Catholic church take me back!

Today I attended a non-denominationional chuch service at Shanghai Community Fellowship. I believe once my theology teacher assigned us to go to a service of a different religion or denomination; I probably made this assignment up because this was my first time attending a non-Catholic service. As a vetern of 11 years of Catholic school, I am a faithful member of the Catholic church... on Christmas and Easter. I find yoga stressful so I thought this week I would try church as a way to relax.

I always had my compaints about church going. One complaint was that church is too long.  Well this church was twice as long as my typical experience (ALMOST 2 HOURS!). Secondly, church can be boring.  I thought music would spruce it up but instead it felt like a cult and made me very uncomfortable.

My regular church going friend Kirsti told me the music is the "best" part. There were maybe 15 songs sang.... 5 times more than I am used to and NO Christmas songs. These songs were accompanied with electric guitar. I think the Pope would call this "unprofessional". I was also distracted by people raising their hands up to the Lord.  You don't need to touch Him! He is already in you and you want Him closer?! I prefer some distance to my God.  It was only 50 years ago when you had to know Latin to talk to God and Jesus and the priest stood behind a railing from Church goers.

As removed as I felt from this whole experience, I still noticed a strong feeling of hospitality. Perhaps it was the people's faith but it could just be this is how expats act around each other and the situation becomes more social than spiritual.  Either way, I have officially been scared back into the Catholic Church, at least for Christmas day.  I will return to my world of canabalisic eatting of the body and blood of Christ (on his birthday how barbarian!) and perhaps even pray to a saint at St. Ignatius.