Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
I have gone to an Orthodox church in my town on-and-off for the better part of two years now. That is recommended above books and study even for the types who can delve into all issues with logic and reason, but more certainly (I imagine) for types like me who fail at attaining or using these faculties well. I have never yet sat down with a priest or gone to a class to hear their instruction, never expressed an interest in converting, and I don't know that I really have the desire to convert. (Or, I would say that I do, but I can't be sure why the Orthodox is/should be better than the Catholic, given my lack of skill at reason, and it will take many years to just "feel" what is right, or might be more conducive to both a private and inter-personal devotional faith.)
There are two thing which stood out most to me in this post. Firstly, that even without a sense of conviction or conversion the OP has still been attending Divine Liturgy to some degree for two years now, even without any kind of social reinforcement like knowing the priests or having made friends in the parish or having had any kind of informative instruction like what attracts most converts. Converts always come in reading books, and yet the OP has stuck it out sans the studying, and in many respects, that is simply admirable and even miraculous!!
I tell my the kids in my class we don't read the bible, or have our structured lessons, or recite from prayer books to study these in the same sense that we study for a math or history exam. These are manifestations of "spiritual exercise" which Paul recommends. We are not learning in our minds from these activities, we are growing in our experience and relationship with the Holy Spirit (ie, GOD). So it really isn't important to study so much as to pray, and if studying is prayer than they compliment, but it study is its own distraction then it is not spiritual exercise. That being said, for a person to continue to be brought by the Spirit to the Divine Liturgy, aside from rationalizing or studying to convince, that is remarkable. I pray that the OP stick with it in God's Grace.
To the OP, the truth is that ALL of us in Orthodox, cradles and converts alike, go through these spiritual struggles. The Church is a social institution, and we are bound to have all the same gripes and grievances with our Mother the Church that we have with other institutions like school, work, the DMV, or even our earthly mothers. Conflict is human, resolution is Divine. Attending the Liturgy, especially for "no particular rational, conviction, or conversion" I would say is then all the more Divine, considering that for at least in that moment of prayer our internal conflicts are temporarily resolved by our standing there in Faith. Sometimes I have come to Liturgy with a lot of gripe or grief on my heart, and have found myself anger, bitter, jaded, standing there saying to myself (cursing more likely
), "Why I am still standing here? Just leave, just walk out the door.." and yet I never have once, and instead God has reconciled all my pain and fear while standing there before His Holy Body and Bloody. That is the most important gift the Church offers, not just Baptism, or Chrismation, or Marriage, or even to receive the Holy Communion, but simply to be able to stand in what the Lutherans call "The Real Presence"
I tell non-Orthodox Christians about the Liturgy, "Listen, we are all Christians right? We read the Bible sometimes maybe, and we would like to meet and know Jesus right? Well, as hard is it is to believe, Jesus Christ is PHYSICALLY in the building during Divine Liturgy, and where else in the world could we possibly want or have to be if not standing there momentarily before our Lord in the Flesh and Blood?"
Jesus Christ may be a "pie-in-the-sky" God to a lot of Christians, a God who is coming back at some inevitable date in the future to heal us if we can just hold on, Orthodox stands to proclaim the Sacramental Truth that Jesus Christ simply never left us, and we know like clockwork where we can find Him if we simply pray and do not take it for granted
That being said, to the OP, stick with it. You've answered your own question:
is a distraction and I really do love/prefer a liturgical setting
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It is the Liturgy which has caught you in the Spirit, so why go anywhere else? Stick with the Divine Liturgy, be it Catholic or Orthodox, where ever God brings you from yours and His Heart, but stick with the Liturgy. The prayers and songs of the Liturgy are literally the Kingdom of God momentarily brought to us on the lowly Earth, so where else would you want to go pray? Why go to any other Church out there, if Jesus Christ is already bringing to Himself directly? I pray that we all have as much faith as you do, to stick it out beyond reason, beyond conviction, that is Faith!! My brother simply allow this strong Faith of yours to grow on its own, like the Gospels say,"
"Thus is the Kingdom of God: As if ever a man should be casting seed on the earth, and he may be drowsing and then rousing night and day, and the seed may be germinating and lengthening, as he is not aware. Spontaneously then the earth is bearing fruit, first the blade, thereafter the ear, thereafter the full grain."
We may do the planting and reaping, but it is God who always give the increase, spontaneously as it were, while we are drowsing, like David the Psalmist sang, "While the Lord gives as much to His people while they sleep!"
stay blessed,
habte selassie
