I know that my wife must wonder what goes on in my head sometimes.  I’m not the most chatty individual around and I’m more apt to think instead of speak.  For a long time our family shared no particular religious views except that we didn’t like Christianity (not necessarily Christians, but sometimes, yes, we didn’t and don’t like Christians).  This sentiment apparently resonated so strongly through our household that my daughter ended up fostering a very anti-Christian attitude and ended up more wary and scared of the various branches of Christianity.  She professed at the young age of four that God was the walking tree-guy (whom we refer to as Treebeard) from the Michigan Renaissance Festival which, to me, is fairly accurate.  She’s also professed as she aged that she’s an atheist.  This is fine because it shows she’s at least questioned the idea of God.  I would be more apprehensive about her spiritual leanings if she just toed an organized religious line and never asked about the more complex issues that lie in the belief of God.  My wife is mostly very disinterested in any kind of religion though I believe her spirituality borders on being excessive.  Also, the idea of going to a service is not anywhere on her radar on a Sunday.  Mornings are not kind to her and most religious services are held in the morning hours.  Also, the idea of sitting for an extended length of time doesn’t tickle her fancy either.  So, what must my wife be thinking of me now that I have moved toward organized religion to help in my spiritual casting?  I’m sure I’ll hear it at some point when she feels as though she needs to vent.  This can happen quite often, I’m afraid.

I walked into Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on a warm summer morning this past July.  Why an Episcopal church?  Why Trinity?  Why Christianity?  I’ll answer the simplest question first: I chose Trinity simply because it is amazingly beautiful.  A monastery-like building nestled amongst the tree lined streets in affluent NW Portland, Trinity Cathedral looked like a church that I’d like to attend.  Albeit a bit superficial of myself, my chance encounter with this church while driving through the neighborhood caused me to do some searching.  No, not soul searching; internet searching.  It was through the cathedral’s aesthetic beauty that I learned much about the Episcopal church as I began wading through personal webpages, discussion groups, and church sites.  I realized that the Episcopal church is continuosly in flux, which is good because stagnance can bring down even the mightiest of empires and leave the emperors to burn in their own sedentary fires.  It seemed as though, as I learned more, that the Episcopal church could provide me with the beauty of Catholic meditation, solemness, and reflection without having the rigid structure that is killing the Catholic church so slowly and steadily.  The Episcopal version of Christianity seemed to hold within the grand meeting of Protestant thinking and Catholic ritual.  Women are allowed to lead services and, more recently, gay men and women have been recognized (as human beings!  What is this world coming to?) and also allowed to lead masses.  We are all God’s children, right?  And, locally speaking, Trinity Cathedral has become one of a handful of churches in Oregon to support the equal rights for gay people to not only be joined in union, but to be married in the eyes of the church.  As you can see, this church seemed to hold the promise of thought within ritual; questioning within doctrine; and the undeniable acknowledgement of human spirituality.  I know that Episcopal churches vary from city to city, state to state, and country to country (Anglicans are the root of Episcopals) but, here in Portland, I had seemed to find a home in which I could examine what my thoughts were concerning Christianity all the while participating in my weekly meditation during the services.  I had discovered that the conservative right did not, does not, and will not own Christianity and the basic tenets of social justice, unselfish love, and kindness are still at the heart of all of this.

Soon I will elaborate more on what prompted me to find Christianity and define it in ways I’d never really conceived before this point thanks to the help of Rev. John Shelby Spong and Dr. Cornel West.

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