I really do not relate to any one religion, culture or heritage.  My parents were fairly religious but did not adhere to any one religion.  So I did not grow up in the church.  I have southern roots but was raised in the north.  My ethnic heritage is a mixture of British, German and French (all of those going back several generations).  My hobby is genealogy so I value all of my ancestors but I don’t relate to any particular one.

Wow, I find the comments here so interesting—particularly the repeated references to ‘leaving’ Catholicism and Judaism, two faiths that have such strong identity ties both internally and externally. In other words, if I said I left the Methodist church and joined the Presbyterians, or if I said I’m an ex-Lutheran, most people would shrug. I wonder why it is that the departure from these vivid faiths seems so dramatic, even to those of us not a part of them. 

I was raised Southern Baptist, but converted to Judaism in my 20s. I am grateful for the years I spent in the Jewish community. I even applied to rabbinical school at one point. They weren’t quite ready for a female convert as rabbi back then. Now I consider myself agnostic, a secular Jew. I can appreciate Talmud study and a requiem mass. I’m for any beauty that any culture has to offer the world. All are pieces of the human puzzle. I’m not at all blind to the flip side of war and other human failings, but if we can produce a Da Vinci then there must be something good in us as a species. The cool thing is that you never know where that genius will come from next. 

I am a French Canadian cradle Catholic (I suppose I still am). I am also the first to admit that I have not always been in love with my faith.  Like many Catholics, I took a faith sabbatical for many years. I think most people experience a crisis of faith at some point in their lives and I personally believe that it is not uncommon (or unhealthy) to question one’s direction of faith.    My life has brought me back to my faith and I attend services every week.  While I don’t personally agree with every aspect of the Catholic faith, my faith has seen me through some dark and difficult times.  As Joan touched on earlier, there are some rites and rituals that I find comfort in.  Faith is a deeply personal thing and we are fortunate when we have the opportunity to journey as a community.  To me, this is a relationship – I either choose to work at it, or I don’t.
Now that being said, I confess to being an irreverent Catholic who delights in keeping her Pastor on his toes!

I was Jewish and in my early 20s I used to go to synagogue every Saturday. I liked the feeling of ‘belonging’ and felt I had to uphold the family traditions. Eventually I met a Catholic and we thought about getting married however it would have been very difficult to decide which religion and traditions to teach the children. I guess we could have taught them both but in the end the religious differences (and parental pressure on both sides) caused us to seperate. 

Eventually, to the joy of my parents, I met a ‘nice Jewish boy’ and married him. We are still married, 25 years later, but we decided that we wanted our children to have more ‘spirituality’ than tradition and so after much searching on the part of my husband, we became Baha’i.

Why did we do this? We felt that all humanity should follow the same path and that religious differences which have caused many conflicts on this planet, were not the way for the future. The underlying essence for all religions was to know God and to continue to grow spiritually and become the best human being you could be, during your time on this planet.We wanted our children to care about all people - regardless of their race, religion or other differences. We also felt that a religion should reflect the needs and be practical in its approach to help solve some of the current issues facing mankind. The Baha’i Faith fitted all those criteria for us. Baha’is also believe in promoting the equality of men and women and that was a great ‘plus’ for me!

We still have all our Jewish family and friends and they have accepted that we are follwing a different ‘path’. Ultimately we realized that some traditions had been man made, some seemed too far fetched (e.g. can you drive a car on Saturday or is that considered ‘working’?) (isn’t walking also ‘working’??) and there were also so many variations and theories about how far to take the traditions, that this had overshadowed the spiritual message.

If the human race wants to progress in the 21st century maybe it’s time to rethink the old ways and bring in some fresh spiritual ways for the new millennium.

As to Religion, I no longer belong to a particular Church or belief although  I am very Spiritual. I was raised as a Preachers kid………….My father was a Minister, he served as a Pastor to several Churches during my childhood.  I went to Church enough to last a life time. My belief’s changed in my Adult years and I gave up my original Religion. My family first came to this Country from Scotland in 1730……(Fathers side) Two of my great grandfathers were Doctors and a lot of the others were Politicians, lawyers or teachers.  My grandfathers Father was a Doctor during the Civil War. Grandfathers and great Uncles on both sides of my family Fought in the Revolutionary War. In my genealogy I have two very Famous Americans. Samuel Houston (Houston, Texas  Fame) was my great grandmothers cousin. Commanding General John J "Black Jack" Pershing (1st World War) was also a cousin on my fathers side of the family.  My Mothers side of the family came to this Country in the early 1700’s.  First living on the Island of Guadeloupe.  There were 7 brothers from France……..they had Sugar Plantations. They first settled in New Orleans and later some of them moved to Arkansas and Missouri. One of the brothers from France married a Cherokee Indian Woman…….adding Native American blood to my linage.  It’s always been fun for me to know and learn about what part my family had in the building of our Country. I love that we were among the Founders of this Country. I used to tell my children when they were studying History (and didn’t like it) That all the people they were learning about were someone’s ancestors and that made it more interesting.

In looking at what I wrote and how they released it here.  It looks like I wrote one big paragraph……..I didn’t.  They must be saving space.

My Mum was Irish Catholic, Dad French Catholic, but we weren’t raised in the Church. In her later years my Gran recalled the druidic traditions taught to her by her Gran; traditions of faith in the creator and a journey of trying to always learn and grow to become a better person.

I guess I’m a Pagan, as I feel Faith is a gift from the creator, and Religion is man-made. I live each day with the creed of ‘doing no harm’. I have an alter and I do pray with an open heart so that I may always learn.

 

I have studied many of the world’s religions and find common thread of goodness to all on the earth in their teachings. Then man rather gets in the way. There’s a reason the religious books are not in the referrence section of the library; things get tricky when people take allegory as dictation from whatever they call their god.

I suppose my background is WASP. I was raised in a mainstream Protestant tradition but have explored and evolved spiritually to include such beliefs as a belief in reincarnation (in some form anyway). My spirituality leads me to be a Liberal as far as social values go. Recently I’ve begun attending an Episcopal Church and I’m quite happy with it. As far as believing there is only one way to God/heaven/whatever… I believe there are many paths that lead to the same source, and we each take the one that fits us best and evolve along the way.

My Finnish grandfather, and Irish grandfather gave me a sense of who I was when I was young.  Then I moved to Dutch town in West Michigan and in order to be an individual and not get lost in this proudly Dutch city I found my Irish heritage gave me a personal edge since I didn’t do the normally Irish American stuff - Green beer and covering yourself in the color green on St Paddy’s Day.

Though I have a varied background the Irish is the strongest and the one where we grandkids all gravitate to when doing genealogy as well.  I do have my wonderful Finnish ethnical connection, but I am still learning about that quarter of my family history! 

Sam Mirado’s message could very easily have been my own. I was raised Jewish but by the time I was 18 I was an atheist. Nonetheless, through the years I found that I still enjoyed a number of Jewish holidays and celebrated them. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and Grandparents died in Auschwitz, though no one ever talked about this until I was about 13 and Leon Uris’ book, "Exodus," became a best seller. Suddenly it was all about learning the family stories…..and for the first time seeing relatives roll up their long sleeves to show the numbers imprinted by the Nazis. I saw my family in a whole new light and learned that discrimination should NEVER EVER be condoned. When I was in my late forties my mother died. Since I was working out of the country a great deal of the time I got involved in tracing ancestral roots. I learned so much more about my family and have since made several trips to eastern Europe to the village where they lived. Imagine my surprise to see the same garden patterns around those homes as the ones at my grandmother’s home in Connecticut. I also went to Auschwitz - there is no more humbling an experience.

For me it’s more about being affiliated with people who share a common bond as opposed to being invested in religion.