If you saw me today sitting alone in the very back of a certain chapel, leaning, hands folded, over the pew in front of me, you might have thought I was praying. But I was just enjoying the empty building and its silence.
I ain't no believer, but I am moved by places of worship--especially when I am alone. Airports have chapels, and I find them to be the most peaceful place there. Hospitals, naturally, have chapels too. But I'm not comfortable in those, since I feel like I'm in the way of people on the verge of losing a loved one. Nevertheless, these chapels are nondenominational, which I imagine allows non-believers in. They are quiet, solemn places--a good reprieve from, say, the hustle and bustle of an airport terminal.
I can see my contradiction here, being drawn to places of worship but rejecting the supernatural-moral elements of the worshiping that takes place in them. Perhaps, you might say, Unitarian Universalism would be the right place for someone of my composition. And I've tried their congregations. But in a UU service packed with people, or in their casual coffee hour after, I don't feel the same meditative peace I find in an empty church.
