This is my report from the hidden Catholic church of Amsterdam, Our Lord in the Attic, built and operated by Jan Hartman, a rich merchant, during the 1660s. Catholicism was banned since the late 1500s, so the industrious Jan bought three canal houses on the Oudezijds Voorburgval and joined the top floors into a house of prayer. It has been a museum since 1888.

But first I’d like to digress to write something about faith, religion, and atheism; show you a couple of Emily Dickinson poems; describe the early days of the Gothenburg Zen Center; and describe a recent Amsterdam meetup concerning “Atheism 2.0.”

I’m not the type of atheist to love atheism, to make a positive ideal of irreligiosity. I see it more as an unfortunate accident: I happened to be born and raised outside of any religious structure, and my conceptual worldview seems to resist most doctrine. Maybe I am genetically a smart alec and a devil’s advocate. In any case, I can’t seem to let my guard down long enough to be saved by Jesus—some kind of spiritual homophobia?

With these kinds of questions in mind, I attended a meetup last week, on the topic of “Atheism 2.0,” a ridiculous (and ironic) name for something articulated by Alain de Botton, a humorous yet sincere manifesto to let secular pursuits be inspired by religious traditions. The meetup, organized by a loose association called “Church for Atheists (+ agnostics + the rest of us),” took place in an obscure theater. There was coffee served out of a thermos, a subtly ecclesiastical touch. We watched de Botton’s TED talk, then did group discussions.

Afterwards, the coffee thermos guy turned into a bartender selling cheap Jupiler, and informal conversations blossomed in the hallways. I ended being part of a small clique formed of members from the English language discussion group.

Stepping out to share a smoke with another guy, Hilko, I discovered that he was a frontend developer, a Hacker News reader, and a dabbler in Clojure and Erlang. These attributes placed him within a pretty small circle of vanguard computer nerds. I was surprised at my lack of surprise to find such a character there. There’s an interesting diversity of spiritual interests that overlaps with nerdhood; not all nerds are Dawkinites.

Then there was Leah, a Bostonian med student studying in Amsterdam, having just moved here a week ago. She was cute, intelligent, and sympathetic. She asked me about Swedish culture, and I felt a strong desire to be warm and friendly as I admitted, “it’s generally cold, a bit timid, taciturn.”

There was also an older English gentleman—warmly irreverent, admitting to feeling a strong sense of “morality” in the music of Beethoven, laughing with grandfatherly equanimity at his family situation (his youngest daughter thinks he’s “just rubbish” for his ironic sense of humor). He was an eloquent speaker and frankly endearing.

But I can’t profile everyone at the meetup, I’m on a deadline here, so back to generalities. I’m trying to establish a certain subcultural perspective on religious faith as something lost, in the manner of a loss of innocence, a reason for yearning.

Here’s a poem by Emily Dickinson:

To lose one’s faith — surpass

The loss of an Estate —

Because Estates can be

Replenished — faith cannot — Inherited with Life —

Belief — but once — can be —

Annihilate a single clause —

And Being’s — Beggary —

I am perhaps a beggar, wandering in places where I don’t belong, trying to extract some warmth and solace whereever I stumble. That is sometimes how I feel when visiting churches. I sort of bask in the reflected glow of a faith I don’t share. Here’s another:

A Door just opened on a street —

I — lost — was passing by —

An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed —

And Wealth — and Company. The Door as instant shut — And I —

I — lost — was passing by —

Lost doubly — but by contrast — most —

Informing — misery —

Could she be depicting lack of faith? Some people have the capacity to turn lack of faith into something almost saintly, at least grand and heroic: a doubtful struggle towards a Kierkegaardian “leap of faith.” Reading this poem, I am reminded of Christ walking with the cross, shunned by the householders.

Many of the people at the meetup described themselves as having been raised into some faith, then for one reason or another coming to doubt the validity of their churches, and leaving for the bittersweet pilgrimage of agnosticism. They seemed basically happy but longing for certain aspects of religiosity, curious to see how other people coped. As Alain de Botton puts it, “secular life is full of holes.”

One of the holes, de Botton argues, is in “civic life,” in particular social opportunities to meet adult friends. This is a well known problem. Finding new friends when you’re out of school takes effort, luck, and knowhow. Despite the Wi-Fi illumination of the smartphone, we remain rather aloof, tribal, anonymous. One theory calls it a lack of a “third place” between home and work, idealized by the Irish pub myth, the place “where everybody knows your name,” a Hobbiton inn, or even a place full of exotic strangers, like the Mos Eisley Cantina. A place to be a citizen out of uniform. A place to belong as a member of an urban, international community.

Maybe I’m just homesick? But my home towns weren’t much better. Who’s got time to hang out in a pub? Who can afford it? Plus to meet regularly in a beerhouse leads to alcoholism. One can also try the posh cafés that don’t know how to brew either tea or coffee and serve ridiculously expensive sandwiches. Good coffee places are judged only by the crema of their espresso and the frequency of MacBooks, not anything old fashioned like “community spirit.” It’s like a weird kind of consumer aristocracy. Friendships between economic classes must always be mediated through the choice of venue. The 18th century Enlightenment, including the whole French and American revolutions, was a result of cheap coffee in hospitable places, plus leisure time. We now have neither. Civic life, Twitter notwithstanding, is near extinct.

Well, anyway, I went to “Our Lord in the Attic,” a church-turned-museum in a block of canal houses in the middle of the Red Light District, that epicenter of old school lurid capitalism, pure trade in everything desirous, from steaks to joints to female bodies. It was a warm spring afternoon and everyone seemed happy. Whitman wrote “If I had known you I would have loved you,” and that’s how I always feel on such days, probably mistakenly. Europe’s largest Chinese Buddhist temple is also somewhere around here, and the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam’s oldest church. It’s a place of contrasts.

Our Lord in the Attic is a breath of virtuous air, an oasis in the sinful, tourist-packed district. But here’s my advice to you as a potential visitor: skip the audio tour. It’s not bad, and some info is rather interesting (e.g., which floor tiles are original, which drawer contained the priest’s underpants), but mostly it is slow-paced and rather dull. It seems to make the museum experience into a kind of didactic, school visit thing. I would have preferred to hang out in this museum without the buzzing presence of audio tour gadgets. Why not use the place as an actual church? It’s wonderful, though highly inaccessible to those in wheelchairs.

I can relate to the project of a half-secret urban church, because the Gothenburg Zen Center, until late 2013, had its city temple in a bottom-floor two room apartment on a second-hand contract. It was my first real contact with “religion” that I felt seriously interested in. And the underground mystique of gathering in an old apartment fit perfectly. Everyone was of course very friendly and lovely, and it reminded me a little bit about Fight Club. We were the small group of people who were clued in to the importance of zazen and kensho. This secret club mentality is of course a childish projection one is supposed to grow out of as soon as possible, but I admit it still excites me.

Zen is of course not illegal in Gothenburg, as Catholicism was in Amsterdam, but it is quite a niche interest. Many people come to introductory sessions but stop attending after realizing how boring it is to meditate. (Before realizing how wonderful it is.) The drop-off curve is notorious. It is not elitist, but it holds quite firmly to traditional forms, and avoids succumbing to postmodern demands of flexibility. If your legs hurt, then please just remain seated until the bell rings, it is good practice. And it really is.

For a while I was responsible for opening the temple on Sunday mornings. I would go there half an hour or an hour in advance, put on my thin brown robe, brew tea, and sit in zazen until the first buzz from the doorbell. One had to designate people for the various tasks, like timekeeping, incense lighting, and hitting the wood block. And then “lead” the actual meditation, which mostly involves keeping half an eye on things and opening the windows if it’s hot. It was a pleasant kind of responsibility, a chance to practice hospitality, practice at being an adult.

Our Lord in the Attic had a live-in priest. There are some guys and gals at the Zen center who would love to live like that. To be in the financial position to spend their days tending for the temple, making flower arrangements, accepting anyone who wants to come over for tea or zazen. This kind of life is completely appealing to me, that or being a monk.

Let me describe the experience of entering Our Lord in the Attic. You get your ticket at the front desk, and then you go up a flight of stairs. You see some regular old rooms from a merchant’s house in Amsterdam. Small beds, fireplaces, cupboards. A lobby, in fashionably symmetrical interior design, where Hartman would greet his guests, and then usher them up to the service, through a narrow flight of stairs in this cramped canal house, up into a marvellous Catholic chapel with a large altar, an organ, balconies. It’s quite breathtaking.

Our Lord in the Attic became unnecessary when Catholic practice was allowed again, and especially when the grand Basilica of St. Nicholas opened up in the same neighborhood, indeed visible from the windows of the hidden chapel. Yet it remains as a reminder of the possibility for non-mainstream assembly. Let’s gather at whoever’s got the nicest apartment to meditate, drink coffee, and plan the revolution.