But I attended mass today. Actually for the past two weeks but I don't count last week because the enormous amount of infant vocalizations made it near impossible to pay attention.
Now at this point I consider myself a wrestling Christian. You know that Old Testament story where Jacob wrestled with God and didn't quit until God wrenched his hip? I'm past the hip and I'm still grappling. Why are monogamous homosexual relationships wrong? Is hell a place of eternal torture or do you get consumed completely and are no more? Can the bible be trusted? I'm fairly sure that this mental grappling only serves as a catalyst for depressive episodes.
This morning, however, in the towering vaulted sanctuary area, between the tall stained glass windows, all those thorny questions and depressive feelings fell aside and my brain was lifted up by gentle, careful hands, placed and wrapped in the neurochemical equivalent of a warm blanket. There was Something Bigger there and while I was within those walls I could just exist and let It sort stuff out. I didn't want to leave. I stayed for a good fifteen minutes after everyone had left and that was a good fifteen minutes after the mass was over.
I wish there was a way to package that and release it whenever my mood starts to head south. I know there's meditation, in which I could visualize a sanctuary-like space, but I've never been good at being unaware of my surroundings, and I don't think it would compare well to actually being in such a place.
Needless to say I will be going back. Perhaps repeated exposure to the sanctuarial, benevolently spiritual environment will imprint on my mind, thus allowing the feeling of existing in that space to stay with me during the times I am not there.
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