Childhood - It was in a Sunday school class, I was maybe about seven, when after a lesson about Jonah. The teacher asked what lesson was taught. I raised my hand and said something resembling - "It's just like Aesop's fables, it didn't actually happen but the lesson is...." By that point every single eye in the room was staring at me in either rage or confusion. I instantly knew I had a life of camouflage and chameleon-speak ahead of me. My mother dragged me to church sometimes 3 times a week. And the campground meetings. The worst. Hollow Rock. Heat, Bugs. Barely literate white people. Young Adult - When my kids were young I joined a Unitarian Universalist church. They are welcoming to Atheists and I wanted my children to be able to learn about all religions and make up their own minds
Full BioThey are really good at this. The UU's also have this fantastic sex-ed program called Our Whole Lives. (OWL) Now - Not meaning that to be a commercial for UU, but it felt right for my kids at the time under constant religious assault anywhere they would live in America. Yes. It was in the "Bible Belt." But America was/is being strangled by the Christian Constrictors everywhere. I wanted them to be around people that welcomed free thought. Even More Now - I haven't been to a UU meeting in years. Even that amount of ceremony and ritual is more than I can really deal with. I can think of a thousand things I would rather wake up on a Sunday for. I live on a beautiful piece of earth with two beautiful rivers flowing to the ocean and flowing from the ocean. Beautiful wide rivers with dolphins.