Godless Mom in the Bible Belt

Mom is a big fan of Native American history. My home was filled with books on the subject.

Mom and Dad were also avid fans of backpacking, hiking, river running and camping. I spent many wonderful days in a canoe around the lakes of the Tetons, backpacking the canyons of the Utah desert, fishing off of beaver dams and taking in the view from whatever peak we happened to climb. I recall spending hours feeding ants, watching birds, waiting for deer to cross a path and being thrilled at each and every new discovery. At night I would lay in my sleeping bag under the stars and marvel at the vastness of our universe and the mysteries out there among the stars.

Occasionally in our travels we would run across Native artifacts, bits of pottery, arrowheads, petroglyphs, broken metates. Like my mom I was soon fascinated by the people who originally inhabited the land.

I began devouring all of Mom's books on the subject and as a result I was exposed to my first taste of an Earth based form of spirituality. I saw such beauty in the belief of a spiritual connection between humans and the world around them. In my pre-teen opinion, nothing in the dogma of Christianity had ever introduced such a simple yet wholly comprehensive approach to life. It seemed that the "primitive" peoples of this continent were much more in touch with the true nature of our planet than the silly people who had come here and tried to "civilize" them.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I LOVED Star Wars. When I saw the spirituality that I read about in my mom's books mirrored in the philosophy of "The Force" I was thrilled. It occurred to me that this sort of thinking was still very accessible and legitimate. It was at this point that I first started looking into eastern philosophy and how it might mesh with what I had learned about Native American spirituality and The Force. I also thought that studying martial arts might help me get in touch with my inner Jedi. (grin)

At this point I still considered myself a Christian but I had mentally dismissed the divergent interpretations of the various sects. I still went through the motions, church on Sunday, youth activities, church camp in the summer. However, I was feeling increasingly isolated from the group and was growing annoyed with the happy-happy, joy-joy attitude that always seemed to mask human hypocrisy.

To my parent's credit, they never discouraged my spiritual quest. I believe they felt that I would look at other religions and then come back to theirs. They looked upon my search as an extension of my education and why should they worry? I still attended church after all.

I felt disconnected, misunderstood, cynical, angry and spiritually adrift. Welcome to the teenage years!