To Pray?/To Stay?

Thought I

Last night over barbecue and cornbread, my friend Patty - she of Jamaican/Mexican beauty and Stanford pedigree - asked me what I am doing spiritually. My first response was "nothing," but that's not true. What followed was a great conversation among the five of us at the table that helped me to pinpoint the source of my spiritual ambivalence.

Basically, I've moved away from self-identifying as a Christian. I've come to equate that term with narrow-minded, intolerant, provicial ways of thinking. It's also heavily weighted in my mind by a political association with the Religious Right - people I consider to be my stone enemies.

I've come to be all-or-nothing when it comes to religion, and refuse to be part of a body that uses portions of a text, however misinterpreted, to condemn my existence and to run rampant in the world. So while there are definitely things that I miss about the church experience, I haven't reconciled the good with the bad.

It's sad that so much of religion, spirituality, and faith can be beautiful, yet they're hijacked by people who ascribe that there is only one way to exist in life - one way for six billion people.

Thought II
Should I stay and fight, or be eating tapas when the final electoral tally comes in?