You have just witnessed that the gospel was not really taken seriously by anyone. Today's churches are hardly places of contemplation and spiritual formation. I think you suffered a salutary shock and went into opposition to the observed lived superficiality. The angry gases may indicate that you may be angry with yourself that you expected depth where no one is? The question would be: where do you find such things that inspire you and meet your expectations, if it is not the Sunday service? However, I can understand the grief that the churches are more like slumbering messengers lying sluggishly on the water and having begun to suffice themselves as long as no one shows up and gets involved with heart and spirit in this ministry. The question is: who should this be?
... When and where did the Bishop's wife not betray what had been achieved and say or do something that you would have found authentic and true? At the moment she still functions as a substitute for an achieved luxury, which one perceives as fallible.
The freewrite prompt stirred this memory for me. It's actually been a few years ago that I left, but agree that many churches are dead in the sense that they don't welcome questions or a burning desire to find what is right for oneself. I had left shortly after leaving home as a teen and then rejoined in my adult life after a particularly difficult time and it was right for then, but became stagnant and something I couldn't continue to support along with my own revelations.
At the same time, because it was the church I was raised in, and my family was a part of, it feels my culture and in that way the influence difficult to get out from under.
I feel that the greatest revelation for me was indeed to accept my christian background and that it's a relief to not deny that any longer. Churches are only institutions and live of the people who give spirit to them. Once there is no spirit to be found they become just buildings. Sometimes there are people who are able to reanimate it from within, sometimes from outside.
I often had the desire to visit the church around the corner and did it about two times. But I couldn't find what I was looking for. So I turned to Buddhism where the scriptures are still interpreted in a lively way. What a pity that I still do not have a real place to go to as the Buddhist centre here appears to me as well as somehow corrupted and the hypocrisy I sensed in some encounters backed me away from there.
In my eyes, a center is not enough. It has to be a monastery where an abbot is teaching the monks and congregation and stays available for worldly matters as to accompany the deaths of people etc. Fortunately, in the village I grew up the religious life is still taking place and the pastor does come to peoples homes when a relative dies and listens to the families. It's a blessing to have experienced that.
So in a sense I became my own church and like to have exchanges with people on the Net or in daily encounters with my clients, for example. Many of them do have a religious background and it serves us well when we can allow that to be expressed.
I am happy to have found in you a human which cares for this allowance, too.
Like you, I've found different churches and centers similar in their dogma or set ways and can't tie myself to any one. I do love and appreciate ritual and like you've mentioned the community in death and birth, etc.
I think having a spiritual/religious upbringing lends itself to a broader understanding of art and psychology. Those who've had that are better able to grasp a more macro view of themselves and humanity--synchronicities, a higher power, different viewpoints, etc.
Who are your clients? Are you a therapist?
I am also grateful to find friends like you who are willing to write it like you see it, question, have sincere and curious dialogue and continue to be open to growth as an individual and as a group. Thank you!