Finding faith at 40

Fifty years ago, the majority of Canadians spent their Sunday mornings sitting on a church pew instead of in the stands of a hockey arena, on the couch with the weekend paper or in bed catching up on sleep.

Today, regular churchgoing seems as retro as Sunday drives, martinis before dinner and eight-track tapes: only 23 per cent of Canadians go to weekly services. While 70 per cent of Canadian women say they believe in God and more than half say they pray daily, I think many feel too disillusioned, too disconnected or just too busy to attend worship services.

I know. I used to be one of them.

Lost in a spiritual wilderness
Going to church had been a big part of my life growing up, but I left that behind after becoming disaffected by the faith of my childhood. My early certainties had become threadbare, like a blanket that no longer kept me warm. I still yearned for some sort of comfort, but didn't know what I was looking for.

But then, five years ago, when I was 42, I walked through the doors of a Unitarian church in Hamilton for the first time, my skeptical husband and two young daughters in tow. I discovered what I had been missing for so long: a sense of belonging, a community with a conscience, a place to celebrate traditions, soulful companions, inspiration to be a better person, a religion to raise my children in – in effect, a place to call home. 

Church is where your heart is
Now most Sunday mornings our family attends this church. There, we light candles, sing robustly to songs as varied as "Amazing Grace" and "Lean on Me," and listen to sermons on topics that reach to the core of what it is to be human: how to really forgive your neighbour, what it means to be compassionate and how we can make a difference in the world.

We'll pass around a collection plate and greet friends who are now as much a part of our lives as family members. Our two girls, ages 11 and 8, will go off to their children's programs, and join us later at coffee hour, where they'll show off the crafts they've made, or the new friend they've met.

Click to continue...

Page 1 of 4

I gave faith a second chance and the payoff was abundant. Once lost, I now feel found.

It took me more than 20 years to get to this place. Mine was a spiritual journey with plenty of potholes, wrong turns and dead ends. 

When things started to change
When I was a child, I went to church – not once, but twice – every single Sunday. Church life was the centre of existence for my fundamentalist Christian family, an insular place that protected us from outside, worldly influences.

When I left home at 19, I also left the church. I had begun to question many of its tenets: Why couldn't women be preachers? Was everyone who didn't believe in Jesus really going to burn in hell for all eternity? Could one church ever rightfully claim to have all the answers? And I was searching for answers to the bigger questions at the roots of all religion: Do you need to believe in God to be a good person? If God is all powerful, why doesn't he (or she) intervene to prevent starvation, tsunamis and childhood cancer?

The big break
I knew my church was restrictive, but I never realized how much so until I received a letter about a month after I officially announced I was leaving. In it, the minister and church elders advised me to repent and return, lest my "soul be barred from the gates of heaven." My family was devastated by my departure. I felt guilty that I had hurt them, but I also felt freed from the burden of being part of a religion that I no longer had faith in.

Yes, I still prayed occasionally, but my simplistic and selfish lamentations were of two types: "Please God" and "Thank you God." I was unsure of what I believed; my faith had become as watered down as communion wine.

How sweet the sound
As the years went by, my ideas about religion changed. By the time I was inching toward middle age, I realized I had left something important behind, and hungered to fill the loss. Deep inside, like rose petals pressed into a book, I felt a need for a spiritual life, for inspiration to live more deeply.

I was looking for solace in a world that seemed filled with strife, contemplative quiet in a life that felt as if it was moving too fast. And I missed church music.

Click to continue...

Page 2 of 4

Intellectually I may not have felt I was a "wretch" who needed to be saved, but "Amazing Grace" never failed to fill me with a sense of longing I couldn't quite name.

I also knew my children would eventually look to me for answers to the deep questions of life. When they asked me, "What happens when we die?" or "Who is God?" or "Why does God let bad things happen?" I wanted to be able to give them answers I really believed.

The right fit is out there
My spiritual needs were far from unique. People everywhere are searching for a way to make sense of their lives and believe in something bigger than themselves. Church is an obvious place to explore all this.

This desire often occurs in midlife, when we become more aware of our own mortality and want to help our kids build their spiritual muscles to draw on for strength in the future. Many of us begin to experience a longing for religious ritual and a need to feel connected within a larger community. Some circle back to the place of worship they bolted from as teenagers. Others discover something altogether different than the doctrine of their youth. 

The closest match to my liberal sensibilities I could find was the United Church. Attending this church was a positive experience, but the congregation we were part of had few children, and I still longed for a community that reflected our multicultural, multifaith world. 

My childhood church taught that there was only one true path to God. What about the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists? I was more interested in the common threads of sacred truth that bind us all, such as the grace in loving our neighbour as ourselves, doing good in the world, living up to our highest ideals, looking for beauty among the ruins.

Click to continue...

Page 3 of 4

Imagine all the people
For years I had driven by the Unitarian church close to my home and felt drawn to this congregation that embraces the teachings of many faith groups without insisting on adherence to any one particular dogma. I didn't want to upset my family further by choosing something so remote from their beliefs, and I was reluctant to leave behind the good folks I had come to know at the United Church. But the desire to check it out tugged at me.

Within minutes of my first visit, I knew in my bones that I was in the right place, as a woman with the voice of an angel began to sing John Lennon's "Imagine." Hearing her sing so beautifully, in church of all places, about the meaning of ideas such as heaven and hell, was a stark departure from the certainties I had been taught.

I didn't realize it right then, but I had found what I thought was so elusive: a religious institution where doubt was understood, even expected. A place that focused on the celebration of the human spirit, rather than the stain of sin, and managed to transcend both religious differences and cultural boundaries. A place, at last, where I would find an idea of God that had been lost to me for so long. 

Faith is what we feel
It was difficult to explain to others why I felt so fulfilled. As Reverend Allison Barrett, then the minister at The First Unitarian Church of Hamilton, preached one Sunday: "Faith is, at its very core, a very unreasonable notion – one that we can only feel, intuit or imagine."

Now I look forward to going to church every week. I've come to realize that everything that's important in life is right there, among those rows of people I sit with on Sundays – inspirational teachings, the comfort of friendship, a place in the community, music that moves the soul, a striving toward social justice, rituals imbued with meaning and a positive environment for my children to learn and grow.

That doesn't mean I've found all the answers to the big questions of life. My spiritual search has taught me that there is much that simply can't be known, and that sometimes asking the questions is just as important as finding the answers. "The further along life's path I go, the more certain I am that great mystery lies at the heart of everything important," says Rev. Barrett. I'm with her. So much of life is a beautiful, magical mystery. What a comfort it is to share the ride with others.

This article was first printed in the May 2009 issue of Homemakers Magazine. Click to subscribe online and never miss an issue.