Proud supporter of the Liminal State Bobcats
As previously documented, I do my best thinking in the shower. The shower is where I came up with my Biggest, Bestest Conclusion for my Race and Ethnicity class last semester. Today, however, I realized that, despite the fact that I am now officially a Religious Studies minors, I don’t actually ever think about religion in a non-historical fashion. I think of doctrine in terms of “this denomination believed in x, y, and z.” I can rattle off the particularities of a dozen different religions. I examine them in their historical context, noting how they are influenced by society, and how they influence society in turn. And I think about what they may have meant to the people around them.
But as a non-believer, I find it incredibly difficult to look beyond the historical fact of a religion. Today for my Religious Studies class, I was asked to apply a model of liminality to the Shakers of the 19th century. I understand the theory. I understand the Shakers. But placing them in this concept-- that their enthusiastic worship style was perhaps a response to growing industrialization and offered a chance for everyone to come together on equal footing, as a community, without a conflicting personal identity-just blew my mind. And I found it so incredibly cool. I mean, I’ve thought about religion a lot. And why I don’t believe in god, but why I think it would be very comforting to believe in a god, and why I still don’t. And I get that religion serves many purposes, especially as a way to unite a community, etc, etc. But I just stood in the shower today and thought about religion in a way that I’ve never really approached it before.
It makes me want to take more anthropology classes, because for once this semester, I was actually excited to sit down and write a reading response, because I finally have something to say that hasn’t been beaten to death in class. I almost feel like I did in the aforementioned Race and Ethnicity class, where I was constantly in awe of all the connections and new ideas that really pushed the limits of the way I look at the world, and made me think about really difficult concepts in a way that I could still understand.
And that’s why my shower was so long tonight.
And instead of writing my reading response, I wrote this instead.
Maybe I’ll go take another shower…
But as a non-believer, I find it incredibly difficult to look beyond the historical fact of a religion. Today for my Religious Studies class, I was asked to apply a model of liminality to the Shakers of the 19th century. I understand the theory. I understand the Shakers. But placing them in this concept-- that their enthusiastic worship style was perhaps a response to growing industrialization and offered a chance for everyone to come together on equal footing, as a community, without a conflicting personal identity-just blew my mind. And I found it so incredibly cool. I mean, I’ve thought about religion a lot. And why I don’t believe in god, but why I think it would be very comforting to believe in a god, and why I still don’t. And I get that religion serves many purposes, especially as a way to unite a community, etc, etc. But I just stood in the shower today and thought about religion in a way that I’ve never really approached it before.
It makes me want to take more anthropology classes, because for once this semester, I was actually excited to sit down and write a reading response, because I finally have something to say that hasn’t been beaten to death in class. I almost feel like I did in the aforementioned Race and Ethnicity class, where I was constantly in awe of all the connections and new ideas that really pushed the limits of the way I look at the world, and made me think about really difficult concepts in a way that I could still understand.
And that’s why my shower was so long tonight.
And instead of writing my reading response, I wrote this instead.
Maybe I’ll go take another shower…