deep thoughts

i saw an interesting discussion on the program univers on DR2 on the subject of people who are combining christianity and buddhism. there was a clip from the dalai lama's last visit to denmark, where he was saying that it's best for us to hold on to our religious background from the standpoint that our culture and sense of ourselves are so grounded in it. they talked to a woman whose home was filled with buddhas and jesus and mary icons side by side and who seemed like a peaceful, grounded, serene person. frankly, we could use some peaceful grounded serenity around here.

i've already been mulling over the whole religion question for awhile now, since spud wrote her god post. when she wrote that it occurred to me that you could be raised a church-goer without necessarily being raised religious. or at least you definitely can if you were raised presbyterian, as i was. we went to church every sunday, mostly because mom is the choir director and she had to be there. we tended to drop it over the summer, as we were showing horses every weekend and weren't home. mom's choir took a break over the summer as well. it's just how it was. dad went regularly only during april when he was an usher. mostly because church tended to interfere with football on sundays and being able to see the start of the games.

church served, in my view, a largely social function. i loved to dress up and we dressed up for church. i remember one year where it was my goal not to wear the same dress twice. and as i recall, i succeeded. we had a big fellowship hall at our church and the kids were actually able to do quite a lot of rambunctious running around. we had a wednesday youth group that took a yearly ski trip and it's where i learned to ski. but again, i remember it mostly as social and not as religious per se.

the little town of 1300 people where i grew up had no less than 12 churches. so on the surface it would look pretty religious. some were tiny little splinter churches that had broken off one of the others when something or other didn't function socially or they didn't like the minister. but again, it was a question of social relations more than doctrine. at christmastime and around the 4th of july, there are always community church services, where all of the congregations come together for community services, leaving aside whether they're bible beaters, catholics, dutch reformed or calm, understated lutherans or presbyterians. that was a good occasion for socializing.

i experienced some of the other churches, going with friends or a boyfriend, so i got a taste of some of the more fringe movements, where the preacher was a bit more aggressive in asking people to be born again and such. i never really got that, thinking i'd done quite ok being born the first time, thank you very much.

my sister and i weren't baptized as babies because our parents thought (at least at the time) that we should choose that for ourselves and know what it was we were getting into. i so love and respect that thought. and as a result, sabin's not baptized either. here in denmark, around 15, kids go to confirmation classes and they choose whether to confirm their baptism. if sabin chooses to go through that, she will also have to be baptized at that time. but at least it will be her choice.

the religion subject also came up of late because sabin has chosen to attend something called mini-konfirmand. the danish church, which is lutheran and a state church, is struggling in the face of irrelevance. people use the church for the big three - birth, marriage, death - but generally there aren't many who regularly attend sunday services. there is a very dynamic, lively woman minister at the local church and she's simply awesome with the kids, so sabin loves her wednesday mini-konfirmand sessions. they play games, build a few bible stories in lego and spend time in beautiful surroundings full of designer furniture and lamps (since it's a state church and the danish state is apparently keeping its assets in arne jacobsen chairs and PH lamps).  her best friends are there and she has a ball. so again, it's serving a social function.

one wednesday a month, they have "god & spaghetti" where you go as a family at 5:30, have a quick 20 minute service in the church itself (which is a lovely old building), christina, the cool minister, dresses up and pops out of a giant bible and tells some or other bible story and then we go over and eat spaghetti or lasagna and salad and socialize with the other kids and parents. and i hate to keep repeating myself, but again, it's largely a social thing.

but all of this undoubtedly proves what the dalai lama said about our religion being rooted in our culture. in that little town where i grew up, it would have been hard to be a member of the society without identifying with one of the churches in town, because it served such a social function. and i'm sure people there wouldn't like to look closely at it, but the various denominations had a definite class designation and hierarchy in the scheme of the social structure of the town as well.

so where does this leave me? especially when i'm in need of some peaceful grounded serenity? which is, admittedly, sometimes lacking in my otherwise extremely secular world view. i think that's the appeal of buddhism for people raised in western christianity. it's something you can do on your own, meditating on a pillow in your own home. it fits our individualistic view and can give us the space we need for quiet contemplation. i wish the program on DR would have gone a bit more in that direction. the woman with buddhas and icons nearly touched on it, but didn't quite. but the program did provoke me to think more about it, so i guess that's the best you can ask from quality television. i hope they do something about the old viking religions, i'd like to know more about those.