Do You Attend Worship Services?

I used to go every Sunday, when I practiced Catholicism, but that was a little over five years ago. If I go now, it's to a non-denom service. My views have changed a lot over the past five years.

 

I wouldn't mind playing in the Hanuman Temple band in Taos . In devotion I'll make a flute
of Rio Grande river cane , and make the music that spins .

 

I don't understand worship .

 

I'd ask "how so?" but I probably wouldn't have the slightest inkling what you were on about.

 

(To post 44).Me neither. Would a reasonable deity demand to be worshiped? Why, if so?
My gramma SENT me to a non denominational church, but neither she nor anyone else in my family ever went themselves. I didn't mind it too much, because there were some nice looking and acting girls there.
Went to a Catholic mass once, but the fun was when a couple of dumb-ass guys I knew strolled down the isle playing a Uke. Everyone kind of froze and they worked their way back out of the church, strumming all the way.

 

I attend several. My home base is a United Methodist church. I attend regular service every Sunday. I also occasionally attend Muslim prayer services Friday afternoons at the local mosque. The others are bi-monthly and are primarily discussion groups and Bible study, if they count ( they always open and close with prayers).: Episcopalians, Disciples of Christ, Independent Orthodox, and Catholic. There's also the Free Thinkers monthly for a change of pace. If you've seen the movie Fight Club, the character played by Edward Norton belonged to every support group in town: brain trauma, AA, overeaters anonymous, etc. This is similar. It structures my life, gives me a sizeable social network, focuses my attention on Ultimate Meaning (aka, God) , and gives me perspective on the varieties of religious experience, including the pros and cons of each. Houston Smith regards world religions at their best as the "distilled wisdom of mankind". At their worst, they're distilled folly. Putting them together can give us a balaced picture of humanity, warts and all.

 

3 x a week

 

Do you attend any that aren't for the Abrahamic religions?

 

I think it's highly unlikely that (S)he gives a rats ass whether or not the flea circus we call humanity pays homage. I think prayer and worship are things we do for our own benefit. They're structured in terms of an outside entity, but the purpose is to keep us focused on the transcendental values beyond our immediate egos. I look at it like going to the gym. It's something that needs to be done on a regular basis or I get flabby, spiritually speaking. Our human selves are divided between the pull of everyday material existence and the spiritual dimension that gives our lives significance. Religious ritual keeps us spiritually centered on dharma, reinforcing and conditioning us to overcome the pull of our worldly cravings and desires.

 

I think you do. It's exactly what you think it is.

 

No, unfortunately. I don't think there are any around here. But I read about them, and have been influenced by that. I have a friend who goes off on Buddhist retreats to Colorado, and I might go with him some time. There used to be an ashram in Sand Springs operated by Catholic nuns using eastern liturgy, but that's probably not quite the same and I don't think it's still in operation. I've also undergone Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, which is warmed over Buddhist meditation but again probably not quite the same.

 

Yeah, for learning, I'd like to stretch out into some Buddhism and Hinduism.

 

Oh no, I'm too afraid.

 

I do not understand the ecstasy of worship . And life seems extravagantly weird for
several days after a barista secretly spikes my coffee with it . And have you never
heard Mexican Catholics howl together like demons in the wild ?

 

No, and I've served at many Spanish/Mexican masses.

 

These folks I heard howlin' in the night were at a church camp . Perhaps it was an Aztec/Catholic cult . I was staying
with a hippie commune cult across the road until the very next day . It's religious leader ordered I depart : and then as I
stood alone and troubled a great bird appeared and gave me a nest .

The commune had a daily mandatory worship circle . Not really expecting this when I arrived
to teach school (by sweet invitation) , um , well , I could only be old and free and kind .

 

Sweat Lodges, yuwipis or House Ceremonies, Sun Dances, etc. There is no fixed schedule for any of these. Well---the Sun Dances do happen at a certain time----the Medicine Men perform their own once a year, mostly in the summer. The Medicine Man who I usually sweat with has his Sun Dance on the Pine Ridge reservation around the end of June or the beginning of July depending on the Full Moon. I also go and support at his Vision Quest in Bear Butte which is around the end of May or beginning of June. I have done Vision Quests as well.

About a month or two ago I went to my first peyote ceremony. I will go to another one around the end of this month.

 

its a nice reinforcement to know there are people who share some aspects of your own perceptions.
for nearly 40 years i never missed a 19 day feast, but there is also an aspect of the idea of hierarchy, even spiritual, that i find self defeating.
by that i mean depressing in the clinical sense.

 

I would but there's mostly just churches around here and they're very much not gay friendly and they're actually kind of culty.