(no subject)
Sometimes I wonder if I might not end up a Catholic. And sometimes I'm dead certain Catholicism is everything that's wrong with organized religion today.
I've never been a very religious person. I declared myself an atheist in seventh grade and eventually (to grossly oversimplify matters) wound up considering myself an agnostic. And yet the more I grow up and the more I learn about myself and the world around me, the more I get in touch with my spiritual side. Sometimes I feel that there are aspects of religion that are very important to me. Sometimes it all makes sense. There's always been something about people who have their own deep religious feeling that I've been somewhat awed by, and certainly that I respect greatly. Michelangelo, for instance - he underwent a profound religious transformation in his last years, it's all over his art.
Case in point: I spent the afternoon wandering around Rome, like I do sometimes and need to do more often in the small amount of time I have left, and I wandered into a small church in an out-of-the-way part of town, off the main roads. It was not a sunny day out and the place was very poorly lit. There was nobody there but me, two monks sitting by the door…and God. I don't know what it was. There was something about being in there, essentially alone, with the piers of this tiny, intimate church rising around me in the semi-darkness, that really connected with me. It was almost a mystical experience. Maybe I'm overestimating its importance in the long run, but I thought I finally understood what it was all about.
But on the other hand, a couple weeks ago, I was in Santa Maria Maggiore (one of Rome's biggest basilicas) on All Saints' Day. The place was a madhouse due to the crowds, and the building itself was as huge and richly decorated (read: downright gaudy) as any I've ever seen. How can one possibly have the kind of experience there that I had elsewhere?
And then I remember the history of the Catholic Church and everything it's stood for over the years, and the things it still stands for, how it venerates tradition over the kind of personal spirituality that I go in for and even the Bible, and I shudder.
And then I think of the importance of habits and traditions in our daily lives and how meaningful these things might actually be in a religious context, and I wonder…
I wonder if I'll be one of those crotchety old atheistic men out of a novel or a movie who finds religion in his old age.
More some other time about last week and so forth, but this needed to happen no
I've never been a very religious person. I declared myself an atheist in seventh grade and eventually (to grossly oversimplify matters) wound up considering myself an agnostic. And yet the more I grow up and the more I learn about myself and the world around me, the more I get in touch with my spiritual side. Sometimes I feel that there are aspects of religion that are very important to me. Sometimes it all makes sense. There's always been something about people who have their own deep religious feeling that I've been somewhat awed by, and certainly that I respect greatly. Michelangelo, for instance - he underwent a profound religious transformation in his last years, it's all over his art.
Case in point: I spent the afternoon wandering around Rome, like I do sometimes and need to do more often in the small amount of time I have left, and I wandered into a small church in an out-of-the-way part of town, off the main roads. It was not a sunny day out and the place was very poorly lit. There was nobody there but me, two monks sitting by the door…and God. I don't know what it was. There was something about being in there, essentially alone, with the piers of this tiny, intimate church rising around me in the semi-darkness, that really connected with me. It was almost a mystical experience. Maybe I'm overestimating its importance in the long run, but I thought I finally understood what it was all about.
But on the other hand, a couple weeks ago, I was in Santa Maria Maggiore (one of Rome's biggest basilicas) on All Saints' Day. The place was a madhouse due to the crowds, and the building itself was as huge and richly decorated (read: downright gaudy) as any I've ever seen. How can one possibly have the kind of experience there that I had elsewhere?
And then I remember the history of the Catholic Church and everything it's stood for over the years, and the things it still stands for, how it venerates tradition over the kind of personal spirituality that I go in for and even the Bible, and I shudder.
And then I think of the importance of habits and traditions in our daily lives and how meaningful these things might actually be in a religious context, and I wonder…
I wonder if I'll be one of those crotchety old atheistic men out of a novel or a movie who finds religion in his old age.
More some other time about last week and so forth, but this needed to happen no