Religious Practices as a Way to Fight the Comfort Crisis
A modern orthodox Jewish acquaintance of mine recently said he realizes the world is really complicated and that no one faith tradition can really make sense of it all. But he still wears a kippah everyday. Studying the Torah, praying, and keeping a kosher kitchen are important to him. These things are not convenient to do, but he finds them worthwhile. And while he has more progressive views than most people at his synagogue, he still values connecting with his community. Despite all its clumsiness, one of the strengths of religious life is how it can provide structure, form, and meaning to life.
It is easy to overlook what religious practices can contribute to our lives. In recent months, I questioned whether I wanted to continue some of my personal faith-based habits. Like so many other women, I’ve been uncomfortable with messaging from leaders about the temple garment. Leaders’ words led me to feel like they intended for my wearing the garment to become about me submitting to their authority and adhering their interpretations. I have also felt ill at ease realizing how a large segment of tithing money is going to pay for things like temple chandeliers that cost the same as a large, nice house. And my chronic boredom and dissonance during messages at church has made me lose much of my motivation to attend.
It seems giving up these things could be a healthy way for me to differentiate and detach myself from leaders whose words have left me feeling unseen, infantilized, and unsupported. But another part of me would feel grief. In my case, abandoning these practices would prevent me from living the kind of principled life I have always planned to live and still want to live.
In his book Comfort Crisis, health journalist Michael Easter writes about how one of the obstacles to well-being today is the “comfort crisis.” He explains that our ancestors spent most of their time laboring hard to obtain basic necessities like food and shelter. They lived highly social and physically active lives out of necessity. In a mostly uncomfortable world, humans developed instincts to opt out of non-essential efforts so they could rest and recuperate.
But today when much of what we need is one click away, the human impulse to opt out of discomfort can harm our well-being. One of the examples Easter uses is that while many people don’t get enough physical exercise, only 2% of people opt into taking the stairs when they have the option. His website “Two Percent” encourages individuals to intentionally seek out uncomfortable things, including opportunities to move, to interact socially, to go deceive-free, or to expose yourself more to the natural elements.
It’s not intuitive to seek out the path that takes more effort, especially in a society that is increasingly individualistic and capitalistic. But if we get more steps in and choose to do things we value despite whatever the extra exertion, we can become healthier and happier.
Dissonance or fatigue at church can easily activate impulses to quit religious practices. Yet might opting into them contribute to my overall well-being?
If I stopped attending church, this would lead to a yet more socially isolated, challenge-free, and digitally-centered life. In my case, I don’t need more of this. With my streaming services, online shopping, food deliveries, and hours alone in a chill office full of plants I don’t even have to take care of, I already have too much ease. In fact, the lack of physical and social effort required to keep the basics of my life running sometimes contributes to depression. Spending time in my crowded church building where people speak 60 native languages and there are 100 visitors each week demands endurance in a way few things do. The benefits of getting out of my comfort zone only increase when I do things like leave my phone at home. Church is also the only regular opportunity I have to dress up or to take part in a big group of people trying to form a community. My life has been largely emptied of formal occasions and rituals outside the Sunday block. And church gives me the chance to meet people across socio-economic groups and backgrounds that I simply can’t access through other parts of my life.
If I stopped paying tithing, I foresee that my intentions about my own money would become more about my own ego and my wants such as travel and personal purchases and less about my faith-based values. Even if it meant giving a tithe to charities instead of a church, I want this practice in my life. My sense with the garment is comparable– giving it up feels like giving up a part of my identity and sense of shared familial and communal meaning that I still value, even in the face of all my dissatisfaction with current Church policies, leadership structures, and uses of power and authority at Church.
In “Anthem,” Leonard Cohenn sings,
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
These practices aren’t perfect, they are cracked and flawed. Sometimes their meanings are faint. But since they can still ring with meaning that is in line with my values, they can still be worth doing. I’m choosing to treat them as things that empower me to resist individualism, social dissolution, consumerism, and body objectification in my life. They help me assert to myself that my life is about much more than my personal wants, ego, or needs for money, pleasure, or status. They help me stay connected with values and hopes I have upheld throughout my entire lifetime as a Mormon.
In short, I’m intentionally, independently opting into some of the discomforts of religious life. Another facet of this is that I don’t want my relationship with my faith tradition to be dictated by my reactivity and anger at the follies of mortal, temporary leaders, such as their ongoing failures to support adults in an age-appropriate manner in their spiritual and moral growth and development. I don’t have to consent to the relationship they want me to have with them. If I continue practicing something that they happen to act anxious and controlling about, this does not have to be treated as a signal of my submission to their terms. What really matters is my personal intention. My religious life is not about them. My practices are about my spirituality and relationship with God and the principles I want to live by. Much of my choices are based simply on the recognition that I seem to best tolerate being human and living on this earth when I cultivate faith and hope that the world can become a better place and that there is more to life than what we can see now. Religion is a backbone in my life that empowers me to have better mental health.
Saying all of this, I do not judge those who have decided to drop or set boundaries with religious practices. People have different needs, experiences and situations, and there are many good reasons to drop or adapt practices. Different “bells” ring for different people at different times. My intention in sharing all this is only to strengthen others who value their personal practices and who are also seeking ways to assert greater personal authority and self-determination in their religious lives.
