In Defense of Pew-Warming

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash.

Everyone knows it’s cool to be spiritual not religious. Unsurprisingly, I am uncool. Sure, my return to Christianity has a spiritual side, plus a lot of reading and thought, but I want an experience with more than the emotional response to art, nature or even the latest series on streaming can provide. Among other things, I want the tradition, the ritual, the beliefs and practices steeped in time: the standing and sitting, the call and response, the Kyrie, the Gloria in Excelsis and the Nunc Dimittis. I want to be there every week even if it means doing what the faithful tend to discourage: just going through the motions. I want to be a pew-warmer.