"This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you're craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet. If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will provide the grace." - Elizabeth Gilbert
It's tough in some ways to be of a mind that gains little from church services or Bible studies. I feel more spiritually fulfilled in small groups of open-minded discussion and support of our perceptions of God's role in our lives, the steps in an ongoing journey to a better life on earth and reveling in how fortunate we all are. Privately, I feel sufficiently close to God through simple prayers of thanks for any number of infinite gifts in an average day. Thank goodness that enough people are fed through corporate worship that there are opportunities to share through my musical and creative talents. And rehearsing for those opportunities is a peaceful form of individual worship for me. Funny how the creation puzzle has just enough pieces to form a whole.
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