My Personal Journey Toward UUism
Seeing as my blog is new, and I'm fairly new to UUism as well, I thought I'd start by outlining the journey that got me here. It's partly for you, but very much so for me, too. My spiritual journey is not something I've ever put down on paper (or screen) and I hope that by exploring my roots, I can better develop my spiritual future.

So, without further adieu, here is Part 1 of My Personal Journey Toward UUism, tentatively titled...

I grew up in a working class household -- two, actually, since my parents split when I was a baby.

My dad was raised loosely Methodist, but is too cynical for his good. I would guess he's a staunch atheist, though getting him to label himself one way or another would be impossible. "A waste of time" he would say. See? Cynicist. Basically, what it comes down to for him is, "If I can't see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, or tinker on it in my garage - I don't believe it exists." Or at least, "I don't care if it exists." Not my cup of tea, but fair enough.

My mom was raised loosely Lutheran. She did the baptism and all that jazz; even went to a parochial school for a while. But the household she was raised in could hardly be described as "Christian." In adulthood, her religion completely lapsed, though she still hits up an Easter service at a local Catholic church every couple of years (her most current in-laws are Catholic, if that helps it make sense), and I'm pretty sure she believes in God, with a capital G.

I, on the other hand, was raised with nothing; I was - and remain - unbaptised in any faith tradition and I don't believe in God. My family were never regular churchgoers, and certainly not members of any congregations, so the few religious experiences I got were (1) in Vacation Bible School at the local Methodist church for one week each summer, at my paternal Grandmother's insistence, and (2) when invited by friends.

The week long Bible School experiences were fine - it was expected every year, and I happily went and sang (way off-pitch) about the Lord, stuck paper Jesus's and Joseph's and Mary's to various colored felt boards, and made paper mache crosses for Gram. Unfortunately, none of the activities ever spurred any kind of faith in me (as Gram had hoped), but I enjoyed the week of arts & crafts nonetheless so it wasn't totally a lost cause, I guess.

The religious visits with various friends throughout childhood were typically negative, as far as I can recall (or maybe I only remember the bad ones because they weren't only bad, but sometimes even horrifying). If my memory serves me right, it doesn't seem as though many of my friends were regular churchgoers, and if so, they never invited me along. It was always a friend of a friend, or some acquaintence I barely knew from school. Being really shy and eager to make friends when someone actually expressed an interest in me, I usually accepted their offers to go to church based on loneliness and desperation. And I'm sure their sense of that is exactly why I was invited.

The most striking visit I remember was one of those friend-of-a-friend arrangements. I was in the third grade and my best friend, Wanda, invited me along with her and another friend to the friend's church. I loved Wanda, I trusted Wanda, and her parents seemed as godless as mine, so I figured it was safe. Sunday morning I waited outside for the church bus with Wanda and it came and picked us up almost exactly between our two houses and whisked us away to what can only be described as a compound. (If compound seems too strong a word, then imagine a dilapitated concrete school of several floors, with a sad, unused basketball hoop out front.) Upon arriving, we were taken into the chapel and prayed a lot. Then a priest (minister? reverend?) got up and spoke. Then he yelled.  A lot.  Then I started to get a little scared. Eventually we broke into groups by age and were whisked into different classrooms. Fortunately, I remained grouped with Wanda and her friend.

Once in the classroom, the teacher in charge talked about Jesus for a while, which I was ok with. After all, I knew that church = Jesus. I'd learned that in Vacation Bible School. But then she started to get loud, her voice started to rise, and before I knew it she was screaming:

"Are you going to Heaven or are you going to HELL? In the name of Jesus, you can be saved! If you are not saved, you are going to HELL! If you want to be saved, just ask Jesus. YOU DON'T WANT TO GO TO HELL DO YOU?!"

Please keep in mind that this was a classroom full of third graders.

I'm starting to freak out, but the lady won't stop. Suddenly, she stops, catches her breath, and walks up to a little girl in the front row, and bellows, "Are you saved?!"

The little girl says yes.

So the teacher yells, "Amen! Then you're going to Heaven!" and dumps a handful of Skittles on her desk.

Around the room she goes, all of the kids obviously having been through this before. Say you're saved, get told you're good and going to Heaven, eat Skittles.

When she gets to me, though, I'm terrified. I don't know if I'm saved! I don't know how to get saved. I don't even know what "being saved" means. I think, maybe I'm saved already, but don't realize it? I'm sure my mom would've taken care of something so important. But if I say I am, what if I'm really not and I just lied about being saved? Do I still get to go to Heaven or is that a surefire ticket to Hell?

I may have known squat about Christianity other than the fact that Jesus wears sandals and hangs out with sheep, but I know that Heaven = good and Hell = bad, and I don't want to go to Hell.

At last, when its finally my turn, the teacher stands in front of me and bellows, "Are you saved?! Have you found the Lord?!" And in my fear, I stare at the ground and whimper, "I don't know."

I swear her eyes turned red and steam came out of her ears.

She repeated the question, "Little girl, are you saved?!"

And this time I start shaking, and I say a little louder, "I don't know."

And she yells one more time, "Are you going to Heaven or are you going to HELL?"

I burst into tears, unable to say a thing as all the other kids stared at me in disbelief, happily munching away on Skittles.

And rather than console me, the teacher hollered, "If you're not saved, you're not going to Heaven; you're going to <b>HELL</b>!" And with that, she wrapped up the Skittles bag, turned on her heel, and moved to the next child while I sat and sobbed, wishing that even if I wasn't saved and was likely going to Hell, that she at least would've been kind enough to give me a little candy to soften the blow.

A few minutes later, we were dismissed and sent home on the church bus. I cried the entire way.

When I got home that afternoon, I told my mom what had happened. I told her that the people at church told me that I was going to Hell and wouldn't let me have any Skittles. My mom conferred with Wanda's mom, and though Wanda backed up my story, she wasn't half as upset as I was since her friend had told her to say what the lady wanted even if it was a lie, and Wanda got the damn Skittles AND was going to Heaven because of it.

Needless to say, when the church called a few days later to tell my mom what a wonderful young lady I was and how they hoped I would come back and we would even consider becoming members... um, yeah. She got a huge earful of very un-Christianlike phrases.

And, lucky for me, they never called again. And my mom bought me the biggest bag of Skittles I'd ever seen.

It may not have been Heaven, but I didn't care.