Rituals

Sacred Heart Catholic Church - Sarajevo, Bosnia - June 2, 2023.

Changing places several times - especially in the case of different countries - profoundly transforms routine, beliefs and the way we conduct our experiences.

We lose a lot of control over small things, which accumulated become major obstacles that can completely change the way we face that experience - habits such as sleep routine, physical exercises, food, hobbies, end up getting lost in the midst of the new reality we live in that new place.

During my experience in Cambodia, exactly one year ago, I went through situations that today, from a new perspective, I can appreciate better than when I lived. I was full of expectations and little notion of what was real and what my lack of maturity considered pure bad luck. The days mixed in my memory with the discomforts, a deregulated routine, the lack of understanding of the culture, and the constant challenges of the language.

I had time to analyze everything after I got back, and I often find myself thinking about how each place already brings its own challenges for someone who has a clear and comfortable routine. The only thing I took for granted and managed to maintain constantly, on the other side of the world, was praying.

It certainly helped me a lot at the time to stay focused on what was important, and it still remains a habit that makes me disconnect my mind from the present and look at everything from a bigger perspective.

I didn't grow up in a religious home, nor was I taught to go to church every Sunday by my parents. Despite being a habit that I have been perfecting by my own will over this short time, it has little to do with the church and the mass itself - since in almost all places, finding a mass in English was almost impossible. However, the fact of being in a church, sitting on a bench, feeling the silence makes me able to find a foothold, to feel that something bigger is leading me and helping me.

Religion feeds us that - makes us believe and be grateful that someone greater than us keeps everything in a strange order, which we trust will make sense in the end. Churches, mostly Catholic, were designed for this - beautiful ethereal frescoes, rituals full of symbolism and order, and incredibly high ceilings - to make us feel small, always looking up.

Despite still being a little far from mastering my routine, today in Bosnia, I still manage to keep this habit every Sunday as a reminder that despite everything seems out of kilter at times, in a general perspective, we are on the right track, being blessed and guided with an amazing experience - wild, true real life.