sunday best

"Later in his life when gandhi was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied:
'Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.'"

sunday morning, on the way to notting hill, we bumped into several people, in their best clothes, on the way to church. this triggered a series of images of me going to mass with my mum or friends all dressed up in my sunday best, before meeting up in the nearby park for a post-mass chat and before popping to the news agent to get my giornalino and go home for a sunday lunch usually based on hand-made lasagnas…

that morning i saw a young boy with his father stepping into the church and felt not only nostalgic, but also in need of some kind of fulfilling order in my life. going to work every morning gives some structure to my daily life, and yoga three times a week helps nourish my soul, but i feel the need also to nourish my faith. that’s why I have promised to myself to visit the local church every now and then (every sunday would be asking too much) also as a way to getting to see/know my neighboring community (new year resolution no.2).

despite my continuing and profound religiosity and faith in god, i have developed a personal spirituality and stopped going to church long time ago for various reasons. although my priest would strongly disagree with this view and label me heretical, i consider myself catholic only because it's part of my upbringing, which is fine since my belief is that all religions have a the same (conventional) origin and all ultimately flow into the same divinity. over the last few years, i have in fact coupled up my christian principles with some of the buddhist dogmas (which i worship every time i practice yoga and try to apply to my everyday life), so that i dare to compare my personal system of beliefs to gandhi's.