A Fish Discovers Water

I come from a deeply Christian family. My mother was born and raised in the Church of Christ by a God-fearing Church of Christ mother. I don't know about my mother's father because he died when she was 17.

My father came from a family of Southern Baptists. At some point early on, he moved over from his Baptist upbringing and joined the Church of Christ, so my sister and I were raised in it, too.

Our preacher became more conservative in an already conservative church as the years rolled by, and I was there to soak it all up, week after month after year. We went every time the doors were open, as they say. There was no way I could have avoided church or its influence on my life.

And in a lot of ways, I didn't mind that.

I'm not a member of the Church of Christ anymore. I left it when I was in my late 20s -- after both of my parents had died. My mother died when I was 22. My father died four years later.

If either of them had survived, my spiritual journey would have taken a much different path.