I never go to church

27th June 2021

Just a thought on a Sunday afternoon

I live in country which is more catholic than the pope himself, I think.

I never go to church.

Do I believe in God?

I do believe in a higher power but if it is God or Buddha or Jesus or something else, I cannot answer.

I know there is a power grater than humans, or that is what I believe.

We do pray, some of us pray to God and some of us to something else.

There are many who have never heard about God but the still believe in something.

There are all kinds of special churches around the world. What is common with those congregations is the leader!

Some do call the leader a priest, some call him the voice of God, and some call him just a servant.

In many special groups and also in the catholic churches you do pay when you go to mass. It is called contribution or offering or something else, but the goal is the same, you are paying for the protection or guidance of the higher power.

This is what I find so sad. The poorest can not go to church to worship their God because they can not make this offering. Have you thought about how they feel?

When I was young, I believed in God, the Christian God. He was supposed to protect and make sure that everything was ok.

Somewhere around the road he abandoned me and stopped protecting me, or did he?

When I look at the priests or think about them, I can´t find many that are poor.

Are the priests or the voices of God all well off?

Are there any priests that are poor?

Why am I thinking about this and even writing about it?

Well, I have someone I worry about, more than one person, and I have a feeling that they are trying to figure out their lives with the help of the VOICES OF GOD in their communities.

I am worried that the people who are at the front in the churches are perhaps not quite true to their words!

I know this sounds harsh.

I know this is what perhaps the majority of human beings believe, but I am truly worried about my friends.

I love my life and I love my friends. I truly believe that love is the greatest force in the universe and it tries to help us the humans to survive whatever comes our way.

I am reading a book abut the power of love and it is a healing process to read it before I fall asleep every night.

I am talking about true love. I am not talking about the love of the men of God that are preaching in the churches around the world this Sunday.

True love is inside everyone’s heart and it does not need offerings, it just needs nourishment by sharing and listening, being understanding even when not understanding and most of all being there for those we love when they need us.

You can be IN LOVE or not.

You can be a loving person or not.

You can be someone who listens or you can be someone that needs to be listened to.

You can let your friends and loved ones know that you are there for them when and if they need you to love them and listen to their sorrows or their joy.

Here in my little land, I am seeing true love every day now.

A young man lost his life suddenly. I saw him the night before and the next day he was gone. The family is broken. The friends are broken. The community is broken. How could this happen some ask or just think.

I don´t know anything about how, why and what.

What I have seen is the beautiful tradition here in my little land to bring food and leave it at the grieving family’s door without a word but the meaning is: I am here if you need me!

I find this a testament of true love, a true love for a human being who is suffering deeply.

Love is a powerful feeling which can be nourished and made bigger and bigger, its all up to each and everyone how it turns out to be, small or huge.

My conclusion is this:

You don´t need to go to church to pray. God will hear your voice wherever you are when you are praying if you do it with love and your heart is in it. If you feel you need to go to church to pray and that is the only place God will hear you, that is your choice. My opinion is that God or higher power that protects us is always where our heart is.

If your heart is in your prayer the higher power will hear you. He doesn’t always be on the same page as you and you might not like his guidance and his words you hear but rest assure the higher power does always have your best interest at heart.  

The lessons the higher power is putting in front of you are the ones you need. They are sometimes frustrating and hard to accept but they are there for a reason. The learning process never ends. You graduate from one and the next one appears. It gets easier along the way if you are open minded and love your life, whatever it has in store for you at the present moment.

Hulda Björnsdóttir