Beginning with the Holocaust?

Krakow - main square 

When I landed in Krakow, I started to think about my relationship to Judaism. Let's just say I think it was a good thing I decided to begin The Heathen with religions I knew absolutely nothing about:  Hinduism and Buddhism. The next three - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - are going to be a challenge because of what I think I know, what I don't know, and what any readers of The Heathen know and feel about these religions.

Why am I going through the training for these faiths in this order? To begin with, because of basic chronology. Judaism came first, then Christianity, then Islam. But the relationship between the "religions of Abraham" is deeper than that, of course: Christianity was built on the foundation of Judaism, and Islam was built on the foundation of both Judaism and Christianity. Makes sense to start at the beginning, right?

Okay, so it's important to bring out any baggage I've got before I begin. I've always thought that Judaism and Islam would be the toughest for me, the ones that would require a bit of airing out of old ideas so I can start with as open a mind and heart as possible: Islam because of 9/11, Judaism because of family.

My father, who is now a devout atheist and, in fact, against religion of any sort, was raised in a Jewish home. Sort of. He was a bar mitzvah at thirteen but more because of his grandparents than his parents. His wise-cracking, playful father and more sharp-edged mother cared about cards, family brunches and traveling. My grandfather died playing pinochle with friends. I don't remember my grandfather or grandmother in any religious event or ceremony. The most religious person in my father's life was his grandmother, Bertha. "She used to bribe me to go to synagogue with her," my Dad said. "If I went with her, she'd take me to the movies after, the ones with the show and cartoons before. So sometimes I'd go. She was a lot of fun."

I think if my father had married someone more observant, he might have gone along with it but he didn't. My mother has no use for groups of any kind or anything she considers weak and the need for belief of any kind,  she feels, involves both. Her father felt the same, a bah-humbug man, for sure. He was born in the United States in 1896, shortly after his family came here from Poland and grew up in Irish-Catholic South Boston, the son of a Jewish doctor. That couldn't have been easy. Her mother, Opal, was my only grandparent with any vestige of religious feelings left over from her Methodist up-bringing in far northern Maine, but it was a pretty pale remnant: she cared a lot about having the palm leaves in the shape of a cross in her home on Palm Sunday.

Together, my parents feel quite clear that things like 9/11 and the Holocaust -- and virtually every war going back to the beginning of time -- have been caused by religion. Far from being a positive force in the world, they really believe it is the root cause of dissension and hate. It's not hard to see why they think that.

As for me? I have felt completely frozen by this concept. Just because someone claims to act in the name of a faith, is the act caused by that faith? If I rob a store and claim that I'm doing it in the name of Mickey Mouse, is Disney to blame? But, given how little I know about any religious tradition at all, I've been pretty much stuck having to listen to pundits -- never a good place to be.

This explains part of the provocation for The Heathen but I need to get back to laying out my personal baggage as I begin to learn about Judaism. When it's family baggage, there's always more, right?

My father's sister married a guy who was in the Army with my father in the Korean war. My aunt and uncle became fairly observant of certain Jewish traditions, especially Passover. We were invited every year and, in spite of my mothers deep-seated discomfort with my father's family and with any religious traditions at all,  we went. We went and my mother made quiet quips about the proceedings to whichever one of us was next to her and spent the car ride home picking at the moments she felt were full of it. It didn't help that my uncle loved being the center of attention in a kind of creepy way and that we had other reasons to be deeply uncomfortable with him. So the only practice of Judaism I really ever witnessed was all tangled up in uncomfortable family dynamics.

Anyway, for better or worse, the little personal contact I had with any religion as a child were these Passover seders and the Christmas plays at my Episcopalian school. Which brings me to the final piece of baggage to trot out: shame.

I cannot mince words: I went to school in a deeply antisemitic, bigoted community. I know this because girls in my class would tell me what they thought of Jews in general and the Jewish girls in our class in specific. In middle school my friends all went to dance class, ballroom dance class with mandatory white gloves, at a club that did not admit Jews or blacks. Catholics were just getting the privilege of admission.  I was told that Jews ate funny food, didn't get to have fun at Christmas, and were cheap. "Drop a penny and see if she picks it up!"

Yes, girls in my school did this to classmates of theirs.

In my neighborhood, we played games nonstop including tackle football and our made-up game of Spy. Dory Strittmatter always loved playing the villains. His villain of choice: the Nazis. One day, when I was about eleven, my brothers and I were playing football with the rest of the guys on the cul de sac. My brother, Robbie, somehow mentioned that we were Jewish. On the way home I took him aside and hissed at him: "Never tell people we are Jewish because we aren't!"

When I got older and it became clear that I was, according to my school classmates, part Jewish, they thought they were paying me a compliment by telling me that "you don't look Jewish."

One of the few remaining
synagogues in Krakow

But, even if both my parents were Jewish, if they taught me nothing about it, why would someone consider me Jewish? Isn't faith something you practice? Something you believe? It makes sense that you tend to believe and practice the faith of your parents but it's not an inherited trait like eye color, right?

I used to joke that I wasn't Jewish enough for Jews but I would have been for Hitler.

So now you have all the baggage I come with as I begin Judaism.

Still, to start my Judaism studies with a visit to the epicenter of the hatred of the Jewish people (and Catholics, and gypsies, and homosexuals etc etc etc) feels a bit off. That hatred emanated from ideas that, really, had nothing to do with the teachings of Judaism. But, if the purpose of this project is to understand, in some kind of visceral way, whether hatred between people of faith has, in reality, anything to do with those faiths and what kind of response these religious atrocities demand of us, then perhaps Auschwitz is really the dark heart of the matter. And I don't think it's possible to learn about the practice of Judaism, as a child of the 20th century, without standing squarely in some earned knowledge of the Holocaust.

I'm not at all sure I'm equipped to handle this.

Memorial to the victims of the Krakow Ghetto
Plac Bohaterow Getta  

Brit Hume, Tiger Woods, and Faith

This whole dust up confuses me.

First, in every Buddhist temple I've been in, they have regular atonement ceremonies that are central to the practice. At the Zen Center of Los Angeles, every time you sit, you begin with the Gatha of Atonement:

All evil karma ever committed by me since of old,
on account of my beginingless greed, anger, and ignorance,
born of my body, speech and mind,
now I atone for it all.

Second, Buddhist concepts include "right speech" and "not speaking of others' errors and faults."

I think all of us could benefit from considering this wisdom every time we open our mouths.

Finally, comments about the superiority of one religion over another serve only as further evidence for people like my mother and father that religious practice leads only to dissension and conflict.

Doing it...

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature: external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control , or philosophy – by one, or more, or all of these – and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

Swami Vivekananda

I went to learn some rituals. Swami Sarvadenanda said he’d teach them to me after aarti. It meant I had to figure out what aarti was.

The ritual worship of Ramakrishna at the Vedanta Society is easy to miss, at first. It wasn’t in the schedule the temple sent out every month but that’s because it happens every day at six in the evening. In its own quiet way, it was every bit as dramatic as the rituals at the temple in Whittier.

In a class, the swami had described the importance of ritual this way: “God is love. But how are we to know that?” he said, pausing as though one of us sitting in the class might actually answer him. “If you see a person who shows more love than is commonly manifested in everyday life, then you can use them as a role model. Like Ramakrishna. This is the source of the evangelical idea that you can only go to God through Christ. It’s important to see these spiritual giants as a role model so that we get encouraged to try to develop that kind of love.”

Okay, so the idea of revering a historical figure is starting to make some sense. I don’t think I can go so far as to worship Ramakrishna as though he were Divine but perhaps I can find traits of his worth admiring and even emulating although I’m not so good at the hero thing. It seems that everytime I get one, I look too close and they crash down.. Maybe I’ve looked for them in the wrong places like books, plays, movies, and biographies. Or maybe it’s because I demand too much of them. I’ve always thought heroes had to be perfect. Perhaps it's both of those reasons and one other: I doubt I could recognize a hero if I’d met one; I’m always too busy looking out for the clay feet.

Does it take death to fully recognize a hero? I deeply loved and admired my father-in-law while he was alive. When I think of a life lived on faith, I think of him, of his decision to become an orthopedist to help disabled children as Christ did and he did it outside his regular practice, without compensation, for his entire life. But it wasn’t until his death that this essential fact became untangled from the mundane family and human logistics which distracted from the truth, his truth, and now my truth. John didn’t need to be perfect to be one of my heroes. From his example I’ve learned what it means to live on faith and to give for no other purpose but as an exercise of that faith.

But it’s not easy with Ramakrishna. Even his main disciple, Vivekananda, the guy who started this sect of Hinduism called the Ramakrishna Mission or Vedanta here in the United States after Ramakrishna died, took quite some time before he fully appreciated his teacher. So what can I appreciate about Ramakrishna? I admire his unshakable desire to know the Unknowable and his single-minded devotion to the search, to know for himself. So I might not find myself swept away by spiritual ardor but I might be able to lay a flower at the base of his photo or get some sustenance from having his picture around the way I do from the photos of John on my mantelpiece at home.

At the aarti that night, everyone who came into the temple walked to the front, kneeled down and then most touched their heads on the clean carpet. I figured now was the time. No one much cared what I did or didn’t do. Plus, it was dark. So I walked up to the far side and did it: I kneeled down, touched my forehead to the carpet, and sat down on the floor.

All I felt was relief.

Whether or not it will ever be any more than that, I don’t know. Something about the idea of getting to the Divine through thinking of or reflecting on an example of someone who really tried, with every fiber of their being, to live a spiritual life makes it much less of a big deal. I’m not worshipping a picture or an icon so much as paying respect to an effort made, hoping to learn what I can from the act.

In half-light, Swami Sarvadevananda came in through a side door and stood facing the altar while a short-haired Anglo nun did all of the rituals which included a near constant ringing of the brass bell in her hand. Two congregants beat gongs while everyone chanted “Jai Sri Ramakrishna” - like Hemu’s greeting “Jai Swaminarayan” only with a different name. In the description on the website, it said the service was called “Arati” or Vespers; its purpose was “to remember that all we do is for God’s sake.”

The nun waved a brass candle holder followed by a pitcher of water, a folded piece of cloth, a flower, and a long fan made of hair from a yak’s tail which almost floated through the air when she was waved around. The bell ringing symbolizes the sound “OM” which is the symbol of Hinduism and also represents God (Brahman.) “The lights symbolize the light of Brahman (the Godhead). They also symbolize fire, one of the five elements that comprise the universe.” The water stands for itself; the flower represents earth; the flowing fan, called a chamara, symbolizes air; and the cloth represents space (as in cloth covers the body as space envelops all creation.) The point of the fire and the chanting of Ramakrishna’s name was to ask him to be present in the service.The nun moved each item with a rhythmic but slightly sensuous dance-like movement confined to her right arm while her left moved just enough to keep the bell gently ringing at her side.

When the ritual was over, a silent meditation began. Swami Sarvadevananda sat on a mat to the far right side of the altar, his back utterly straight, until the hour was over. By the time we opened our eyes, at the back of the chapel was a basket of flowers taken from the altar for people to take home with them.

The lights came on, the night class began and still the swami hadn’t had a chance to teach me a single ritual. After class, came dinner and I went to that, too, hoping he hadn’t forgotten.

More than twenty people sat down to eat, a number of them guests from out of town. I scooped the little food I took – rice and spiced vegetables along with homemade bread – off the paper plate and into my face as quickly as I could. In an awkward moment, the Swami abruptly excused himself from the long table and motioned for me to follow him into another room for a few private words, not my idea of how I wanted this to go. I couldn’t forget the large group eating, waiting for his return.

For the daily rituals and an explanation of their meaning, he suggested I get a small book called The Worship of Sri Ramakrishna but, as to the first steps he’d suggest for someone like me? “Try to think that there is a divine in everything, and there is a divine presence with you and you are connected in that way. This is a whole day awareness, hmm?” His hand emphasized just how complete this moment-by-moment focus should be. “That means bringing the mind a little bit internal but focus on your work, whatever that is. At the end of your work, make your time for meditation. When you do that, forget everything that happens: what he said, what she said, what happened.”

This wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a list, details, directives and “One other thing— “ I hesitated. “Uhm, a mantra? Isn’t that part of it?”

“A mantra, I cannot give you. Only the senior swami in each center can and he is out of town for at least a month more” the swami said. “But you— Which form of God speaks to your heart? Tell me: who? Who is your ideal?”

Who is “my ideal?” I had no idea and no idea what to say. I guessed he meant one of those altar icons I’d seen in other Hindu temples, those enormous elaborate statues, but they were all a blur to me; there wasn’t one that spoke to me more than any other because I didn’t know their stories. What I wished I’d said was: What do you mean? Or: What’s on the menu? Or, even: What do you suggest? But what I said was, “It’s not a form. Not a form.” All I meant by that was, so far, I still had a hard time saying or even typing the word “God” because it felt too concrete, too specific a term for something I can’t grasp, like an idea at the edge of a dream. “Form” meant that bearded guy, to me, and that notion of the Divine just doesn’t work for me. I saw the men walking on the moon far above the clouds. I saw the pictures of earth hanging in the sky like a blue swirled moon. Those swirls held God? I don’t think so.

“Okay,” the swami said, “get out of form. Say that it is infinite, like space, like ocean, an ocean of light and joy, like that, and chant a simple ‘om’.” The swami closed his eyes and immediately went somewhere else. His voice was low and lasting. “Oooooooooooooooommmmm Iiiiinnnfiniiiiiiite liiiiight. Iiiiiiiinfiiiniiiiiite joooooooy.”

I was unable to be where I was. Watching him chant, one-on-one, made me nervous. I kept thinking about the swami’s half-eaten plate of food and the twenty people back at the table wondering where he went and when he’d come back. “I’ll let you get back to your dinner. Thank you, Swamiji.”

I got up to leave and then, with out a hesitation, without a thought, I found myself bending down to touch the swami’s black socks. I touched them then stood up with my hands together and said, “Namaste.”

He smiled, bowed back at me, and then went back to his dinner and I went home.

I done it. I’d done something.

(17 October 2006)

The Path of Love

By meditation, some men
can see the Self in the self;
others, by the yoga of knowledge;
others, by selfless action.

Still others, not seeing, only
hear about it and worship;
they too cross beyond death,
trusting in what they have heard.

Bhagavad Gita 13.24-25

I have the shoe thing down. Slip-off shoes or sandals are the way to go. I walked in to the Swami Sarvadevananda’s weekly class in the Vedanta chapel, knocked off my sandals with a kick of my heel on the carpet and put them up on the white wooden shelves almost without a thought.

The swami was already cross-legged on the dais, his long arms resting on the low table. He was in the middle of saying one of those many words which all sound the same to me. The one I heard was “Ishta” but wasn’t even sure how to spell it so I settled for phonetics. “…that from which all creation comes and which is beyond all change,” he said. “But we must create an image of it. We can only love what is concrete. We love human beings, beautiful flowers, the rising moon because they are tangible. But how do you love the Infinite?”

I guess you need to think there is an “Infinite” to begin with before you can start trying to figure out how to love It. As I sat there scribbling down notes, I was pretty sure I could accept that much, that there probably is an “Infinite” but “loving It?” Why does It need me to “love” It, to worship It? Isn’t recognizing Its existence or just being open to It enough?

“In the beginning, we need forms to worship, forms like Buddha, like Christ, like Ramakrishna,” the swami said. “God cannot be worshipped except in symbols. There is no religion in the world that is not practicing on the concept (a symbol) of God. To say: ‘my symbol is better than yours’ is silly.” The swami said we mustn’t confuse the picture of Ramakrishna - or any symbol for that matter - with God Itself.

So, according to the way Hinduism is practiced at the Vedanta Temple, all those icons in Hindu temples all over the world are not meant to actually be considered Divine themselves but to be images of the Unknowable or the Absolute Reality. They’re forms which appear in the minds of people meditating, a different one for you and a different one for me. They each represent some of the powers of God as most of us need something specific to love. And that is what Bhakti yoga is all about: Love.

This idea of a religion acknowledging that different people might need different approaches to worship is one of the more stunning features of Hinduism. Built into its very structure is the notion that there are those among us who might be more comfortable learning about God in an intellectual way (jnana yoga) which might include a concept of a formless Absolute that was everywhere present. There might be some of us who want to demonstrate our devotion through selfless action (karma yoga), and still others who might revel in learning to control their bodies and minds as a way of coming into contact with the Divine (raja yoga). “But,” the swami added, “most Hindus, like most people, find it more natural to worship a representation of the Absolute. And that practice is called bhakti yoga.”

There were about a dozen of us in the pews. I still wasn’t sure what kind of person I was but I was getting an idea. My natural inclination is towards the notion of God without form ­­‑‑ the guy on a cloud thing never sat well with me, ever, -- and I clearly feel safer inside a book than in a ritual or service so that would make me, by Hinduism’s terms, more comfortable with jnana yoga and likely to find the bhakti path a bit of a stretch. But I hadn’t started this with the idea of staying the same.

Hinduism considers Christianity a bhakti path, (the path of devotion) where Christ is the Beloved; the cross, a sacred symbol of worship. The idea is that, because we don’t know what Absolute Reality looks like or even how to express it, it’s natural for limited humans to worship God in a symbolic way. But the ultimate goal is to come face-to-face with the Divine yourself. “But,” Swami Sarvadenvanada said, peering up over the top of the small book in his hands, “first you have to be convinced, intellectually, that this can happen. Once your conviction is strong, you can then make a journey to practice this in your life.”

That is the problem isn’t it? How do you get that conviction? I could look at my life before all this as either a journey without conviction or a conviction without a journey. I had the desire to know more but I’d taken only those steps I could hide under a disguise called work, mostly as television news stories. Did conviction have to come first or was it something that could grow from a journey begun in its absence? Or maybe, just maybe, I already had it if I wasn’t afraid to admit it. Maybe my struggle was really over what my definition of God was and then, what to do about it. Should I be grateful to this explosion of interfaith dissension for being the final push out the door to figure at least some of this out?

The swami then talked about how Ramakrishna eventually left rituals behind and disliked discussing theories once he saw that Divine light. He simply wanted to love God. “Ramakrishna said, ‘What use is it to walk into a grove of mango trees and discuss the number of branches, the shape of the leaves, or who planted the trees or when they were planted? What is the need of all this? Just eat the mangos.’” Swami Sarvadevananda laughed.

It would be great to have the kind of faith that was clear as seeing fruit hanging from a tree. But, right then, I couldn’t see the mango grove let alone the fruit.

“People are emotional more than rational,” Swami Sarvadevananda said. He was getting warmed up. “Can we use this emotion for God? All Ramakrishna cried for was to see the face of God and, when he did,” the Swami’s hands were flying farther and farther from his body. “He was filled with JOY and JOY and JOY!”

Why was this extreme abandon the swami described so off-putting?

Ramakrishna lived in the late 1800s and frequently went into spiritual reveries so intense, he’d lose all consciousness, sometimes for hours. At least once during one of these episodes, he fell down and broke his arm. Thank goodness earlier that day I’d spent some time with Christopher Isherwood’s books on Vedanta Hinduism. In his introduction to Vedanta for Modern Man, Isherwood said, “Ramakrishna is presented always as an exemplar (and not the only exemplar) of Vedanta.” He said that, while the Vedanta Society did worship Ramakrishna, it was “a matter of individual choice” and “no student of Vedanta need necessarily take part… much less discard his loyalty to any other divine personality.” So, when Swami Sarvadevananda became rhapsodic about Ramakrishna, Isherwood’s thoughts gave me permission to learn from Ramakrishna without worshipping him or even, necessarily, being comfortable with him. It made it possible for me to stay in my seat and listen.

“In our early devotional life we need rites and rituals – puja, and the like – every day. We do this until devotion grows. For many people, just thinking about God isn’t enough. That’s why the Catholics have mass, Jews have Torah study. It’s a great help to have spiritual people leading us to the highest experience of God. So, you start with the formalities, like when you first meet someone. When you start a journey, we have these little formalities: do this, don’t do that. But, once you love God, it’s not so important. All of these rituals are the reason that India has produced so many numberless saints and seers. There are rituals all day in the temple and from birth to death. Many think: ‘Oh, these rituals are so bad.’ Okay. But it’s like cleaning the bathtub with the baby. You don’t throw away all of the flavor of love that goes with the puja. Suppose you only bring the philosophy? That’s like bringing the structure without flesh and bone. There’s no sweetness, no manifestation of joy. Don’t destroy the rituals until they’ve raised your consciousness to the Divine. If you discard it, then you’ve got nothing but dry bones.”

I was getting pretty excited about the notion that I might be able to cut to the chase, to by-pass all those rituals that felt confusing and made me feel awkward and just stick to the reading, the meditating and the discussing but that wasn’t what the swami meant. Reading and learning about Hinduism without entering into the ritual, devotional part of it, was going to get me nowhere. Karen Armstrong, a former nun, wrote in The Spiral Staircase,

Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but doing things that change you. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life-enhancing. But you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice.

But, how?

The swami said, “Make a small altar in your room and put pictures of those who inspire you, those who you find divine. A picture of Christ, of (the Vedanta’s) Mother Durga, of the Buddha, and, after you shower, offer flower incense every morning and ask for their blessings. If you don’t do anything ritualistic and I ask about what you did, you will talk, talk, talk, about what happened in your office – that’s it. You have to make a separation between mundane life and spiritual life so that, eventually, you see the face of God everywhere. But you have to start with a ritual.”

I’m not sure I’m a ritual sort of girl after my experience trying to do Hemu’s rituals but this seemed at least a bit more within reach, something worth trying, at least.

Outside the cut glass windows of the chapel in the Vedanta Center, it was already dark when someone in the class raised their hand to ask Swami Sarvadevananda another question. “Can’t you do good work with out this?” Clearly I wasn’t the only one wondering if rituals were required, if we measured up if we didn’t do them.

“What happens to that good work when the world collapses into dust?” the swami answered. “When there is no world anymore? Ritual devotion adds spiritual flavor, makes our life more peaceful. More good will get done in a more substantial and permanent way by practicing devotion. One ounce of spiritual practice is worth more than tons and tons of frothy talks. How many times do we listen to great scholarly talks given by great (teachers) but, then, once we get out of the temple and someone asks what was said and many will answer: ‘I don’t know.’ (Whereas) someone else will speak simply, from the heart, and the world changes.”

Swami Sarvadevananda glanced at the small clock on his table and, before closing his book and ending with a chant which included “Om, shanti, shanti, shanti.” or “Om, peace, peace, peace,” he looked ahead in the book to next week’s topic. “Next time we’ll read ‘The Need of a Guru” which will answer the question: Who can help us and how we can reach the truth? Who can hold our hand?”

Wearing socks on his feet, the swami stepped down from the carpeted dais and walked down the center aisle to stand in the back to greet each person as they left with the night’s book tucked under one arm. Some bowed to him, others bent down to touch his feet.

At the end of one of the last classes, I’d told myself I’d finally do it, finally bow and touch his feet, but there was there was a ridiculous and growing chorus of voices in my head: “Will you bow? Will you touch his feet?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What a moron for even thinking of doing it.”

“What’s the big deal? You signed up for going through this so just do it and see what it feels like.”
“Nah, get outta town.”

I could go on because “they” did in my head. It’s amazing how many things I can think of in the short walk from one end of a small room to the other. Well, I told myself, at least I’m certain about one thing: I’m just not a bow-er.

That night, I thought I’d gotten over it, that I was going to be able to do it but, when it was my turn, I still couldn’t. I stood rigid, an awkward distance from him. There was going to be no spine-bending from me.

He smiled and asked, “Are you staying for dinner?”

“Not tonight. I have to get home.”

“Okay.”

“Is there a time you could teach me some of the rituals, Swamiji?” At least I’d learned what to call him: Swami-ji or Maharaj.

“Oh. After class on Tuesday.”

“Thank you, Swamiji.”

I sort of bobbed my head but I couldn’t even squeak out a “namaste” so there was nothing to do but turn and walk out of the chapel.

I took my sandals from the shelf, dropped them to the carpet and slipped into them, opening the heavy wooden door into a cold night.


(4 October 2006)

Okay, here goes...

I've been at this for two years now and I'm getting buggy with all my time alone, keeping this all to myself, so I'm letting it out. My raw notes. As I go. Once I catch this blog up with real time, that is.

So, who am I and what have I been doing?

When my sons were six and four years old, they were arguing in the back seat of my car about whether or not God existed. Pretty soon a voice from the backseat asked, "Mom, what do you believe?"

All I could answer at the time was, "I don't know. I'm still working on it."


I am a blank slate. A tabula rasa. I come to the table with the fewest possible preconceived notions about any religious tradition because I was raised outside of any. Although there were rudiments of some religious traditions in parts of my extended family, my parents considered strong religious conviction the source of wars, hatred, and division among people. At the dinner table, on more than one night, they said religion was a crutch for those unable to handle the truth: that we're mortal, that “after life” we simply revert to the chemicals from which we're made. Nothing more.

Just chemicals? That's all we were? It didn't make sense.

One night, when I was twelve, I said, “I think I might want to, uhm, go to church.”

Forks clattered to the plates. "Well,” my mother said, “if you think you need that."

So, growing up, I knew nothing of any religious tradition. I tried to learn how to live, how to have a meaningful life, by reading books. Biographies were best; I was obsessed with them. Maybe if I could see the choices people made, and how it worked out for them, I might know how to live. The Bible was little more to me than a collection of stories that I learned about, one-by-one, when a teacher would point out allusions to them in novels or plays.

When it came time to get a job, I found one that allowed me to continue my obsession with the lives of others: I became a journalist. But my spiritual dissatisfaction didn’t go away. I just tried to ignore it. On occasion, a story would give me an excuse to learn about a religious tradition. A profile about the Archbishop of San Francisco introduced me to Father Miles Riley, who specialized in over-exuberant press management for the archdiocese at the time. We didn't get off to a good start. I thought all public relations people were only there to prevent me from doing my job with integrity. Our awkward beginning was made worse by my lack of experience with clergy of any sort crashing up against the vaudeville character of Father Miles, with his light yellow Cadillac convertible, his show-tune personality, and compendium of dirty jokes about his fellow clerics. He was not what I expected or even imagined as possible in a priest. We became friends, sort of. As friendly as one can be with someone wont to exclaim: “Oh, I love hanging out with the heathen!”

After that, I spent a bunch of years working on television newsmagazines which aren't very efficient tools for exploring faith.

Finally, in 2000, I decided to take two courses at a local college: an introduction to the Bible and a survey of world religions. By the end of the term, I felt relief: I had a basic grasp of what other people believed. I thought I'd taken care of this part of my life.

But I hadn't. I had factual knowledge but I found myself wondering what it felt like to actually practice a faith, to truly live by one. I went looking for books by beginners, people walking into a faith who might tell me what it felt like to learn how to practice it. I couldn’t find anything like that. And nothing came close to explaining the mystery of how a devout follower of any of those traditions could get from their faith, could get from the Golden Rule - some version of it is in every major religious tradition - to what I saw happening between people of faith all over the globe. If the faithful of different religions all believe they should do unto others as they would have people do unto them, if they were actually living lives based on doctrine, how could there be so much hatred and bloodshed in the name of those faiths? But, for all my newly-acquired, very basic understanding of the fundamental beliefs of various traditions, I wasn't one step closer to really understanding a thing I wanted to know.

Then I got one of those ideas people get while driving around or in the shower, the ones most people are sane enough to leave right where they found them. I began to wonder what would happen to me if I went through the conversion training - not to convert but to learn what a convert would learn - in the seven major religious traditions as identified by Huston Smith in his seminal work, The World's Religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Would I know something I couldn’t possibly imagine? Or might I end up at war with myself by the end, a riled nest of ideas, beliefs and practices in conflict?

Well, it's fine to have an idea, but actually doing this? I kept imagining my parents' reaction so I put it out of my mind and just confined myself to taking care of my two sons and doing my day job which was, at the time, running a regional public television newsmagazine.

Then 9/11 happened. My parents were the only people I knew who didn’t seem surprised at all; it was just one more item to add to their list of the damage religion has caused. But that act, and all that followed, finally made me feel like I had no choice any longer, that my personal confusion wasn’t something I could continue to shrug off as just that, personal. There was a life-and-death argument going on over the role of religion in our lives and I was disqualified from participating because I was an ignorant outsider.

And there was that question from my children, "Mom, what do you believe?"

So that's what I'm doing. I've decided to find out.

A note: If you're just joining up with me, especially for you first-timers to blog reading, it's in reverse chronologic order. You'll be grateful for this when you catch up to the most current post because the newest will always be what you see first when you come here but, if you've missed a lot, you might have a better idea of what's going in if you start with the oldest post and work forward.