Religion is not my thing. My whole family—both sides and as many generations as I’m aware of—have never taken up religion. Or maybe, at some point, someone gave up religion in favor of more personal freedom, or maybe there weren’t churches in the Pacific Northwest logging camps and homesteader communities where my ancestors found themselves. Whatever happened, I was born with a head start on losing my religion.

It’s taken me five decades to realize that maybe I missed out on something important. I’ve been trying to unpack my sense of isolation in a hyper-connected world. It’s not an uncommon feeling, I think. The rise of the nuclear family alongside the scourge of always-on infotainment has conspired to leave us all feeling a bit untethered.

The fragmentation of community support systems may turn out to be even more devastating than dropping the bomb on Hiroshima or telling people to eat eleven servings of pasta a day.

Religion has historically cultivated community. Even if your friends move away and your family dies in a tragic barn explosion, the church will be there for you. Many lack that sense of community as we move toward a more secular society. I’m now wondering if I have to buy into a belief system to find the kind of supportive, interdependent community I aspire to be part of.

Am I spiritual?

What does “spirituality” mean? That you’re not dead inside? That you feel a sense of awe when you see a beautiful sunset? That you give money to psychics? No one has ever been able to explain to me what it means to be “spiritual.”

Self-proclaimed spirituality practitioners tend to own healing crystals and know their Human Design type (I’m a Manifesting Generator—watch out). Unfortunately, most New-Agey things remind me of my mother, who is schizophrenic, untethered from objective reality, and believes if she finds the right crystal, she will finally be healed.

Look, I own Tarot cards. I’m curious about the ephemeral and mysterious, but I’m pretty evidence-based when it comes to what I choose to believe. But if I know one thing, it’s that I don’t know much about how the universe operates, so I’m always willing to keep an open mind.

I practice meditation daily, but I don’t think you could define it as a spiritual practice. It’s more of a mental health practice—like flossing my brain. I don’t get in touch with higher powers or transcend the veil of our reality. Instead, it is a way to switch on my observer self and maybe access the wise part of myself. She’s in there somewhere!

Spirituality is not about community. You might find your people at an Ayurvedic Vegan Reiki retreat, but at the end of the day, your “spirit” is yours alone, and nurturing it is a personal project. Some would argue that to be spiritual is to be connected to nature or the mysteries of the universe, but… isn’t everyone? One reason that spirituality cannot replace religion is that it serves a different purpose in our daily lives. Self-actualization is not about building community.

Cults and Quilts

I can’t stop watching cult documentaries. Maybe one day, the documentarians will run out of cults to document, but that day does not seem to be coming anytime soon.

Why am I so fascinated by cults? It’s hard for me to imagine giving up my free will to promote a belief system. Especially if that belief system is pretty wacky. I recently watched the one about Mother God in horror as she poisoned herself slowly with “healing” colloidal silver. Her followers believed that she needed to get drunk every day to communicate with Robin Williams, who was in charge of their evacuation from Earth in a spaceship.

To the people in the cult, all of this came to seem not only reasonable but transcendent—like the women in NXIIVM who agreed to be branded as members of the leader’s harem because it was supposed to bring them closer to their version of God. In that cult, the higher your status, the weirder things got, with “master” and “slave” relationships dictated by the cult leaders. I’m pretty sure no one who signed up for their personal growth workshop intended to do anything like that… but some of them did.

Why? Why did people continue to follow Jim Jones when the man was clearly an unhinged egomaniac? Why did some of them murder on his behalf while others willingly drank the poisoned Kool-Aid? Those who escape cults describe the degradation used to break them down and the pressure to cut off ties with their families. They are cut off from their old life and offered a place to belong.

A sense of belonging is a powerful thing, especially for those who may feel that they don’t belong in their families or who don’t fit with the status quo. A charismatic figure can feed on a sense of disconnection and offer community. For some, simply being convinced that they “belong” is enough to provoke them to commit murder or genocide in the name of their cause. Look at the followers of Charles Manson or Hitler, and you will find people who wanted to feel connected to something bigger than themselves. We all do.

Without religion as the cornerstone of our communities, we reach for anything that might offer a sense of belonging. For some, it might be a sports team. Others might join a pickleball league or a quilting guild. But what if I don’t like sports or quilts? Without joining a cult, what are my options for building a community?

What’s my church?

Those of us without formal religion have to build our own church. When I was younger, that church was music. I spent my teens and twenties prowling through record stores and going out to shows once or twice a week.

I still love music, and I care about it enough to plan trips around the tours of my favorite bands. But it no longer feels as important as it once did. If I’m going to stay up past my bedtime for a show, it has to be a once-in-a-lifetime concert. I’ve been to enough shows already, and I’d frankly rather get my sleep than stand around in a club and further destroy my hearing.

I’ve hung around the “art scene” a bit, and I have always felt like I should feel a sense of belonging there. I love art; I went to art school and grew up in a family of artists. But somehow, every art opening I’ve attended feels like a visit to a hostile alien planet. I don’t belong there, either.

Start a book club, they say. “They” being mostly my therapist. Or what about a writers’ group? Surely I belong with other writers? Reader, I don’t. I’ve joined a book club. I’ve created writers’ groups and attended dozens of writing classes. My sense of community connection fails to develop. Connections are tenuous because we are not part of something that feels important. Maybe I need to start a cult?

Haunted Buddha

Until a couple of months ago, I would have said I had no direct experience of supernatural phenomena. But then we brought home a haunted Buddha statue from Cambodia.

We bought a bronze Buddha from a handmade artisanal goods shop in Siem Reap. I was surprised when my husband chose this heavy souvenir to carry in his backpack back to Seattle. He was raised Lutheran and has never shown much interest in Buddhism. But we got a blessing from a Buddhist monk, and I guess that inspired him. Or maybe the haunted statue was controlling his mind. Either way, we brought Buddha home and placed him on the shelf under our TV, next to my great-grandmother’s typewriter.

A few weeks later, I noticed that Buddha was no longer facing forward but had turned toward the typewriter. Weird, but maybe the shelf got jostled or something. I turned him back to his original position, but I started to keep an eye on him. After a few days, I noticed that he had started to turn again.

It takes close to a month for Buddha to rotate 90 degrees, but he’s still doing it. Whatever is happening does not feel dangerous or even magical. But it sure is strange. What does Buddha want to tell us?

I may never know what this haunting means, but it has given me a weird bit of hope. There is more going on here than we can know or understand. Maybe there is some mystical realm beyond what we see. Maybe there is something to believe in. Or maybe physics can sometimes look like magic.

If you told me that I had to sign up for one of the major religions, I would choose Buddhism without thinking twice. I’ve been reading about the tenets of Buddhism for years, and they are full of practical advice. It feels more like a school of psychology than a religion. Plus, Buddha is not a deity.

Why not God?

I’ve tried to believe in God. It’s such a nice idea that something benevolent and all-powerful is looking after me. To me, it’s always felt like wishful thinking.

The universe is vast and mysterious, full of unanswered questions and haunted Buddhas. The idea of God or deities feels too specific to be accurate. The universe is much weirder than the stories we can make up about what’s going on here. We are limited by what we are able to imagine.

I don’t feel like believing in a God would do me any good. If there is one out there, my faith would probably not mean much to them, either. I’m not going to buy into something that feels like make-believe. That’s not an option for me, even if I wanted it.

But I do have a sort of faith. I believe in the profound wonder of the natural world. I believe in the mystery of the supernatural and the power of human imagination. I believe that the matter and energy that exist in the universe are in a constant cycle of transformation. Everything is in the process of becoming, even in death.

The big question for me is: where are my people? Where can I meet people who care about nature, wonder, art, connection, good health, laughter, food, music, books, and science fiction? I’d like to attend that church.