Church

So my friend Kim wanted to go to church today because she's exploring the different churches in the area and she wanted a buddy to go with her so I volunteered. Well, we went to Calvary Baptist Church. If you know me and my religious views, you know this would be a bit...interesting... I am part Wiccan, part Buddhist, and part Science of Mind (refer back to my blog post where I talk about my church ACSL). I wasn't too enthused about going to a church where they praise Jesus like a he's a God himself and where they focus on intense religious aspects. It's not that I mind what they believe, it's just that I don't really like to go with it. Anyway, we get there and something happened while we were there.

During the service it finally clicked on what my church has been telling me for ages. It's something I've known for years, but I don't think that I fully grasped it mind and soul until today. God is in everything, and you should be able to see it in everyone and everything. As Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, puts it, "He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self i all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye." That saying is on a poster in my dorm room, and I see it every day. In church they tell us the same basic thing over and over again. And I thought I understood that. Apparently I was wrong.

While I was at the CBC, I realized that I hadn't gotten it at all. I was trying to see myself in the people there, and I couldn't do it. I tried to be open minded but I wasn't. All I could think about was how I didn't believe what they said and if they found out what I really thought they'd all go insane trying to save my soul and how I had to pretend that I agreed with everything the way everyone else did so that I wouldn't draw more attention to myself than I already had by being one of the few younger people in the congregation. Then, while we were singing hymns, I started singing the song Spirit in the House, by Jami Lula, and then it all clicked.

Suddenly I felt love and compassion towards everyone in the building. Suddenly, it didn't matter that what I felt was different, because I could feel where they were coming from in the depths of my being. I could find the part of me that was in them and the part of them that was in me and suddenly, we were family. I felt love and compassion for them as I would never have expected and suddenly I was bursting with joy and happiness that I immediately started radiating into the room. It wasn't until that moment, when I was surrounded by people that I would never be with, that I finally got it.

Sure, it's easy to accept people who are similar to yourself. It's easy to see yourself in others and others in yourself when you are on a similar wavelength. It's so much harder to do the same thing with people that are completely different from yourself. I didn't really understand that to the core of my being until today, surrounded by people that I would never have surrounded myself by willingly. It's like Jesus said, "Love your enemies." (at least, I think that's what he said). Yeah, it's easy to love your friends and family, but it's so much harder to really love you enemies. It's taken me years to actually get this. In my head I understood, but it wasn't until today that my heart learned it, too.