I have a story...
...and I'm here to tell it.
Religion and other such things.... 
11th-Jan-2007 11:58 pm
THE kiss
At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing....

Lately, I'd say since before Christmas, I've just been overly into being religious. Made a worship CD for my mom for Christmas and burned a copy for myself and have been listening to it, no pun intended, religiously since Christmas. I've always been religious, I grew up in my church, went to church with friends, did like 10 different youth groups up through high school, I used to be in the choir, I've sung many a duets with my cousin and now, I try to go to church as much as possible. In my house its pretty much an unspoken rule that when you get to be a certain again, usually 16ish, you're not going to be forced to go to church anymore, but I never even had to think twice about continuing to go. My brother and my one sister stopped going and have never come back. My other sister is being a good daughter and raising her kids in our church, and I'm being a good daughter by particpating as much as I can. My dad has never gone to church as long as I can remember. My mom goes every Sunday without fail.

My family has been in that church for some insane amount of time, like 80 years...like my mom's grandparents went there, and so on and so forth. I love going to church, I don't always pay attention because I'm ADD but I'm there; I love my "church family" most of which who have known me since I was born. Its just something I know will ALWAYS be there, no matter what, which is a lot more than I can say about a lot of other things in my life. Making profession of faith (which is like first communion, except, we don't do it until you're teenagers...so like a combination of first comm and confirmation) was one of happiest times of my life. I was 15 and life was so much different and less complicated then but I finally felt like I member of my church, a contributing member. My two cousins who are around my same age made it with me and we sang a special song, just the three of us. It was great, and I miss feeling like that. Feeling excited about God and church and such.

The big contradiction here is we're not a hugely religious family in the sense that we live by the "rules." We're mean, we're rude, we swear like truckers, my whole family drink like sailors, we all smoke like chimineys....not that all of that is technically sinning, at least not in my religion, but in retrospect, it could be considered a less than holy way to live.

Personally, I dont pray a lot or nearly as often as I should. I mean things have to be going extremely horrible for me to actually pray. My conduct on a daily basis is a less than stellar reflection on my religion and beliefs, but at the same time, I believe in God. I believe in everything I've been taught, for the most part, I believe in everything my church preaches about. I love God. I love worshiping Him and singing songs to glorify Him. Sometimes I feel as though I need to be ashamed of that because I have so many friends now who either aren't religious at all, or have different views or religions than I do. And to further that, I feel like I can't put lyrics to my favorite hymns or worship songs in my profile or away message. Its a stupid childish thing to feel, but I do, and I don't know why. Its not a part of myself I choose to show to people and that makes me feel really guilty. I'm not even catholic!

I honestly don't know exactly what point I'm trying to make, but I just needed to sort out my own feelings. A lot of that has to do with some crazy family shit that is going on right now; something that has literally pulled the rug out from underneath my entire family, and a lot it has to do with the fact that I've been doing a lot of thinking and soul searching lately. I mean literally, one of the first things I did when I decided I was going to LA for the summer was go onto my denomination's website and see if I could find a church to go to while I'm out there. Unfortunately, most of them are either asian or hispanic oriented, which isn't saying I wouldn't go because of that, but upon visisting the individual churches websites, it was clear that they didn't speak english, which means, I can't go. I did find what looks to be a good church, but its a little ways from LA, but I'm willing to make the trip.

Moral of the story? While I may appear to have no morals, I do. And I love God and I'm not ashamed to tell you! Heh that rhymed.

Anyways, I gotta go to bed. I have at 9 am. Eck. If I'm MIA for the next couple weeks its because I'm staying with an 18 year old developmentally challenged girl while her parents are on vacation, and I don't know what their computer situation is there...but they do have a jacuzzi bathtub, so you know where I'll be.

P.S. Just a favor...if you do pray, pray for my family because they really need it. Thank you.
12th-Jan-2007 06:03 am (UTC)
I'm an atheist. Therefore, I have nothing to say.
12th-Jan-2007 06:08 am (UTC)
You DID have SOMETHING to say, you stupid kitty...
12th-Jan-2007 06:11 am (UTC)
I'm in your icon and it's really freaking me out.

btw, enough with the derogatory terms.
12th-Jan-2007 06:33 am (UTC)
You know, for an Agnostic, I think about religion a lot, too. One of the things I miss about going to church is having that stability. Just knowing that so many people are there for me if I need it. But I guess at the same time, I still have that with my friends. I totally know what you mean about the comfort and stability, though.

And if you need to talk, you know I'm around. Although I don't really pray, I'll be sending good thoughts your way.
12th-Jan-2007 07:41 pm (UTC)
Thank you :-)
12th-Jan-2007 03:27 pm (UTC)
Ok, so I like how we barely know each other but I'm commenting on a really personal post...but here it goes, lol.

I totally don't know what denomination you are, but I found this really amazing Episcopal church out here. Like, really amazing. And I don't really do the church thing. My family did/does. But I'm one of those people who quit going as soon as I wasn't being forced.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that if you're interested, we should go together when you're out here. Cuz a church buddy is a good thing. I might actually go more than once every six months... ;)
12th-Jan-2007 07:45 pm (UTC)
I'm glad you posted :-) I'm assuming we should get to know each other at some point or another!

I would love to go to that church and I would love to go together. Church buddies are the best. Jess even said she would go when I told her about the church I found, so we could make it a weekly bi-monthly thing!

I'm Christian Reformed which is just straight up run of the mill protestant, and all the churches I found in LA, like I mentioned in my post, are all hispanic or asian, and I'm not down with that, lol. The one that looks really good is in Long Beach and I mapquested it, and its a little ways, but I would be willing to go every once in a while.

Anyways, now that I'm done ranting...thanks for commenting!!
12th-Jan-2007 08:25 pm (UTC)
We should all go! And we could even go to temple with Jess for good measure. ;)

Episcopalian is also basically protestant. This particular church is also very liberal and extremely politically active. They regularly host people like Gore, Edwards...even Desmond Tutu.

And yeah, Long Beach is hella far away. Though on a Sunday morning you could probably get there in about 45 minutes.

Whoot! Church buddy! ;)
12th-Jan-2007 08:34 pm (UTC)
Yeah, a friend of the family, who was like a grandpa to me, was an episcopalian priest, but the church he was at was very very traditional and almost identical to catholic church.

I mapquested to the Long Beach church at it said 43 minutes, lol...good estimate!

Church wins!
12th-Jan-2007 03:36 pm (UTC)
I am an atheist, but I believe that you should never be ashamed of your religion. It's cool with me--as long as it doesn't get pushed on me, and I know you wouldn't do that. So put up those away messages, chicka!
12th-Jan-2007 07:47 pm (UTC)
Thank you =) I think part of the reason I kinda keep it to myself is because I feel like telling people will make them uncomfortable or even think I'm trying to push it on them, which like you said, I wouldn't do.

So another New Years Res is to not be ashamed! I'm workin on it
12th-Jan-2007 08:59 pm (UTC)
Sometimes I think I do act negatively toward openly religious people, only because I sometimes feel like they'll be ultra conservative and hate me. Which is me generalizing and being unfair... But with you, I don't think that. So rock on, sister!
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