A spiritual morning in Newbury

I had an epiphany of sorts this morning. I was at the First Parish Church in Newbury talking with the church pastor, Nancy Haverington and church deacon Erin Stack. The church is again very involved with the city's celebrations leading up to Earth Day.

I put my notebook away and as often happens, we started talking about stuff. In this case, it was that story I posted a ways back about people leaving the church of their upbringing and seeking another message, or faith, or whatever.

As we went along talking, my eyes teared up and walking back to my car I found that I was close to weeping. It could have been a hormonal flux but there was definitely something else there.

As I said back in the previous post, I'm not particularly religious. But I think that there is something in that building for me.

Perhaps it's those 2 endearing women. Both are intelligent and forthright and warm - hugging me upon both my arrival and departure (I knew both previous to this morning). Bingo! - A caring community!

And I think that this is why people belong to a church, aside from the obvious reason. Maybe Obama had it right but just said it wrong. A hug, a good intelligent conversation and a lot of warmth from a church community (or any community) can go a long way to help alleviate day-to-day stress. And why not cling to that?

Not sure about the clinging to guns part, however - but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

I don't think I wanted to cry because I had suddenly found God. What I had found were truly spiritual people who believe in something I don't necessarily believe in - but who still embraced me, welcomed me and offered me their friendship down the road.

We've got a lot of good people here, doing good things here. We should cherish that.