CHURCH

First of all, I am not trying to offend anyone. These are my views, this is my blog.
So I wrote about the trauma that recently happenned to me in my last post, and I touched on the church idea. Geez- where do I begin?
So as I said I have attended church in my adult life. As for my childhood, I think we stopped going when my mom and dad began to divorce. I do enjoy going to church. It is a very peaceful, comforting place for the most part. I went for a while and basically stopped when the reverand went to another church. I really loved that reverand. He was so compassionate and kind. He was down to earth as well, which was very appealing for me. He had a very nice wife who was very similar to him. They were not too much older than me. When he went to another church I thought about "following" them there, but I didn't. I continued to go to my church for a while even though I did not identify with the new reverand or his wife, even though I was never a regular attender due to scheduling conflicts. (I worked retail-need I say more) I was a member of the church and I received a letter in the mail from church asking me to pledge my yearly donations. I don't know if this was the idea of the new reverand, but when the previous reverand was there, I never recieved a letter like this. This was asking me to decide, for the entire year, how much money I would be giving to the church. I was dumbfounded. Ok I get that the church depends on donations from it's members to thrive, but do you know what the definition of a "donation" is? According to Webster's dictionary, a donation is: "the act or an instance of donationg as in making a GIFT, a free contribution." I don't tell people the "gift" I am buying for them, do you? I don't plan out my "gifts" I need to buy for the year, a year in ADVANCE? Yea- and I am a very quirky person too. So that basically turned me off church for awhile. I have talked to my mother about this and she says that the bible states you should contribute 10% of your annual earnings to the church. That is just not pheasable for me. I have my beliefs, I pray with my children, I have my own spirituality, every now and then I read the bible. While I really do like attending church, I don't necessarily like all of the politics around it. I feel spirituality is very personal. My mother has "found God" again as I previously wrote about, and she constantly talks about it. I'm not knocking that, good for her. I am not saying you SHOULDN'T or COULDN'T "talk" about God, but I just don't believe it should be brought up in every conversation constantly. My mom doesn't do that-it is an extreme, but I have had some encounters with people that do. Do you remember that episode of wife swap where that lady from Lousiana was such an extreme "holy roller"? Well that is what I am talking about. AGAIN- I can feel that people are getting huffy reading this-I just don't believe that it needs to be in every situation/conversation. I feel you can be spiritual without announcing it to the whole world. I feel you can turn to God or seek guidance from him whether you go to church or not. Different churches interpet God's teachings differently. I think it is up to you to interpret and learn yourself. That enables your personal connection with God and exstablishes your own beliefs. Your beliefs are just that-YOURS. They should not be "influenced" or "molded" from anyone except possible your parents/family. But even then it is up to you to "understand" your beliefs and ensure that you truly do feel that way. I have turned to God to help direct me in this time with my daughter, and right now I do have comfort in that. I need to find something social for me. I feel like I am 80 yrs old! Well actually my 79 yr old grandma has more of a social life than me. Just in my experience with the churches I have attended, there was either nothing really "extracurricular" going on, no one even remotely close to my age, or if they were it was married couples.