SOME SORT OF VAGUE DEIST

This phrase has floated around in my brain for probably 30-40 years.  In some novel, possibly by Iris Murdoch, a character who fancies himself a religious philosopher says he could never love a woman who was “some sort of vague Deist.”

To which I say: “Honey, you don’t know what you’re missing.”

I was raised a Catholic.  My father’s family was Catholic, as far back as we knew, which was about four generations.  (I have a strong suspicion that there was a forced conversion from Judaism somewhere back in Prussia.)  Mom wasn’t Catholic.  She grew up more or less protestant and described herself as Heathen, but she must have been a fundamentalist Heathen.  All the strictures of a Bible-thumper, and no mercy whatsoever.

Being Catholic meant catechism twice a week, confession once a month (a terrified goody-goody, I used to have to make stuff up) and kneeling on a hard tile floor in the back of the church every Sunday because my father could never get us there on time. Typical of many Catholics, I learned nothing about the Bible. I tried reading the King James version, but found it impenetrable. A childhood friend, who burned from a young age to be a hellfire preacher, explained to me that Catholics used a Douay Bible. Aha! The bible of my people! I asked for one for a confirmation present. 

No help at all. Douay was as much word salad as King James.

At 21, I fell in love with a Jewish man, married him, and converted. Not an easy process. You have to ask three times before a Rabbi will consent to tutor you. Unlike Christians, Jews make you work for it.  I studied with the Rabbi for about six months.  He was intelligent, humorous, and generous with his time.  I also learned a lot more about Christianity while studying Judaism than I’d ever learned in catechism.

My husband’s family was largely secular, but I loved the holiday celebrations in their home.  I learned the prayers and I did my part.  I was content.  But as the marriage came apart, so did my commitment to the religion.

I was becoming a psychotherapist at the time, of the transpersonal persuasion. Transpersonal therapy has acquired a reputation for using mind-expanding drugs, but it’s actually about adding “spirit” to the humanist picture of the human being.  During grad school, I explored Buddhism, Vendanta, neo-paganism,  Episcopaganism, Wicca, you name it. 

When my kids entered Waldorf School, I found Anthroposophy, a branch of esoteric Christian philosophy that incorporates many religious traditions rather than “othering” them. My hunch is that it’s what Jesus originally had in mind. I like to describe it as Christianity from Mars.

But I have a disinclination for detail, midrash, and parsing religious texts.  My basic spiritual orientation is best described by the ancient idea described by Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy—the place where all religions meet.  When you read something by Gandhi, or the Dalai Lama, or Matthew Fox, or Anne Lamott, and your heart goes, “Yes. And yes, and yes, and yes,” you have stumbled on the perennial philosophy.

Which makes me some sort of vague Deist, I’m guessing.

I know I’m not the only religious dilettante out there.  (Please?) I would love to hear about your spiritual journeying!