I am so glad and honored to have been paired with Candice Ross for this Cultural Understanding assignment. Candice brought me to a Sunday service at a baptist church she goes to off campus. At the risk of sounding like a sheltered ignorant Catholic girl, I went along with an all too wide-eyed eagerness and loved every minute of it (which turned out to be like 120 or so odd minutes, actually).
I loved it because it is quite different than what I am used to, since I grew up going to a pretty conservative orthodox Catholic church with organs and altar boys/girls and the like. I couldn't help but compare these two different churches, and though it's with different words and songs and prayers, we are all believing in the same thing, same love, same power. And for a small moment during that service, I felt a strong, inexplicable, and unmistakable sense of unity in the midst of all this hate, turmoil, grief, sadness, and just general unfairness in the world. And for that small moment of peace and hope, I'm thankful.
Also, the baptist songs sung by the amazing choir are way more awesome than anything I've heard by the organ or really anything. They got it on lockdown. I myself had a hard time keeping the clapping, swaying, foot tapping, and singing all in sync. Better to just... sit down and clap.
But in all seriousness, I'm grateful for Candice showing me how much her faith means to her because I am a big believer in the essence of faith. Not just my faith, per se, but any faith because really, down to its core, its essence, all faith is is just The Powers That Be. I think it is important for people to believe in Something. Something with a big capital S. Something bigger than themselves, whomever/whatever that may be. I know history and even now has shown people do crazy things in name of religion, but I absolutely refuse to believe that faith, in its purest form, will not help us see this through. Well, faith and sheer will since The Powers That Be isn't going to do it for us.
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