Over the next two weeks, I’ll share my faith journey following the sequence in the Story Shape above. 

Please understand, I’m not sharing this with any evangelistic agenda—I don’t have one. However, an authentic expression of one’s spiritual journey deserves an essential place in our wisdom legacy, whatever form that takes. I hope I may inspire you to reflect and, in some way, document your journey—if not for your descendants, for yourself.

GLIMPSES FROM A DISTANCE

So here’s my story’s glimpse-from-a-distance phase. Before my parents divorced when I was nine, we belonged to the church-of-the-month club. We attended a Protestant church within a few blocks of wherever we lived. I was baptized in a Presbyterian Church (as an infant), but we also attended Congregational and Methodist parishes.

We attended sporadically at best, and sometimes, my parents sent us to Sunday School even when we weren’t going to worship services. I received my own Bible when I was confirmed, but I don’t remember reading it outside of church and Sunday school.

My folks each remarried within fifteen months of their divorce. My new (step) dad and brother were Catholic. And because he married a divorced woman, my new dad was kicked out of his Church. I felt sad for him, but I found it all fascinating.

My father married the daughter of a Lutheran minister. Three of her siblings were Lutheran ministers, and one of her other siblings married a Lutheran minister. My new extended family on my father’s side took religion very seriously. It was part of their daily lives and conversations.

At family gatherings, the Lutherans engaged in philosophical and theological (and occasionally political) discussions. Amazingly, the minister brothers disagreed about many subjects, and occasionally their discussions heated up. Eventually, I joined some of these dialogues and asked questions. 

A CLOSER LOOK

As a preteen, I started thinking more about God and spiritual matters. I occasionally attended Catholic mass with my brother. I attended dozens of Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs of my Jewish friends. My stepmother’s mother (the wife and mother of all those Lutheran ministers) gave me a “study Bible” for Christmas, and I started to read it occasionally.

According to my mother, the babysitter who watched over my siblings and me while my parents honeymooned and vacationed was a “real holy roller.” I knew something was up when she tried to get me to memorize some Bible verses.

Two events brought spiritual matters from the background of life into the foreground.

One of my freshman homeroom classmates committed suicide. We weren’t close friends, but the week before he died, I had been helping him at the school pool to complete his swimming merit badge for the Boy Scouts. I was devastated by the news. I cried and mourned for my classmate more than for my dear Grandma, just a couple of years before. It’s the first time I recall giving serious thought to what happens to us after we die.

Shortly after he died, my “holy roller” babysitter gave my mother two tickets to take me to a magic show. I loved magic, so I was eager to go. My mother was suspicious, however, since the tickets came from this woman who was not shy about “sharing the love of Jesus” with everyone and anyone.

The magician was André Kole, who had designed illusions for David Copperfield and other prominent magicians. His show was dazzling and I was enthralled.

At the end of his final spectacular illusion, in which he transported a woman from a box on one side of the stage to another, we gleefully joined the crowd in a standing ovation.

As Mr. Kole set up his encore, he told us he would use the final illusion to illustrate his most remarkable spiritual discovery and let us step out if we preferred. We stayed put, but I sensed my mother getting uneasy.

The last illusion was astonishing, but his “spiritual discovery” came right out of a Billy Graham crusade sermon, complete with an altar call to “come forward and receive Jesus as your personal savior.”

Well, I started to get out of my seat at Mr. Kole’s invitation, and my mother quickly and firmly grabbed my arm and pulled me back into my seat. “We aren’t that type of Christian,” she whispered urgently. She had made a similar remark about our evangelistic babysitter, but I wasn’t clear about what type of Christian my mother considered us to be.

“What kind of Christian am I?” I wondered. Various flavors of religious life surrounded me, and I even had some religious “experts” in the family. Still, I had more questions than answers.

According to Vonnegut’s “Boy Meets Girl” story shape, what I’ve shared in my faith journey hasn’t even reached the “first kiss” milestone. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll share the rest of the journey over the next two weeks. Parts of my story resemble a rollercoaster more than the simple shape above.

Truth is, I still have more questions than answers, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s this: life is more about the journey than the destination. In his Letters to A Young Artist, Rainer Maria Rilke wisely advises, “Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Shine,