There is nothing in my life that has caused me greater ambivalence than religion. I was raised in a religious family, although we didn’t attend traditional church. Sometime before I was old enough to remember, my parents had a parting of the ways with the local Episcopal church and decided to instead join the Anglican Orthodox. What I remember the most is that there was no local branch of this church, so we had our services at home as a family. There was a small wooden cross on top of the little box we called Grandfather’s chest, which was in turn on top of a bookshelf by the radiator. We would gather here every Sunday morning and read the bible verses, say the prayers, and collect offerings in a little copper mug, which my parents would forward on to the nearest Anglican Orthodox church, somewhere in North Carolina. At the time I had no questions about the hereafter, about sin versus redemption, or about who Jesus might really have been. Putting my coins in the cup made me feel strong, like I was part of something greater than myself.

These days I am likely to spend my Sunday mornings reading, drinking coffee, browsing the internet, writing. . .and if you back me into a corner regarding my spiritual beliefs I will describe myself as an agnostic. (I admire this word, which I believe to be Greek in origin. A- meaning “without” and -gnost- meaning “knowledge.”) And truth be told, who among us really knows anything, even the existentialists? Yes, I know I am here; I know what I can experience with my five senses. I just have no idea how it happened or what it’s all about.

On the other hand, when I recall my mother reading the gospel of St. Luke from the King James version of the bible, my façade of cool rationality takes a beating, and if you play me a recording of some of those old hymns we used to sing you might find me in tears. I am thinking now about a conversation I had with my father a few months before he died. At that time my mother had been dead for almost twenty-five years, and he often referred to his time without her as a “long hard pull.” He asked me if I believed that he would see her after he died. Without hesitation I said, yes, I surely do.

Truth is, as a church-going roommate told me many years ago, I would like to believe it. The story of Jesus’ birth and life, as related in the Bible, is beyond absurd—so why does it comfort me? And after all, it really doesn’t matter. From here on out I’ll try to live the life of a cheerful existentialist, even while leaving room in my heart for the inexplicable.