You gotta have faith?

When I was 6 years old an elderly woman came to babysit. She was an African American and a devout Baptist. She told me that whatever I asked God for, he would deliver. I couldn’t believe my luck and asked her if it was really true. When she confirmed it was, I immediately got angry at my parents. Why hadn’t they told me about this before? You mean I’ve been made to suffer for 6 whole years for nothing?!

My first thought was to ask God to get my parents to stop fighting. When the babysitter asked me what I would like to pray for, I don’t remember if I told her about my parents. But my next memory is of us kneeling down to pray that my psoriasis would go away. We prayed and prayed. It made total sense to me and I loved it.

When my parents got home I excitedly told them everything and demanded to know why they had never told me about prayer. They said nothing, but the babysitter never returned.

When I was in 5th grade I wanted to get a Bat Mitzvah like my friends. Again, my parents avoided the topic and dragged their feet until the subject was forgotten.

I now live a completely secular life. My husband is an atheist and I have no close friends who are religious. The rigidities and hypocrisy of organised religion, together with my upbringing, have turned me into a skeptic and critic of faith.

Yet I know that that little 6-year old girl still resides in me. Is there such a thing as a closeted spiritual person? How do I fill this need for faith while staying true to my intellect? Where does thinking end and spirituality begin? How can one keep the two straight?