The Church-goin' Atheist

Weird, eh? But that's what I am. A church-goin' atheist.

I can't remember if I've posted about this before. But so what if I have...I'm doing it again. I'm going to church this morning, and I'm in the mood to blog about it.

Any regular reader of this blog will know that I'm an atheist. Have been for more than 30 years. I'm quite comfortable with being an atheist...and I AM an atheist, not agnostic. I have no doubt in my mind about the existence of "supreme beings."

But there was always one thing about being an atheist that bothered me, and that was the isolation most atheists accept as part of the package. Atheists are, by nature, an independent lot, and tend not to congregate in groups. At least not the kind of groups that get together on Sunday mornings to reflect, celebrate and indulge in pleasure of community. If atheists gather in groups at all, it's much more likely to be to follow some kind of intellectual interest or to get political or preach to the choir about those pesky believers. And all that is far more than I ever did as an atheist.

Then last year I learned about the Unitarian Universalist church and got curious. Ironically, I found out about them on an atheist blog. The word "Unitarian" rang a very old bell in my head. When I was a kid, a woman named Lotta Hitschmanova did the voice-overs on TV commercials for CARE, the service organization that send food and aid to needy people in foreign countries. There must have been some mention of Unitarians in the commercials because when I saw that word again in the blog, I instantly thought about that voice, asking people to send money to 56 Sparks Street in Ottawa.

So I googled "Unitarianism." The more I read about them, the more intrigued I became. Here was a church that accepted everyone...even atheists. And that was their claim to fame. Eventually, I found out there was a Unitarian congregation right here in Ottawa. I found their website, and was delighted to discover (from reading one of their newsletters archived online) that I knew a member of their congregation. So I wrote to him and his wife, asking if I could tag along some Sunday morning, and a few weeks later I found myself at church.

I've been there, I think, five times now, and I always come away feeling very peaceful and grounded. I think that's why I like it so much. For a short time afterwards, I have love in my heart, I feel positive, uncomplicated, rededicated and all that good stuff. I'm not really crazy about the hymn singing, and feel a tad awkward about the end-of-service hand-holding song (go now in peace, go now in peace...may my gift of love surround you...everywhere, everywhere you may go). But those are small discomforts and I'm getting more used to it each time I go.

The reason I can attend a Unitarian church service without feeling like a hypocrite is that they leave god out of it. Really. In the five services I've attended, the word has only come up twice. Once when the lay-minister conducting services that day was speaking to the children of the congregation, explaining how some people practice religion. The second time was in one of the hymns. For Unitarians, it's not so much about faith or god or religion (though for some of them it is, and that's okay), it's mostly about sharing, caring and fellowship.

And that's why I go there.

Recently, someone said something to me about myself that really surprised me, but the more I think of it, the more I realize she was right. I had just finished telling her what a recluse I am. She said "yes, you keep saying that, but from everything I've learned about you, you seek out community, other people, all the time. As a writer, as a computer buff, as a teacher." It's true...and I don't know why I never connected those dots. One of the first things I always do when I become interested in something is to seek out other people who are also interested in that thing. I want to share, I want to learn, and I want to groove on that energy that like-minded people give off.

So it makes sense that I now find myself interested in attending church services and even that I've volunteered to be a member of their publications team. I've been wanting to get back into doing some kind of volunteer work, and this should be right up my alley. Hopefully, it'll also bring me into contact with some new people, because I'm becoming more and more convinced that I HAVE to stop spending so much time alone. Also, I'll never meet "that special someone" unless I put myself out into the world. Who knows if going to church and volunteering on their newsletter team will bring that to me, but it isn't uncommon for people to meet at church. An older couple I met there the first time I attended told me they'd met there and were about to get married.

So, I guess there are a lot of reasons I go there. Some selfish, some not, but what it boils down to is a simple human need for community, which I had always missed when I thought there was no church that would want an atheist.