✨Spirituality✨
*Trigger warning*: Religion/ church
Spirit comes from the Latin word “spirale” = to breathe. It can be defined as the “non-physical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul.”
I’m not a church person or strong believer in religion or the church. Rather the opposite to be honest.
For me, Easter was always about hunting down some Easter eggs with family and friends (the fun part), and forcing myself to a boring church service on Sunday.
But spending this Easter weekend with the Zion Church in South Africa has shown me that Easter can be more than I thought. A time for renewal, reflection and new beginnings.
One thing I realized about me is that I don’t like to be told what to do 😂 which is also one of the reasons I dropped out of church (besides other significant reasons).
But church here is more than what I thought.
It’s coming together as community, sharing, celebrating, dancing, singing and laughing (never saw anyone dancing or laughing in the Catholic Church at home lol).
It’s a place of belonging, a place of spirituality for those who strengthen their relationship with god that they seek to experience through drums, river cleansing or sacrifice.
It always amazes me how we all live on the same planet but our practices and beliefs are so different, while reasoning is no different at all: finding answers and believing in something. Having a purpose.
Or to put it into Sam Smith’s words: “everyone prays in the end”.
My spiritual journey has started apart from church, in fact, I would have never thought that church would be my spiritual place. It’s a more self-centred than communal journey, which I guess is very Western European. While being able to connect to something bigger than myself.
In fact, I realized this weekend was way more than about Easter. The beauty of actually living in a place and not just passing by on a hop on-hop off bus — don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about those — is that you get a proper chance to actually get to know people and their lives.
Without judging whether it’s the right or wrong one, I figured it’s more like a mirror to myself.
I started reflecting on deeper questions like “why am I the way I am?” Or “why do I hold certain beliefs?”.
And I realized, there’s freedom in deciding which beliefs you want to hold on to and which you want to let go of, and also accepting that you can experience a place without having to support all of its aspects or adapting to all of its facets.
But one thing is for sure: there’s a deep gratefulness within me for being able to experience those things! For people opening their doors for me and sharing everything they have with me and every aspect of who they are. I’m also grateful for outgrowing myself, putting myself in uncomfortable or scary situations while knowing that the reward will be priceless.
And so it was -
a truly spiritual experience that makes me excited and ready for new beginnings.
