OK, so both Catholicism and the Ashram were sort of busts, but I am nothing if not tenacious, so I kept looking!!
My next stop was the Unitarian church. Seemed good in theory -- a bunch of people who believe in God and/or want some sort of spiritual practice but don't want to commit to any centralized dogma or political agendas. Its purpose is to serve as a community for a diverse group of spiritual seekers. I *really* thought I'd found my niche. Except that, did you ever pour a glass of wine and get all excited by how pretty and rich it looked, only to take that first sip and discover it was watery and weak? That's how the Unitarian Church was for me. Every time I went I just wanted to hear someone (anyone!) actually say that they believed in something (anything!!). It was a whole lot of "weeeelllll, maaayyybe" and "OK, so IF there's a God" and "Merry Chri.....I mean, Happy Chau......uh, Salome?. Oh, sorry" I felt like screaming at the entire congregation to just grow some balls and take a stand on something (anything!).
Less obsessive seekers might have gone with the 3-strikes-you're-out rule.
I took a hiatus of sorts when I was in graduate school. Life in publish-or-perish academia, surrounded by hard-core science types, is an interesting place for someone who holds a deep belief in God. Grant submissions and statistical analyses are as close as most people get to a spiritual practice. The academic's feeling about religion was that it was reserved for people who lacked the intellectual sophistication to understand that there was no such thing as God. We were Scientists! We knew that only fools believed in things that couldn't be measured.
I never really understood the split between science and God. The further I got in my education, the more I knew about science, the MORE I came to believe in God. I studied developmental neuroscience -- the growth of the brain from a wee embryo and into adulthood. I pondered the development of a neuron and how it was affected by its environment. I had debates about the functional and molecular aspect of neural plasticity. I marveled at the complexity of the human brain.
I saw God in every cell.
Every new research paper I read... Every bit of data I collected... Every hypothesis I tested... They all affirmed my belief in the overwhelming perfection of humanity. My study of neuroscience granted me an unshakable faith that there is no way that the miraculous perfection of the human brain could spring from anything other than Divinity. From God.
But where was the language to express this belief? I had already learned that, for me, it wasn't the language of Catholicism. Or the Ashram. Or the Unitarian Church. It certainly wasn't the language of science.
If I were a different person, I might not have needed a language or a community. Many people create beautiful and solitary spiritual practices and never have a need for the structure of a community. I am not those people though and I knew I needed something. So I kept trying.
Next on the list was the Episcopal Church. The "kinder, gentler" Catholics. I was living in the greater-NYC area at the time and I was blessed with the opportunity to attend services at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Regardless of your religious affiliation (or lack thereof) if you ever have the opportunity to go there, please do. It's a magical and sacred place. I cherished every moment I spent there. The Episcopal Church solved many of the problems I had with the Catholic Church -- women and gays could be priests, divorce was not condemned, Papal authority was not an issue. St. John's had a wonderful priest and, more often than not, his homilies moved me to tears. Still though, there was the whole Jesus thing. I just couldn't get my head around worshiping God as the Trinity. I couldn't accept that Jesus was any more of an Angel than any of the other Divine souls who have walk (and still walk)this Earth.
Honestly? I think I could have let it go. I think I would have continued to go the Mass every Sunday and bask in the beauty of the homilies and in the sacredness of the Cathedral.
OK -- time to get the kidlets to bed. If anyone out there is actually reading this story -- I promise I'll wrap it up in a day or two!!
Smooches!
