Sometimes I find myself trying to explain to someone why I am a practicing Episcopalian but not a believing one. Actually, I think I often try to explain it to myself.  Having lost the child-like faith of my childhood, I feel what Jean-Paul Sartre, an atheist existentialist philosopher, ireferred to as a  “God-shaped hole”. The phrase is used to describe the emptiness left behind when the divine disappears from human consciousness.

Recently, I came across an article in the NY Times that explains my behavior better than I have ever been able to.   Here is it:

CAN I GO TO CHURCH WHEN I DON’T BELIEVE?

I grew up in the Catholic tradition, but after obtaining several university degrees — including one in religion — it became clear to me that Jesus wasn’t divine and that the cobbling together of the Bible in the fourth century was a consummate work of spin-doctoring. I have about 20 arguments in defense of this, not the least of which is Christ’s inefficacy. After 2,000 years, his followers have split into thousands of sects, many of whom have shot and killed members of rival sects. Think of Northern Ireland, World War II. It doesn’t seem to me the way an omnipotent deity should operate.

But boy, oh, boy, do I love the artistic output of Christianity. Bach’s B-minor Mass, the Fauré Requiem, St. Paul’s Cathedral — all these lift my spirit. I love a beautiful Christian service.(Where else do you hear an organ like that?) Actors talk about ‘‘working from the outside in,’’ in which a physical position unlocks inner emotions. For me, kneeling does this. I don’t pray, but the act creates humility and gratitude. It does me good. Then there’s the lovely sense of community in a congregation.

I’ll never be converted. So I guess I’m lying when I turn up at a service and recite the Creed and sing the hymns as lustily as anyone else. Am I hurting anyone by doing this? Is it, for want of a better word, a sin? — Name Withheld

We were told to do that as soon as we moved out of a baby crib and into a “big” bed. It was pretty simple: Pull up the sheet. Pull up the blanket. Pull up the chenille bedspread. Fluff up your pillow. Tuck the spread under and over the pillow. Done.



My Childhood Bed

Likewise, we were also admonished to make up our cot at church camp or boot camp. Leaving an unmade bed was considered slovenly or earned us demerits.

That was then. Now, bed-making is not simple and neither is unmaking. We no longer sleep on or under any of the stuff we “decorate “ the bed with. You would never sleep under or sit on your expensive bedspread. And the pillows we actually sleep on are put aside and replaced by many decorative throw pillows. Maybe as children, we had a small down comforter to sleep under if we were lucky. Now such a thing is called a duvet which is painstakingly inserted into a duvet cover made of some fancy material. This and the sleeping pillows are hidden away all day.

You have made your bed and now you must lie in it — but not so fast!