I’m an avowed
atheist, finding little incentive to seek out a higher being. A quiz I once
took online called me a secular humanist. I guess that’s accurate. But that’s
not how I started out.
For as long as I
can remember, I went to Sunday school, and often to church as well. As a
preschooler I remember children’s sermons by Reverend Olander at the church in
Athens, Greece, and singing “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” as a duet with
another girl in Sunday School. I attended Sunrise Services Easter morning atop
the Acropolis, near the footprint of the ancient temple of Athena. I
accompanied my mother into the poorest parts of town to minister to the needy.
I remember going
with our Greek maid Maria to her home town, a long bus ride from our suburb of
Athens. Her mother lived in a stone cottage with a dirt floor and nothing but a
bed, a stove, and a giant loom in the corner. We attended a wedding at the
village church,where priests in stovepipe black hats and black vestments swung
incense before gilded icons of the saints and holy family, and afterwards ate
the pastel candy covered almonds that were traditional for such an affair. I
remember the dark chapel, the mystery, the scent of incense, the holiness of
the occasion.
Very different was
the church I attended while in elementary school. Munson Hill Presbyterian was
its name, and I remember what a big deal it was, at age 10 or so, to get ready
for Easter Sunday. We had to purchase a new Easter outfit. Mine was yellow,
with a wide-brimmed yellow hat to match. I grew up in that church, singing in
the children’s choir, then advancing to a solo sung on Christmas Eve before the
entire congregation (“O Holy Night”). In Sunday School, we debated the meaning
of predestination and other weighty matters. Our teen Youth Group took a field
trip to Great Falls on the Potomac River, and held a dance social where I
remember the first brush of my face against the cheek of my partner—a heady
experience that I later relived in fantasy over and over. My dad was a deacon
of the church and taught adult Sunday School. My mom stayed home and prepared
Sunday dinner for the seven of us.
When we moved to
Frankfurt, Germany—the end of the world for me!—I moped and moped, refusing to
leave the car even to see the magnificent Chartres Cathedral in France on our
way from the dock at Le Havre to Paris. I had been torn from my home and
friends and was convinced I would never recover.
Soon, however, I
was actively involved with the Army Chapel, headed up by a baptist minister,
Reverend Armstrong, who introduced me to sweet old baptist hymns that we never
would have thought of singing at the Presbyterian church. I sang and soloed in
the adult choir, was substitute organist for various chapels around the area,
and generally embraced the role of devout Christian young person.
This did not last
through college, however. Somewhere along the line I switched from true
believer to impassioned non-believer. Perhaps it was the influence of
flagrantly anti-religious boyfriends, but I never made it back into the fold. As
an adult, I’ve had no use for organized religion and its mumbo jumbo and
promises of life after death.
That’s not to say
I’m not spiritual. I revere all of creation, and see humans on an equal footing
with the multitude of creatures with whom we share the planet. I have a basic
faith that people try to do good if at all possible. I respect those who
profess to have faith, though I wonder why they need to call on events that
happened in the Middle East thousands of years ago to validate their religious
experience; the place-based spirituality of Native Americans makes more sense
to me. (Thanks to Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, for alerting me to
the themes that permeate all religions.) And I certainly don’t begrudge people
who call on God to explain why their personal difficulties are all part of His
plan. May they find solace and support in that conviction.
In any case, no
church for me. I glory in the sight of a spring woodland when shafts of
sunlight pierce the tree canopy. I tune in to the rhythm of life when waves
break over and over along the shore. I see diamonds in the sparkling waters of
a lake at sunset, hear the voice of the ages in the call of cranes passing high
overhead.
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