Where Am I?
One of the challenges that I’m approaching as part of this internship is finding a solid faith community. At any given time in my faith journey I have split myself up between no less than two, and up to five different worship groups. Sometimes there are a few in the same tradition; for example, I find myself switching among attending the student Catholic mass at BC and the student Catholic mass at BU and the regular Catholic mass at Shrine of St. Anthony’s downtown. And of course, we can’t forget our Protestants: Marsh Chapel, and occasionally an Episcopal parish. These are all communities that at one point in time I have considered myself connected to, and of course, there is the plethora of churches in San Francisco (my hometown) within which I also have roots.
This approach to faith communities has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that I get explore many different styles of worship and practice, and all of them influence my personal, spiritual life. My own spiritual practices are an intricate tapestry of influences from many different Catholic settings and a mix of a number of Protestant ones as well. I also get to satiate my interest in ecclesiastical architecture and examine how different spaces affect worship. I also get to meet so many interesting people, and the flipside is also true: I am not pressured into staying in one community if I feel a pull somewhere else.
There are also distinct disadvantages, though, the main one being a lack of a solid footing in one community. Much of my spiritual energy in college has been spent trying to figure out where I belong, and it wasn’t until junior year that I found some semblance of that, and it was only when I was splitting my time between two communities. I have settled down a little bit, but then I find myself dealing with major time issues on Sunday when I am attending two different services. And through all this, I am plagued by the fact that in less than nine months, I will be starting this whole search over again.
I think the reason why there was a shift junior year was because I was working at the chapel. This affected my “church hopping” for two reasons. One was that I now had actual work during the time when most protestant parishes worship (late morning) so I physically could not be two places at once. The second was that I now had people to actually reflect with and process my experience at any other faith communities I tried out. Freshman and sophomore year, I focused too much energy on finding a faith community that I lost the pleasure in the journey. And even in my current, odd worship situation, there is a certain joy about being able to call my entire Sunday my “church day”. Of course that means I am taking the Sabbath on Monday.