catholic girls in uniforms…)
All that being said, Catholicism, or whatever you practice, is immaterial to this task.
Regardless of how each of us personally feels about religion in general, or specifically about religions that we don’t practice–we ALL have active, daily relationships with people of faiths other than our own.
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Regardless of how each of us personally feels about religion in general, or specifically about religions that we don’t practice–we ALL have active, daily relationships with people of faiths other than our own. In my circle of friends are Catholics, Jews, Born Again Christians, Muslims, Mormons, Presbyterians, and a couple of Lutherans. No Jehovah Witnesses, however. And when I was a kid, there was a wooden church that my friends said was a church of Holy Rollers, whatever that meant. But I’ll bet in one or two degrees of separation, I know a Roller and a Witness as well.
Plus there’s my dentist, who is an Indian–from India, who I suspect is a Hindu. All of these people exist in a smallish town in a red state. In short, we are surrounded by people of other faiths. But what was the last time you entered a house of worship other than your own? Have you to a wedding at a temple? A baptism at a church? A funeral at a mosque? If you have, that’s great, but it doesn’t count. You were invited and weddings aside, you were probably forced to go.
So I had a Jewish friend take me to a service at his temple. When I first asked, he looked at me like a Rabbi looks at pork loin–he was mighty suspicious. But I wore him down, and one Saturday I found myself walking into Beth El Shalom. It was instructive. Solemn. Not particularly interactive, but heartfelt and inclusive. I wore a yarmulke. And I looked good in it.
TASK:
Now it’s your turn. Go to a church or a mosque or a temple or the cinder block building out in the country where they consider fiddling with rattlesnakes a religion and attend a service. If you can, go with someone of that religion so that you can ask questions. Be respectful and try to learn something, then go home and write it all down in your notebook.