"I grew up in a very religious, Christian family where Sunday's activities were predetermined and strictly enforced. Like many of my generation, come Sunday, our parents faithfully saw that we were dressed in our best attire and dutifully marched to church like preprogrammed automatons. With unblinking obedience, we reenacted this liturgy-week after week, year after unrelenting year-seemingly ad infinitum. Growing into adolescence, however, my mind began to fill with questions-many of them-but one upstaged the rest: "What was the purpose of our never ending churchgoing?""
"Doubtless, we wouldn't get our arms wrapped tightly around it attending a few church services. A Perpetual Pursuit But the spigot on the flow of my questions would not turn off. They began to take a facetious turn: "Is there no end to our religious schooling...No stopping point...No final exam...But if there is, will I be awarded a certificate or a diploma, as is customary at other schools?""
Upbringing in a strict Christian household created predetermined, strictly enforced Sunday routines centered on dressing up and attending church with unblinking obedience. Weekly liturgy was performed repetitively, producing a sense of ritual and automaticity. Adolescence brought questions about the purpose of relentless churchgoing and its ultimate goal. A realization followed that Sunday sermons primarily aimed to teach love, yet progress in learning that virtue was slow. Love is described as a complex, slippery subject that resists mastery in practical application and as a concrete concept. Religious instruction was framed as open-ended lifelong training without certificates, diplomas, or graduation ceremonies. Consolation came from poets, theologians, philosophers, authors, psychologists, songwriters, and others who have tackled love's intricacies across the ages.
Read at Psychology Today
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