Church today, really?

  Today is the first time I have gone to church in a long time.  I have not been able to attend because I have been so overwhelmed I could not make it through a service.  Either I would become overcome with emotions that I could not stay in my seat, I had to leave to get tissues and compose myself or I would just have to leave.  I stopped going because I could not be calm.  These days are very different days since my confirmation in junior high school.  Everything used to be theoretical and "above" me.  I could abstractly understand everything, but nothing was real or literal for me.  I went through a long time that I was sickened and disgusted at the hypocrisy that is rampant at church and did not want to face or attend service with those people.  Now, I realize the experience of worship is a personal one and you can take away and bring to it what you want as an individual.  The congregation as a whole is important, but we are all sinners and must respect that they show up with their individual circumstances.  It is not my job to judge and neither is it their job to judge me.
  Leading to today, my attendance at church, one event that lead me was reading "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown.  This book really opened my eyes to how the world in reality works.  Everything that is good that you can conjure up in your imagination is not how reality works.  There is something to be said for an experience that you want to make happen and actually making it happen.  I would imagine what a first date or first kiss would be like.  When the time would actually come about, it was never how I pictured it in my head.  However, sometimes the experience, how it felt in my head, what the trees and grass smelled like, what the bench felt like beneath my legs, what their cologne and my perfume smelled like, what the sun felt like on my skin, etc. was better than anything I could conjure in my head.  Some experiences were much better than I could have imagined because I have never gone through that circumstance before and could not foresee what everything would be like.  I lacked foresight and experience.  Despite previous experience, however, the same experience, as in going on a date, can be unique.  Different feelings, state of mind, time of day, etc. can all make the same restaurant or location be unique despite similar environment.
  I found that the ending of "The Lost Symbol" was an ending based in reality from a long, fantastical, mysterious and intriguing journey.  An ending that was tangible and real.  Something based in the tactile and conceptual thoughts of a person experiencing them without the unreal or the imagination clouding the experience.  Something that is not fake and something that is tangible.  I do not think that I am describing this transcendental experience that has heightened my awareness of the world and focused my ability to comprehend the world around me with more clarity and detail that I otherwise did not experience or notice going through life in the past.
  Experiences in the real world can be better than my imagination because of the unexpected and the unknowable.  I can see that taking risks and doing things that are not familiar to me leads to new knowledge, experience and things that can make me happy without my ever considering it before as the unfamiliar was previously not an option.  It's like, for those of you who know what it is like, to put on glasses for the first time ever after going years without glasses and finally getting the proper prescription.  Everything becomes 3-D.  The trees have leaves and not blurs, people have freckles and not blotches, everything has definition and detail that are now amazing and new.  Life can be beautiful and awe inspiring with just opening your eyes and seeing the details differently, clearly, distinctly.
  There is nothing that is mystical waiting for me out there.  Basing the hopes and dreams of my future in reality makes everything possible.  What I want seems reachable and just requires looking into the steps it takes to make whatever I want to happen.  The happiness is tangible.  There is nothing more to it.  Today, church is about embracing the spirituality inside myself and believing in something bigger than me.  An inner peace that is starting to wash over me can be only enhanced by surrounding myself with a secure setting with those with similar desire for enlightenment at whatever stage they are at in life.  Church is to be my haven of light to help me as much as I want, not a place to push on me its own agenda without my knowledge.  An experience based in reality of this earth.  The places that are in the bible exist.  They are tangible as the place I go and sit in.  Some human wrote the articles that are included in the bible and they lived as I do.  A simple person that puts their clothes on one leg or sleeve at a time.  They ate and slept and worked everyday of their life.  Simple as that, so goes the curve ball that is my life.