Thoughts on Religion

I am not religious.

I should point out at the outset of this post that I was raised Christian. I rebelled against Christian. For a long while I identified myself as pagan/wiccan. I havent' practised in a long time now.

I often feel a spiritual void in my life. Because there is that side of me that hasn't been addressed in all the hum-drum continual rushings to and fro of my everyday life.

This morning I have had an hour of contemplation and reading.

I should at this juncture put in place a different concept that I have been thinking about lately also - which is that of how I dress. From a purely practical perspective, I wear what I own in my cupboard. However, most of that is either not suitable for "office" work or not suitable for the stinking hot summers I can see heading my way and office work combined. So I have been contemplating what to do about that.
I will not wear stockings. No way no how. I loathe them, my skin loathes them, they are uncomfortable and plastic and horrid. I will not wear short skirts, and I LOATHE wearing pants in summer. Especially black pants in an un-airconditioned car for the hours-long drive in 38 degree heat that it will take me to get to work.
So I have been thinking about dresses and skirts. I usually stick to long, full, flowy hippy style skirts in summer with a t-shirt top on. But those skirts that I own are not suitable for office wear. So I've been thinking about dresses. And I pretty much can't stand most modern "maxi" dresses - they have too much shoulder and upper arm and boob sticking out.

I found a free pattern for a spiral skirt online the other day, and there was instructions in there for a top as well, to turn the skirt into a dress. It was what I consider to be a typical, american homesteading-style dress - slightly gathered sleeves just above the elbow, gathered (almost peasant style) neckline, lightly gathered high waist with the full flowing skirt under it. And I thought - yes. I can make that for work. I can make many for work. Not the height of current fashion - but then, why SHOULD I be the height of current fashion. I do not exist to impress others, I do not exist to be stared at, I am my own person. If I must fit the "neat and tidy" then that is what I shall do!


So , this led me naturally this morning to combining both a style of dress and a type of religious contemplation - and ended up with me on the website of the Adelaide Quakers.

The Society of Friends, they refer to themselves as. And although the US quaker sites are all pretty heavily religious from a strictly christian veiwpoint, the Adelaide site appears to be completely non-specific in it's theory.

One sits, in a room, with a group of other individuals, and one contemplates the divine. How one finds the divine may be spoken of, if one is led to speak. There would be, I do not doubt, heated intellectual conversation afterwards in regards to how everyone's experience of the divine differs.

But to all intents and purposes, the group appears to be joined by one main facet - the understanding that the divine is in everything, and approachable by everyone with no need for rules, requirements, labels, orthodoxy, noise, doctrine, texts, or speeches.

The divine is something one finds for oneself, in silence. One experiences for oneself, in whatever form happens to arrive. And one notices in everyday life, in those small silences, because it is simply there.

I like this. I like the concepts of this. I like to think that without the trappings of societal stress (clothing amongst quakers, btw is not set to anything at all - again, it's free for what one wishes to do. But I like the thought of having a simple style of clothing that I can wear that suits every occasion without me having to think about it. Kinda like the every-day jeans and a shirt that my husband wears. ) I too could find the divine in those occasional quiet moments, because I had opened myself up to the experience in an hour of contemplation during the week with like-minded individuals.

I wonder if I should find the time to go to a quaker meeting and contemplate.