Whatever brings you back - Stavanger Domkirke and the Norwegian Church

Now days it is more than an inborn tradition imposed by my background and culture. Visiting a church is no longer an obligation but rather a voluntary action. Who I am, has been forged by my geographical origin and in consequence by my cultural tradition and family upbringing. Being raised in a mexican catholic family while attending both secular and catholic schools, the concept of faith was merely that: a concept. Which I,  by tradition, was expected to feel, honor, and believe.

In terms of historical exposure, I presume that religion studies do in time, and with a certain amount of luck, allow the average believer to go outside the "right path" and understand that the information collected has more use than that of the blind faith, and with a little bit of more luck, the average believer will question those imposed believes for the greater use of the mind.

Seeking answers to complicated matters we all know is difficult.  I understand well the concept of solitude, I have learned it well,  in my challenging years in Norway, and clearly after not finding suitable answers to quench my thirst, one who has been "exposed"  can always return to "mothership", still skeptical and unwilling to surrender oneself to a blind faith but accommodating free-willingly one's heart  into the possibility of a greater comfort to life's troubles.

After more than 10 years far away from everything that defined me in terms of faith, a long, complicated, not so very boring story brought me to the doors of the Norwegian Church, undoubtedly,  an example of the constant involuntary unorthodox tendencies that have ruled my life . A story I wont tell here, but the fact is that when I found myself there in that magnificent building, there is already a powerful bonding history between us. 

What you could see in church on the main Sunday mass, is mostly a small amount of people attending the service, compared to what I was used to back home; the majority are senior people, a very few amount of close to middle age people like me, and now and then some children. The Sunday audience resembles a Monday morning early mass in Mexico, not a lot of people but those who are there, go willingly, not  forced by an imposed guilt or  conventionalism. Refreshing.

In my search of wisdom and comfort through the preaching words, I  look discretely to the audience and I wonder, they must know or feel something we don't. Something that in reaching that era in life, when chronologically, one is more closer to death than life, is revealed... Perhaps it's just the heart, than upon surrendering the strength of the body opens up to the dimensions we can only reach with our mind and that so overpowering motor we all carry and that we don't know how to handle when young, our very beautiful soul, and I can't help but wonder, wouldn't it be great to be able to handle our soul way before that?

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From Stavager my home