No matter how you feel about religion, there’s no doubt that many have value in their philosophical outlook on life. And you don’t have to be spiritual or religious to appreciate certain aspects of belief.

I’ve studied Hinduism and Buddhism in the past, and even though their theology isn’t my cup of tea, I feel that I benefited from understanding their philosophy.

It’s been a while since I thought about spirituality, so I decided to check out the Orthodox church by my apartment to see what I could learn.

Be kind. Don’t go it alone.

I was in the church for only a few minutes before several members introduced themselves and invited me to coffee hour.

As someone who’s lived in the D.C. area their whole life, I’m used to everyone keeping their head down and going about their business with an occasional head nod to someone you awkwardly make eye contact with.

But at the church, I was pleasantly surprised with parishioners kindness and eagerness to welcome a newcomer — and an outsider at that.

Speaking with parishioners after the liturgy, I learned the importance that Orthodoxy places on community and watching out for each other. Life is hard, and they’re all striving for the same thing, so why not work together to achieve it?

In a world that’s connected through social media and technology, there’s less importance placed on in-person community and we often lose what communities we did have once we leave school.

We tend to put on side blinders when we’re on our own and forget how far kindness towards others can go.

Failure is expected. But so is determination

In Orthodoxy, they believe to sin is to miss the mark. It’s to be expected, humans are imperfect and we fail. We will fail many times in our life. But what’s most important is to acknowledge a failing, learn from it, and try it again. Keep trying, and eventually, you won’t fall to sin as often.

I believe this to be one of the best attitudes to have when approaching life in general. I’ve botched job interviews, written bad papers, and told cringe-worthy jokes. It’s easy to get stuck in a cycle of blaming others and self-pity when things don’t go right.

But things aren’t perfect all the time and we can’t be at 100% all the time. When we fail, we should acknowledge it, learn from it, and accept it. We missed the mark, but it’s to be expected. Get up and try it again until we get it right.

Life is suffering. Embrace it

Orthodoxy has the philosophy of taking up your cross and working your way up the hill of salvation the best you can. Which basically means that everyone has something that weighs heavy on them, whether it be life circumstance, weak will, personality flaws — whatever is it — accept it and live to the best of your ability with that burden.

That’s not to say you should have the attitude of “I’m a jerk. That’s the cross I bear. Nothing I can do about it!” But that you should make the effort to act with kindness if you struggle with being nice and to own up to it when you hurt someone.

Many other Christian denominations have this belief, but there is much more emphasis on it in Orthodoxy. Mostly because Orthodox Christians have had time to practice. Orthodox have been getting their asses kicked for the better part of their existence. Sack of Constantinople, Oppression under the Ottoman Empire, World War II — it’s a wonder how these guys are still around.

The world is going to throw you up on that cross and nail you down. But just as Christ embraced his cross, so must we.