Venersborg, Washington, where I grew up, had just one little church, which espoused a sort of Protestant mishmash theology. The church is still there. I don't know if the theology is the same.
In early June, after regular school got out, the Venersborg church would hold Bible school for a week. I always begged to go. We did crafts with stickers and macaroni and gold spray paint, and we memorized Bible verses, and we sang songs. The church was small and musty and fascinating, and there was always a burst of sunny weather every year at that time. I took lunch in my astronaut lunchbox, and I still remember the smell of bologna sandwich and lemonade when I opened the lid.
It was wonderful.
Then, of course, there was the Jesus stuff.
The church people (who were really all very nice) said it was all about belief. If you believed in Jesus - really believed in him - you'd get into heaven.
This was an impossible challenge for a nervous kid like me. Did I really believe? How about now? How about now?
Does doubt matter?
Does God care if I believe?
Does God exist?
How silly! I realize now. Things are true or false, whether you believe in them or not. If God wants me in heaven, no doubt he'll have me there. If you don't see me there, ahem, no doubt I am elsewhere.
I am older now (no kidding!) and have read not only the Bible, but the Koran and the Upanishads and the Popol Vuh and the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.
I think I know a bit – a tiny bit – more about the way the world works.
But I am not necessarily happier.
I had such a feeling of quiet contentment when I was a kid in the 1960s, sitting in an old musty white church and singing “Fishers of Men.”
Ah me.
We have all grown so very very old.
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