I’ve lived in Madison County for nearly fifty years and have long understood the importance of Christianity in the community. One only has to drive around the county and observe the number of churches in every hamlet and hollar to know the significance of church in people’s lives. After land and family, nothing plays a role equal to church and god.
For years after moving here, I would be asked to come to church with local people I met. I never went. When asked, I would respond that I was raised a devout Catholic, a long-time altar boy who pondered becoming a priest. A trip to Rome when I was twenty, and a growing involvement with social issues, moved me away from all organized religion. People seemed to accept that reasoning.
But, while I didn’t attend church, I did often help neighbors with their tobacco and tomatoes. I shared many meals with folks and the stories and laughter that came with the food and fellowship. I drove elderly members of the community to the doctor, to the grocery store and visited them in the hospital. I attended weddings and grieved over lost loved ones.
I think most of us have a need for spirituality in our lives. Spirituality gives us meaning, and hope, and, quite simply, it makes us feel good about who we are.
Spirituality takes many forms and means different things to different people. But I’m also struck by the similarities, at least, in gesture. In my yoga practice, we do a movement called sun salutations, where we open our hands wide, and spread our arms, lifting them and our whole bodies to embrace the light. It reminds me of christians, both black and white, lifting their hands to the heavens, surrendering to god. For some of us, spirituality resides in good works, improving our communities, involvement with our neighbors, making a positive difference in the lives of others. And for some of us, spirituality lives in what is seen as the word of god and what they perceive that word of god is telling them, and the rest of us, to do. And for many of us in our community, spirituality lives in our work, our art, our music, our stories, and seeing the joy and knowledge they bring to people’s lives.
Yesterday’s rally for life at the courthouse didn’t lack for spirituality. There was singing, and preaching, quotes from the bible, much lifting up their arms to the lord, and much talk of the evils in our world, primarily abortion. For me, it was an old-world type of spirituality: paternalistic, narrow, our god is the only god, and scary. It mostly reminded me of theocratic societies in the middle east, or a scene from The Handmaids Tale.
But I don’t doubt people’s sincerity, or their right to believe what they want to believe. But, just as folks at the rally would never adhere to my way of thinking, or doing; I do not believe they have the right to impose their beliefs on me.
