struggle

This has been going on for a while...

Church, religion, Sundays... How do I even begin to talk about the uniformity of my background. Mark and I both grew up in religious families. We had Sunday school, rituals, books about Peter and Paul. We both grew up with this upbringing that we were accustomed to.

But our kids, what do we give them?

Church?

Teachings?

Moving to a new area brought all of this home to me. And without slipping into a new set of pews every week to find a place of worship, trying on the best fit, if you will. It is an exhausting feat and one that takes compromising and negotiating with one's soul.

Soul.

I had a conversation on this topic with Caleb in the middle of Friday night traffic to get pizza, of all places. It was then that the thought occurred to me.

We don't have to wait around to find a church or place of worship to have opportunities to teach our children about spirituality. It can happen at random intervals, when the topic arises, when questions come up.

I think we put ourselves through too much agony, trying to find this big church family that has been waiting to greet us with welcome arms. Maybe that family has been within the arms of my own little piece of heaven all along.

Maybe we put too much emphasis on the methods and practice of faith, instead of relating to its truer purpose.

Maybe we're doing okay.

The new spirituality is that it will produce an experience in human encounters in which we become a living demonstration of the basic spiritual teaching 'We are all one.'
-Neale Donald Walsch