"Holy days touch a craving in me... not for gifts, family or decorating. I long for the ritual, the ceremony. Not the every day pattern of comfort, but the transformative. Prayer, worship, contemplation, meditation, some 1 on 1 time. Just me and the divine."
This time of year... winter... Christmas... I find myself filled with a deep desire to sit in a church. And not just any church... a Catholic church...
I wasn't raised Catholic.
Actually... I wasn't raised spiritual or religious. My zealocity (<---new Shannanism) was a self-driven, calling my soul felt from birth.
Tis the season I want to bless my face with holy water, kneel on prayer bench, light a candle, inhale frankincense and myrrh, and listen to soaring harmonies singing in Latin and brass pipes that shake the spirit.
Maybe I was a nun or a monk in a past life and these rituals brought me a feeling of deep communion with the divine.
I don't know.
But at midnight mass this year, I may be the pagan in the pew.
Namaste,
C H E Z
