Gloria DiFulvio, thank you for sharing this story. I have had it bookmarked for a while and haven’t had the opportunity to give it the full read it deserves until today. I also posted my little diddy because of alto’s OG post. It appears he’s started everyone thinking about their own spiritual journey, and for that I thank him.

Your story is familiar to me and I so identify with not wanting to be labelled as something or other. The more I think about it, the more I’m like: Why bother? Who cares? It’s one of those things I change position on a lot.

I can also relate to your upbringing. About half of my family is Catholic — the larger half. We say the Lord’s prayer at the close of every family reunion, and funerals are often filled with many a rosary bead and lots and lots of whisky.

My husband also grew up Episcopalian, which he calls “Catholic-lite.” The cool thing about Episcopalians is that their priests will get you home in time for kick-off on Sundays. There’s a lot of cool things about Episcopalians actually. My husband can recite the entire Nicene Creed from heart. He just doesn’t believe any of it anymore, and he feels that if he did go back to Episcopal church, he’d be a liar and a fraud, and that would be worse than just being a non-religious non-church-goer. Though, there’s not really anything wrong with being a non-religious non-church-goer either, we both just wrestle with being outside of the club.

I feel as though I can advocate for some religions while abstaining from jumping in bed with them myself. I actually really love the rules. I love theology, and I love dogma. I can talk about that all day. I just think they can all be misinterpreted quite easily, and that’s distracting, and annoying, and confusing. The worst part is, it can destroy lives.

You put it beautifully here:

And I know that I will never support a religion or its people who use it as a weapon against others.

The way I see it, if I were to ever get divinely whacked on the noggin’ with the belief stick, I would probably go back to church and start believing in God again. Until then, I am content to be as I am. I gravitate toward people that seem to effortlessly accept others as they are. That’s just a trait I desire seeing in other humans. Whatever religion or lack of religion they have makes me no nevermind. Rigidity is a trait I dislike. When you get into religion, and a belief in God and all of that, then you have to start talking about absolute truth— that’s rigidity. So I guess you could say, I like the magazine just fine. I don’t like the subscription process, so I don’t subscribe.

I was talking with my therapist about my beliefs this week, because I was shocked that post of mine had received so much attention, and I was telling her that I feel as though I’m bendy. I prefer it when things are squishy. It’s probably why I am the way I am and feel the way I do about God and religion. I personally sway with the breeze, but I try to give as much respect as possible to those (at the individual level) that I feel deserve it.

Anyway, thanks for your story. Really enjoyed it. I’ve written too much here and time has gotten away from me, so I’ll sign off now.

Keep on keepin’ on,

JB