Religion

Was fine with it as a kid, but pulled away during my later teen years. There was a heavy emphasis on making sure you were "saved" and going to the right place when you died, and part of that was the idea that anyone who hadn't heard about the "plan of salvation" was automatically going to hell, so we all had a responsibility to "witness" to as many people as possible and try to "lead them to the lord." (All words in quotes were Baptist buzzwords that had very specific and significant meanings.)

As a socially awkward, introverted, teen girl, there was no way I was going to run around trying to convince people to change their beliefs, but I felt guilty about it because I was the kind of kid whose natural inclination was to do what I was told and if I couldn't, I saw it as a personal failing.

Add to that the messages I was being given about how the music I loved (the Beatles in particular) was the "devil's music" and listening to it was "sinful," and you have a perfect recipe for my becoming alienated from the kind of religion I grew up with. I eventually stopped attending church, which my mother didn't like but eventually learned to live with.

I did not become an atheist, however. The existence of God always has been and still is something that's too real to me to deny. Religion, including the idea that there was a creator who loved me, had sustained me throughout a difficult childhood, and I had no desire to ditch the whole thing just because I didn't like some of the trappings that a certain type of religion came with.

For the next few years, I looked for something I could commit to without having to give lip service to things I didn't really agree with. I still felt like a Christian in a lot of ways, but I was done with the biblical literalness I'd been raised with, as well as the idea that everything we'll ever need to know, the answers to every possible question about life were to be found in the Bible, and nowhere else. I stopped believing that in high school, after reading about how Martin Luther King -- an actual Baptist preacher! -- took a lot of his ideas about nonviolent resistance from Mahatma Gandhi. (He drew on some of the teachings of Jesus as well, but it was from Gandhi that he learned how to put nonviolence into practice as a catalyst for change.) That was an eye opener for little ex-Baptist me, that there were many sources of wisdom in the world to draw upon, not JUST the Bible.

My search for another way to connect with God stayed with me into my early 20s, when I learned about the Baha'i Faith and fell in love with its message about working for world unity and the idea that "the earth is but one country and mankind its citizens." I eventually embraced its teachings fully, became a Baha'i, and married a Baha'i man who is still my husband (51 years and counting!). For over 30 years, we both remained fully committed to that way of life, but as time went on, we began to disagree more and more with certain aspects of it.

The thing that eventually pushed both of us over the brink was the teachings on sexuality. Sex was to be reserved strictly for marriage (3 guesses how many Baha'is ever manage to fully live up to that), and marriage was between a man and a woman, no exceptions allowed. Gay people were warmly welcomed into the Baha'i fold but counseled to regard their same sex attractions as a sort of spiritual defect, and to remain celibate if they couldn't bring themselves to marry a member of the opposite sex. Ugh.

Long story short, we both left that religion a long time ago. My husband is just fine not bring affiliated with any religion, but I have continued to look for something that's a better fit for me, and I am now getting ready to join the Episcopal Church, which has the inclusivity and emphasis on reason (as opposed to blind belief) that's I need. In a way, I've come full circle, back to my Christian roots, but this is a very different flavor of Christianity, and I feel at home there.

In a way, my life might have been a lot simpler if I hadn't continued to feel a need to have religion as a part of it, but I do have that need, and pretending otherwise would never have worked for me. My belief in God is not something I've chosen intellectually; it's something that comes from a place deep inside me and has never left. If I was capable of being an atheist, I'm sure I'd be one by now, but I'm not.

At this point in my life, I do not believe there is any "one, true" religion and the others are all wrong. All I know is that being part of a religious community that reflects my own deeply held values is good for me in a way I can't really explain. It gives me something that I seem to need, and it feels like the right choice -- for me, not necessarily for everyone.