Handstands in Church…?

So “tomorrow” (here, anyway!) being Sunday, I have been thinking about going to church – it has been a debate since I have been feeling pretty badly this evening and I’m terribly exhausted thanks much to inconsiderate neighbors (I am SO over that one!). At any rate, I was thinking about something a friend asked me seemingly out of the blue one day – it was something to the effect of “Do you ever want to put up your hand and sing in church?” At the time it made me laugh hysterically. I had to be tactful in my response and said something like “No … for me it is a more … ‘personal’ experience….”

Thinking about all of this again just now provided me with a thought – aside from another much-needed laugh – which is how much of the “waving your hands in the air” kind of thing is just … conditioned? I am really not a fan of the “contemporary” service; if I am in church and I am singing, I want to have the notes in front of me and not some words thrown up on a giant screen that scream to me “THE SONGWRITER IS BRILLIANT FOR DOING THIS!” (Please forgive my sarcasm during all of this – that is just me!) At any rate, I do wonder if there was some “foundational” hand-waver; or if this came from a certain group (and please, do not just iterate “southern ‘Protestants'” without the “receipts!”), &c. And wherever it started by whomever started it … what if he or she or THEY had decided to do handstands in church to “celebrate” God or Jesus or whatever it is that hand waving is supposed to “mean.”

Please do not take any of this too personally – I am someone who does go to church fairly regularly (I have mixed opinions on “religion” and “Christianity,” but at the end of the day I have to go with the “Probability of God” and the idea that if there JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE A GOD, it’s better to believe in Him/Her than not to do so) – but I am also not by any means someone who buys into these blind “acts” of “Faith.” I have never been naturally inclined to wave my arms around even with the most humbling music I have ever heard, so I just wonder where that “behavior” comes from and how it came to be “a thing.”

At any rate, as I mentioned before, I am not feeling well and I really would like to function tomorrow! I do enjoy going to church because the church I have been attending has a pastor who really reaches out and “preaches” spreading joy and love and compassion and REAL ASSISTANCE to those both around us and those who need it (or those who fall into both categories!); for me, that is really the “importance” of religion – the underlying “power” of learning what it is to have the hope that I do have and what it means to “forgive” and to “give” and all of those sorts of things – to me, it is about helping others and becoming a better person by doing so. RATTLING ON, BETH, GET ON WITH IT! I hope you are all having a happy and healthy evening or day and I will be back to rattle on about another topic here very soon!

❤ Always, Beth