Church, Yoga, & Re-finding Community In Your Early 20s
“FYI I have to be in bed kinda early on Saturday because I’m going to church again.”
My friend texted me this while we were making weekend plans a few weeks back. I won’t pretend it didn’t catch me off guard—while many people I know are spiritual in their own ways and religion isn’t something taken lightly among them, the young creative 20-somethings in Brooklyn aren’t the most church-going folk. In fact, I don’t know anyone in New York who goes to church other than on holidays with their parents. It impressed me, and I was interested to hear why when we met for drinks a few days later.
Spirituality is a funny thing these days. It used to mean organized religion. Church. Of any kind. I get it, and I know it—I was raised Roman Catholic. These days, though, being spiritual can mean a host of things. In my part of Brooklyn, it often means something more earthly, witchy, or astrological. Covens are not in small supply in our city, usually women-run and very friendly. Modern hippies proliferate: Healers more than prayers who follow moon cycles, do reiki, and empower themselves with crystals. I know Jewish scholars friends, people who pray and never talk about it, and those who find their inspiration at the gym. In an era where we are more focused on body positivity, championing wellness, and seeking what makes us feel good inside AND out, being spiritual has come to mean whatever helps you be the best you. Centered, loved, welcome, a good part in a big world.
But my friend has never been any of the above. We’ll call him Bon Vivant Friend—young, gay, attractive, the life of the party, always down for another round, another adventure, very smart, a great writer and reader and all-around good guy with a huge heart, but not spiritual. I wondered what made him become so again—why he wanted to go and what that experience would be like for him. First, I’m always genuinely interested in people’s reasons for believing in what they believe. Second, given how some organized religions react to non-straight, non-cis people, I wondered how and why he chose church of all the places to find some stable ground.
Over chilled red wine and oysters, he told me.
“I’d been thinking about it for awhile. And I just really wanted to find community,” he said simply. He mentioned it to a friend, an older gay man in New York, who recommended an Episcopalian church in a nice neighborhood of east Midtown. They’re friendly, warm, welcoming, and accepting of most sexualities, the friend said. So my friend went, and he liked it. And then he went back. I applauded him. Though I politely told my mom at age 15 that I no longer believed in those teaching and didn’t want to attend church anymore, I have a healthy respect for what it brings people, and big reason why I don’t go to services is because I don’t feel comfortable sitting in a place that’s sacred to people when I feel nothing. I told him how truly happy I was that he found that. But it was his reasoning that really struck a chord.
“You know, I’m about to turn 24, and over the past year or so I’ve realized how many negative people I had in my life, and what they were sort of doing to me by way of being around them. Going out when I didn’t want to, just not feeling great about my life. So I’ve been distancing myself from them. I don’t want to be out at the clubs until 4am, I don’t want to be going to parties and doing drugs. And it’s unfortunately a big part of their lives, and I just don’t need that.”
I nodded. As I told him, at about his age, I went through the exact same thing—distancing myself from, and eventually mostly cutting ties with, some people who I realized weren’t bringing much to my life. Weren’t helping me to be a better person in any way, and in some way were perpetuating self-destructive habits that I was trying to move past.
“Right,” he agreed. “You know, I look at those people and I don’t want to succumb to all that. They’re so caught up in this shit. And they can’t even see it. I don’t want to turn into that. I don’t want to lose my capacity for love. I don’t want to turn around and be in my 30s surrounded by “going out friends” and people that don’t really care about me. I want to have good people around me, and that’s it.”
Who can’t get behind that? I’m sure everyone, at one point or another, has tried to put themselves on better footing by stepping away from a “toxic friend” or two. As I told him: “I spent the past two or three years surrounding myself with only people who really care about me. Who are there for me. That’s so important, and it’s made my life and me better. I didn’t exactly purge my friends, I don’t think that’s healthy. Some good friends that maybe they don’t show up for everything, I call them less but I still love them and see them here and there. The rest of the people I spend time with are those who really care about me and love me, because we don’t deserve anything less.”
He agreed and added that the real bonus of this whole going to church thing for him was finding those better people to share that better self he’d been cultivating with. While his friend has ben accompanying him to church, he told my friend that, eventually, he’d find his own mass to go to, find the pastor he likes, find other people there to commune with. Which my friend was very excited about—and who wouldn’t be? Finding a vibrant, loving new community of people is one of those things that makes you feel the goodness of humanity, something we sorely need these days when we’re surrounded by bad.
Community is something I didn’t have for a long time in New York. I finally found it in many ways, but it took me awhile, and because of that I appreciate those I have even more. I told Bon Vivant friend that while I wasn’t a church-goer, I definitely considered myself spiritual. I find solace in astrology; even if I do find it a little silly sometimes, I like the idea of the universe looking out for me and it’s helped me feel a little more secure in times of turmoil or transition. But in terms of my community, I told him, that’s yoga.
I started going to yoga when I was in college and picked it up more regularly after graduating. In the tumultuous years just out of school, when the world is your oyster but you don’t know really know what to do with it or yourself, I found comfort in the practice. I’m not hardcore—I go every 4 or 5 days—but every time I do go, it feels a little like a religious experience.
“I never knew you felt that way about yoga. I mean I knew you went, but I didn’t know it meant that much to you.” Bon Vivant friend said. I explained:
“I liked the feeling of this very concentrated physical exertion that’s seemingly simple but wildly powerful, where you focus on individual muscles that you’ve never thought about or even felt felt, and then when you’re done, relaxing and breathing in the effort of all that, you thank your body for it all. I say these little mantras to myself that I’ve found over the years, I talk to my body and my mind to make sure I’m doing okay. It’s like checking in with your whole self. You just tingle with this energy that came all from you. Also, my studio is donation-based, so its people who just love the practice but don’t care about being performative; they aren’t wearing Lululemon, there’s tattoos and people with their moms and all body types and no one cares. It’s a very welcoming — it especially has to be because there’s no AC, and in warmer months you’re pouring sweat inches from 50 other people, all sighing and breathing around you. It’s a very communal experience, but at the same time it’s all for you. I love being around that energy.”
We toasted to that, clinking glasses and agreeing that we were very proud of each other—I especially of him. It’s not easy to be a young 20-something in New York, and seeing a good friend start to find their way was heartening.
The next time I went to yoga it occurred to me, in reflecting on this conversation, that I felt like all of us in that studio were, in a way, praying — to and for our bodies and ourselves, enriching our lives by being conscious of them.
Prayer, then, for the modern person, seems to me less like something that’s strictly to communicate with God and more about a way to make sure you’re sticking to the path that’s right for you. Whatever that path is, wherever it’s taking you, and whatever reasons you’re on it. We have the power to find our own higher powers, and any way that helps us tap into their strength and guidance is valid. Whether that’s in a stone church or on a rubber mat; it struck me that ultimately, both my friend and I were going to these places to surround ourselves with love, and ask for it in return.
Of course, as can happen with old friends, Bon Vivant and I stayed out far later than expected and had way too many drinks. (It was, as always, worth it.) The next day I texted him asking if he made it to church, curious to see what his commitment level was. (His church is halfway across the city from his apartment, quite a trek with a hangover.)
“Yes. And I sweated the rosé out all through service.”
I laughed but I was so glad to hear it. Dedicating oneself to things larger than you isn’t easy. It can feel like more work than it’s worth. Not only because constantly addressing your deepest parts, the parts of you that need to be questioned to be improved, is scary, but because it takes time. The self is work. We never have enough time these days and it can be very easy to ignore that good work and pretend everything is fine anyway. (It usually isn’t.) Seeing my friend stick to his goals was inspiring to me.
There’s a piece of paper tacked up in the women’s locker room of my yoga studio. It says: “Nobody regrets more yoga.” And every time I’m thinking of skipping it, I remember that. I remember the feeling of all those bodies around me, breathing in goodness and breathing out love, and the warmth that floods me afterwards, and I shoulder my mat and I go. To pray.
