Considering My Options

[poliphilo]

Ailz and I have been thinking that  we should check out the Unitarian church- that maybe we'd find we were Unitarians.

So I was reading up about them. They're OK.  Maybe a little on the serious side. I can't find anything to disagree with.

But they're a gang. And I don't want to join a gang. I don't want to go round sporting gang colours.

It suits me better to be out on the margins. It always has done.

Which is why it works for me to attend an Anglican church. Anglicanism is the state religion and everyone who isn't specifically something else is Anglican by default.  Anglicanism isn't a gang; it's an atmosphere. If I became a Unitarian I'd be signing up for something, but by continuing as an Anglican I'm just going to church. There's a difference.
 
I've always been afraid of being co-opted, of becoming one of the crowd.

Or worse, of becoming a spokesman for a particular crowd- where you have to say what the crowd thinks (which is actually what the leader of the crowd thinks) not what you think yourself.

You see them on TV-  the spokesmen and spokeswomen. So carefully turned out, so carefully spoken.

I pity them.

I was like that when I was a vicar. It killed the mischief in me. And what's the use of a priest without mischief?

Comments

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

The religious communities I've actually officially "joined" in adulthood have been Episcopal (Anglican) and then Unitarian Universalist. I've been sort of Quaker-on-the-side, loving the philosophy (seeing "that of God" in everyone; listening for "that of God" to speak in yourself) but missing the liturgy. Now, as you know, I'm planning to visit the Episcopalians again. And they vary SO greatly here in the U.S., from diocese to diocese and even parish to parish.

I don't think UUs here are necessarily smug... but I've seen the type -- interestingly, I also had that experience when I first went from evangelicalism to liberal Episcopalianism -- a sort of patronizing "well, we know better and eventually you will, too."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ritual is important to me too. I don't think I could be happy with a set-up which was all hymns and improvised prayer. I want something that connects me to the past.

Which is probably why I've never tried the Quakers- even though my mother comes from a Quaker family.

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

Our Quakers -- at least this particular brand -- don't even do hymns/prayer. They have silent worship -- which i sometimes appreciate greatly -- punctuated, if and when someone feels "led," by someone standing up and speaking for a minute or two, then more silence, then maybe eventually someone else standing up...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That might suit me.

I like the idea of it, anyhow.

I had a set of magnificent Quaker aunts. One of whom lived to be a hundred. They had been suffragettes and ban-the-bombers. A couple of my early nineteenth century Quaker ancestors were prominent in the anti-slavery movement.

[shullie.livejournal.com]

i don't think I would be able to cut the mustard as a Quaker... to quiet..lol

*them not me.. and that would be the problem!*

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If I'm going to go to church I want candles and vestments and a nice bit of ritual.

The sitting quietly I can do by myself.