TASK #30: ALL ARE WELCOME
“Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, place or creed”. Bertrand Russell.
I am a Catholic. Or a Cat-lick, as the old man next door calls me. He’s about 80 years old, and moves around with a walker, but he’s still spry enough, and mean enough, to pour motor oil on his stoop every Halloween just to watch kids slip and fall. Now, with the recent scandal in Pennsylvania blowing up, he’s taken to calling me cat-lick queer, and other such things, and I don’t have an answer for him–but it does make my blood boil…
With the recent scandal in Pennsylvania blowing up, he’s taken to calling me cat-lick queer, and other such things, and I don’t have an answer for him–but it does make my blood boil…
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But it’s not Catholics that I want to talk about. I just want to talk about religion in general. 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. Your personal feelings about religion are immaterial in terms of this task.
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.
Plus there’s my dentist, who is an Indian, 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 thought that I should at least check out another religion. Go to a service. I asked a Jewish friend take me to a service at his temple. It was instructive. Solemn. Not particularily 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.
Photos by Angelo SARTORI on Unsplash, and courtesy of the author