Religion Repellent

An oddity about our family occurred to me the other day. My next youngest sister and I were raised in a Christian Church environment. We had pins for not missing a Sunday, we attended bible school, the youth group, junior choir, etc. It was simply part of our lives even though our dad never, ever went (he might have gone when I was baptized, I can't remember). My mom even worked in the office part time at some point. Anyway, when I was a teenager we moved from the coast into "town" at which time the whole church thing kind of fell by the wayside. Probably because my mom almost immediately got pregnant and she was sicker than a dog every single day, not the kind of mindset to hunt down a new church.

The one exception was when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated and I felt the need for some kind of mourning support group. I tried the local church of the same denomination I had attended growing up on the coast. But, even though I attended "religiously" throughout that summer (he was shot in June), no one really reached out to me or made me feel welcome. I certainly had no money to offer, which tends to provide a very friendly "welcome" for new attendees. So, once I had gotten through my grieving process for all three recent assassinations, JFK, MLK and RFK, I dropped back out again.

I missed religion and the structure it had provided for my life, church was part of the fabric of my youth. But as I grew into adulthood, certain naivete's of mine as a child became adult learning's and the realities of that environment began working the opposite by pushing me away.

Today, neither my sister or I attend or have any interest in attending church of any sort and have serious questions about the dogma and rituals in general. On the other hand, my youngest sister (the one born when I was a teenager) never attended any church while growing up until she was a senior in high school (possibly a junior) when she was invited to an evangelical weekend retreat by a friend and she is immersed in it to this day. Church life is every bit as much a part of her life and her family's life as an adult as it was for me as a child.

I would then point out an even more interesting fact. My dad, who I stated earlier never attended church throughout my childhood, teenage years or the majority of my adulthood, but has in the last ten years (along with my mom) begun attending church and getting very involved in church life. Not only that both my youngest sister and my parents are ultra-conservative, right wingers who faithfully listen to Rush everyday and hang upon his every word.

What makes this so interesting is my dad and I used to talk about the likelihood of reincarnation and a number of other psychic phenomenon. We used to even pass books back and forth on the subject. Those were very different days, today he gets riled up if you just mention the word, "Democrat" or dinosaurs older than 6,000 years.

All this boils down to the question of what has caused such radical change in each of us over the years resulting in our topsy-turvy values? I can't answer this question other than to say, too much of something is not a good thing.