February 01, 2024 | OPINION | By Linnea Anderson
*Disclaimer: I do not identify with any religion, nor do I consider myself religious. However, I do find interest in the practice and appeal of religion.*
I craved religion my whole life. I sought after the comfort it prescribes, some thin line between fate and freedom.
Prior to visiting the Center for Spiritual Living in Colorado Springs, I attended church only once. It was a Sunday in November in third grade. My friend’s grandmother brought us to her local service. We missed most of the ceremony, corralled in the basement with the rest of the kids. My mom would’ve thrown a fit if she knew I was there, advertently shielding my brother and I from any touch of organized religion our whole childhood.
I remember begging her once to go to church. My friend Annika in preschool told me about it. She said they had candy and gifts. I wanted that too. My mom “knew better,” bred from a lifelong distrust in the middle powers that be.
I thought God was far too fantastical growing up, the image of a man in the sky, who is also, somehow, in everything.
But spirituality crept up on me in high school as friends started practicing strange rituals like oracle cards and meditation. It appealed to me, making sense out of nothing, encapsulating some mystery without explaining it away. I liked that.
So, when a friend told me about her visit to the Center for Spiritual Living in Bellingham, Washington, I thought I would check out one here in Colorado Springs.
I approached the slender brick building on a recent Sunday morning, arriving punctually at 9 a.m. Large banners outside serve as reminders that you are enough, good, welcome, and holy. A Montessori school was nestled to the rear.
“Of course,” I thought. “The one church that appeals to me is physically adjoined to the institution I grew up in.”
Walking briskly to the front doors, I spotted a labyrinth curiously placed on the side of the building, as if it were thrown and discarded like salt over one’s shoulder.
I met the eyes of the receptionist as I walked through the push and pull glass doors.
“Is there a mediation this morning?” I asked, as if not confident of what I read on their website.
“Down the hall and to the left,” he told me.
It had already started. I was late and a little fearful. What am I consciously walking into? Am I conscious?
Long, carpeted, and white corridors diverged into rows of doors. A sterile blanket of the fluorescent light made every room distractingly the same, like an office building. I followed the steps of the woman before me and peaked into the door slowly closing ahead. A warm flicker of light came from the darkened room. I assumed I had found my place.
I shimmied in, realizing that electronic candles sourced the warm glow. A woman’s voice beamed softly. Swoons of ooosand eees echoed, reminiscent of a suburban spa but seemingly originating from the crinkle of a CD boombox.
We sat there a while, occasionally interrupted by a dry hack, someone’s constricted breath, or the quiet murmur of the instructor.
Without pause, the meditation ended, and people filtered back through the corridors, stopping to hug friends, and eventually landing in the main sanctuary.
Music filled the space before all the pastors or people did. Quite good music too, a jazzy four-person assemblage of middle-aged men you might get a beer with. The drummer wore a beanie.
Unpredictable choice, I thought, for church at least.
People took the stage. A few words, some songs, and prayer filled the first dozen minutes or so. I cannot recall in what order, but everything flowed with grace, like they did this often, like it was second nature.
A man took the podium with a sweet and tender sway. He reminded me of the actor Ben Kingsley. I thought it funny as Kingsley played Gandhi in the 1982 film “Gandhi.” Ah, religion, figures.
He spoke a few words and asked who might be new to the community and, timidly, I raised my hand after seeing others do the same.
An elderly man in the second row whipped his head around to see the fresh faces. I found out later he had been a member for over ten years. There was a whole crop of dedicated believers there, half the room claimed to be long-term acolytes.
After the Ben Kingsley lookalike welcomed us, a woman walked through the aisles giving each new member a flower and a clip board to sign up for more information.
I was embarrassingly bashful. I had not received flowers in quite a while.
Slowly, my mom’s voice creeped into my head.
“They got this down to a science,” I clocked. “They know how to make you feel special.”
Appreciative, but hesitant, I swayed in and out of interest as the service progressed—I reengaged as the pastor quoted Ram Dass, curated.
The church, the ideology, centers around the New Thought philosophy of the “Science of the Mind.” The guest speaker, Reverend Mark Gilbert, emphasized the capital “M” in “Mind” as a “field of energy and intelligence” rather than physical matter or general awareness.
Call it woo-woo. You might be right.
He ran through the four main tenets of the religion as described by Ernest Holmes, the founder.
They are as follows, in my words:
- The Thing Itself: Whether it be described as God, spirit, Infinite Intelligence, or the like, it is what Gilbert describes as “the unseen world that we know is there” or the “All.”
- The Way It Works: While the “All” purely exists and might just “be,” to know itself fully, it also creates. It works through us, as its creation, as through atoms, plants, animals, etc. These become expressions of its existence.
- What It Does: In a nutshell, it responds to the consciousness of all things. In inanimate objects, it responds by giving purpose and agency to the object’s form. Humans, who think about their consciousness and can change it, become co-creators as the “spirit” responds to our thoughts and free will.
- How to Use It: Being aware of the creativity of thought means that one can control their consciousness, and therefore, their way of being. Holmes describes this “spiritual consciousness” blankly in the glossary of his fat textbook as “the realization of the divine presence.”
Seems simple enough, I thought.
And it makes sense too, all these people brought together by the idea of something more. To be reminded that they, as humans, as waking animals, as present beings, hold on to a whole lot more than what is physical. What is breaks the fourth wall of our reality.
There is some solace and comfort in that. Again, it is the bridge between freedom and fate.
There are reasons I was not exposed to organized religion, reasons my mom swore it off, and reasons why I am still hesitant to prescribe to a religion today.
Even those with the purest intentions cannot avoid some cultish prescriptions, they cannot avoid power, and they certainly cannot avoid the influence of money.
To me, that does not sit right, nor can I foresee how a religion can be organized while avoiding those pitfalls. It may be an impossible ask, but it is a concern, nonetheless.
They initiated some women into the religion during the service, something I had never seen before. While a simple ceremony, any vow of spiritual respect and dedication turns my stomach.
They handed them flowers and asked the women what they would bring to the community. Their words were scribbled on rocks weighed in the palm of their hands.
“Friendship,” “a calming energy” and “unconditional love in all its forms,” the women spoke in order.
Despite my suspicions, I felt welcome and would return to the Center of Spiritual Living.
I could not help but think about what I would bring to the community if I were up on stage.
In the moment, I returned to the old mantra of Montessori schooling: grace and courtesy. In some way, it is my religious dogma.
Before the end of the service, they welcomed some children onto stage. They asked what they learned. After saying, “I don’t know,” in a soft whisper, one child piped up.
“We all belong,” said the boy.
And the congregation parroted their alternative to Amen, which goes, “And so it is.”