Evolving, Freely

BOTH OF MY GRANDMOTHERS were born around 1890, and were entirely 19th century Victorian women. They wore dresses to their ankles daily, and they both took their religion seriously. Interestingly, neither of them ever tried to instill religion within me. Nor did anyone else. I have a theory as to why. I can't prove it, but I have a hunch that both my parents instructed, warned their respective mothers to refrain from trying to influence my religious choices, or to try to indoctrinate me. Our son is smart enough to choose his own influencers, and he will form his own beliefs, over time. Besides, my parents would reason, he has the right, to choose hiw own beliefs, just like everyone else. I have always considered this the best thing my parents could possibly have done, and I have always been extremely grateful for it, even though I have no idea whether they actually did it. But I am convinced that both my grandmothers considered it extremely important for people to be Christians, saved by accepting Jesus Christ as their lord and savior, and that they would have been more than willing to help me along that particular path, if allowed. Maybe my grandmothers took one look at me, or many looks, and, estimating my intellect and intellectual independence, simply decided to back off. That hopeless little pagan, unsaved, with unsaved parents. I can only hope that neither of them spent too much time and energy worrying about my eternal soul. Nobody needs that kind of stress. Whatever, for my money my parent's strategy of non interference worked like a charm, so to speak, and I grew up free thinking and open minded, my mind unfetterd by dogma and indoctrination. I knew by the time I was eight years old that religious faith was not and might not ever be for me. I evolved into a pantheist,a "follower" of Spinoza and Einstein, which to my thinking has allowed me to perfectly harmonize spiritual reverence for creation with observable reality. I recall evolving from my youthful atheism to agnosticism, to pantheism,and then, much more recently,to my present day brand new involvement with Unitarian Universalism, my latest spiritual incarnation. The grand adventure continues, and,one might assume, never really ends. The UU ""Fellowship" as they call it, appeals to me on many levels, for many reasons. They never call their beliefs a "faith" or a "religion", or a "church", which appeals to me. The local Unitarian congregation, in a thriving college town, consists of about a hundred mostly older progressive well educated intellectuals, just my type. A lively, engaging bunch. I've been to two of their services, which last about an hour, and enjoyed every minute of it both times. I am very eager to go back for more. I have discovered that I really enjoy visiting churches and attending various services, because I think it educates me. In the past year I have visited several Protestant denominations and one very conservative fundamentalist type mega church, with thousands of congregants. I found them all satisfactory, to verying degrees. I would like to attend religious servies as a visitor of as many different relgiious traditions as possible. One can grow and evolve indifinitely. Another thing I like about the Unitarian "church" is that it is comprehensive, all encompassing, inclusive. Much like both Buddhism and Hinduism, Unitarianism believes that it embraces and encompasses all other systems of belief, merely by accepting them. For that, more power to them. I happen to feel exactly the same way about my own unique religiosity.