I've never been an avid church goer. The few memories of church I have are mainly rooted in experiences from early childhood, when I spent my summers with my grandparents. Sunday mornings would always start earlier than any other day, and I would always resent the fact that I had to be dragged along to Sunday worship. On the ride there, there was hardly any conversation, just the gospel station playing some slow-tempo,
melancholy melody that seemed to last for longer than three minutes and thirty seconds. I never understood why we only listened to the gospel station on Sundays before church. I guess this routine was the source for my anxiety towards gospel music; I still can't listen to a church hymn without feeling oddly
foreign. The church of choice for my grandparents was our family church. It was no stranger to age, a small building that you'd definitely pass right by without noticing if you weren't looking for it. The congregation was all family: blood relatives of mine. Except for the poor
occasional boyfriend or girlfriend or
colleague that got suckered into coming for a visit. Most people only visited once, especially those who randomly came upon the church with no ties to any of the family, my family. Looking back now, I imagine they must have been taken aback by the service. It was an interesting service, alright. After loitering about the pews and making idle conversation for about an hour past the intended start of
services, everyone would shuffle to their places and get settled in for about another five minutes. Once the old women were situated with their paper fans and us children had been hushed, we would open up with hymns. The longest preamble to anything I've ever witnessed were those hymns before service. There would be a jumble of different ranges singing one song, some voices in tune, others hopelessly lost in another key. I would always look around to see those who remained seated, swaying along to the singing, but with lips closed. They were the non-members, non-family. I'm reminded of this image
every time I visit a new church and the parish stand to rejoice in hymn, while I remain seated, a foreigner in familiar territory. After rambling through about three or four of never-ending hymns, the pastor would take the pulpit and share some verses, which he would expand upon endlessly. It was the
length of service that bothered me most. At the age of six or seven, no child wants to sit anywhere for hours on end. And even though my grandmother tucked away fruit roll-ups in her purse to
disperse to me, my cousin, and my brother mid-service, I soon developed a feeling of
indifference toward church service, a feeling that spilled over into my perception of any church I visited afterward, no matter what the message was. Though I attended the church in the summertime until around the age of eleven, I remember the times surrounding six and seven most
vividly. Maybe it's because those were the ages when it no longer was acceptable to sleep through service. Though I still wasn't quite old enough to understand the sermons, I remember getting an occasional nudge from my grandma if I began to doze. Sometimes it was just a side look from her that would remind me of my new duty: stay awake, even if service stretches out from 2 hours to 4. The closing of service was about the only thing longer than the opening, however. This was the time when any one present in the church who had a word or two to share with everyone could stand up and speak. Though they hardly had just a few words to share. A regular speaker was one of my uncles. He always had something to say, and I learned to associate his presence at the pulpit with an extra 20-30 minutes tagged on to the closing of service. He never failed to put his word out, and half the time, the topics would soon stray to something not so close to church. It didn't take long for me to get used to this pattern of religion, and as soon as I got used to it, I began to resent it. I never even actually payed any attention to the bible until I was in my teens, around 14, but I can remember feeling anxious on
Sunday mornings as far back as age 7.
That's 7+ years of having a clouded view of religion. As you can imagine, I never really developed close emotional ties to church those years or to anything that related to it...prayer, gospel music, living the so-called Christian Lifestyle. All of these things I related with others, not myself. I never could imagine myself as a Christian, even though I was never a troublesome child.
In fact, I began to build a guilt because of the lack of feeling I had towards my family's religion, my religion. I thought that since I felt "
un-Christian" it was also obvious to everyone else I knew, like some one had written across my forehead "WARNING: NOT A TRUE CHRISTIAN!". Every time I had a conversation with a friend about religion and I said I was Christian, I could hear a little voice in my head scream: "
IMPOSTOR! YOU DON'T REALLY LOVE JESUS!
LIER!". I became paranoid that once my friends found out my real feelings towards church that I would lose them. Even today, I feel ill-at-ease conversing heavily about church matters or the bible. It wasn't until recently that I began to think that maybe it was okay to veer from Christianity. Now, I am in no way downing the religion, but somethings just aren't for everybody. Breath, sleep, eat,
grow-up: these things everybody must do, and I don't think I'll hear any one complaining seriously about having to breath to stay alive anytime soon. But things like the clothes you choose to wear, the people you choose to hang around, the advice you choose to follow, the way you choose to present yourself, the things you choose to do, they all have one thing in common: you choose them. And choosing something other than what the person next to you has chosen doesn't make you a bad person. It took me 9 years to realize this. But finally I have, and I am beginning to look beyond religion and what others expect of me. I'm focusing more on me. I'm looking for ways to further myself, as an individual and a member of society. And whether or not I have to use religion to get to a higher place is slowly becoming less of a concern for me. Yes, there are still days when that relentless guilt strikes me and I feel the need to crack open my dusty bible and kneel and pray awhile, but I am slowly internalizing that a "non-Christian" is by no means a "non-good-person". I still call myself christian, but now I've begun to lean more towards agnostic beliefs. And that does not make me a bad person. I am still a spiritual person, and I do believe there is a God. But I'm beginning to discover God for myself, without just going by what others believe. Thank God for that.
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