I was fortunate enough to know Sue Peterson Kosednar -- she was my paternal grandam's cousin, making her my second cousin once removed (I quite pleased when I figured out my genealogical relation to her). My grandma was orphaned at age 11 or 12, and went to live with Sue and her family, so she was more like an aunt to my dad and his siblings. Sue passed away in March, and a memorial service was held for her in Waukesha, WI recently, which I attended.
Sue was an active member of her Salem United Methodist, and the main service was held at the church. I had not been inside a church in probably two and a half years, longer if you don't count weddings. To further illustrate my distance from religion, I just attended another wedding in which God was mentioned only once, almost in passing, and I was very OK with that.
I consider myself an agnostic, but not a vehement one. There is not much about which I like to argue, and religion falls pretty far down the list of topics I want to become engage in a heated conversation in. As for many things, I believe there are many different points of views and opinions, and thus no one right answer. (And clearly, I think this is one question we can't know the answer to, so why bother arguing...)
But despite my disagreement with the tenets of religion, I have long recognized that a huge draw of organized religion is the community. You move to a new place, you know no one. But as soon as you find a church, you instantly have a circle of support and kinship. (Or at least, it seems to me from the outside that you should.) And Sue's memorial drove this point home.
The memorial was attended by family and friends alike, and from what I could tell, most of the friends knew Sue through the Church. Sue was 81 when she died, but two middle-aged women got up to speak about her, and from their distress, it was clear how much Sue had meant to them. Sue was integral in her church welcoming a Hmong family to Waukesha, helping them learn Engligh, find jobs, and buy a home.
In hearing all these wonderful stories about Sue, it became clear to me what a great source of instant community Church is...and that Ultimate serves this purpose in my world. I met the vast majority of my current closest friends through Ultimate -- and I didn't know a soul when I moved out to Connecticut eight and a half years ago. I met my boyfriend through Ultimate, and I will have attended 6 "Ultimate weddings" by this fall (where the couples also met playing Ultimate). There is a public, nation-wide list-serve for Ultimate, and people frequently post asking for rides from point A to tournament B. Just two weekends ago, my Ultimate team was holding tryouts, and people who had traveled from afar were offered housing, despite having only met their hosts that day.
No, Ultimate doesn't offer the serenity of believing in a higher power, or peace from knowing He or She or They has/have promised you entrance to a heaven in the after-life, or even consolation that there is an after-life. But it does provide instant access to a supportive, caring community.
