Let me give you some background to add context to this journey to faith narrative.
Debbie and I were married in a Catholic Church in Colville, Washington, for which I am forever grateful. I was raised with a not-so-subtle anti-Catholic bias that was handed down to me by my grandparents, who came to their prejudices for reasons unknown to me. Still, I’m happy with the decision made for me by Debbie’s parents, which was that we marry in a ceremony blessed by a priest. The point is that in our young marriage, we did not share a common religious view or spiritual belief. We loved each other and aspired for an adventure-filled life and using our respective professions to help people. We were not looking for spiritual fulfillment. That all changed five years later.
Our first child arrived in February 1981 and quickly let us know that our pledge to “not let children change our lives” was wishful thinking. Nicole changed our lives then and still does to this day. Debbie and I shared the belief that we needed to offer our daughter an opportunity to explore the spiritual side of her development. We started church shopping in Mount Vernon when Nicole was about two years old, taking her to the church nursery while we went to “observe” worship services. We didn’t go to worship but rather to be uninvolved observers. We saw ourselves as consumers looking for what made us feel comfortable among people who we didn’t know, singing songs we had heard before but did not understand or appreciate. At each church visit, we would see people we recognized or who recognized one of us, letting us know we were welcome. We kept people at arm’s length, making no promises to return and contributing nothing to the collection plate.
After several weeks of visiting churches, our daughter had seen enough of nurseries and Sunday Schools. She recognized the pattern of dressing up on Sunday morning, fixing her hair, taking a short drive to another building she did not recognize, and being left in another room for who knows how long. She started clinging to my leg as we walked from our car to a new church, where we left her with well-meaning strangers. Debbie and I would then find a pew in the back of the church sanctuary where we could quietly observe and be among the first to leave.
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