What a Long, Strange Trip It's been

Since I'm in an introspective mood tonight, I thought it might be a good time to examine where I've gone on my spiritual journeys. It seems once I was a young, impressionable person who believed everything I was told. After all, why would grown-ups lie to me?

Well, such things don't hold up very well as you get older. I did not mind discovering there was no Santa Claus – to the best of my knowledge anyway – and I weathered things fairly well, but if the one source you trust starts throwing confusing things at you like patriarchal blessings or baptism for the dead, you might have some doubts.
I responded to this by lapsing into agnosticism knowing I'd come back someday. Luckily my parents got divorced and religious became less as a factor as I rose through the ranks of the Mormon priesthood. Even made it up to Priest. (Which before you get excited, just means I could bless the sacrament.)

I never liked going to church anyway. I found the services boring and monotonous, which is usual for a child and a teenager. I find them boring and nauseous today.

Nothing much happened. I went back into activity for a short time in the Navy, but was happy to drop it again as if there is one thing I do not like, it's getting up early when I don't have to. (I don't even like it when I have to. Who am I kidding?)

It's not much to tell. In a late night thought mode, I thought about the afterlife and it just seemed to contrived and well thought out and realized that's not what I believed what happened. That's the start of the disconnect I mentioned early. Sorry it's not an exciting story. That's about the time I started studying other religions in earnest.
Wicca, Asatru, Religio Romana, etc. Even tried a few of them, but eventually I realized I was trying to force myself into believing them. As a side note, I never tried Wicca. It's not for me. The Wiccans I've met unfortunately gave what is in essence a beautiful religion a bad reputation.

Zen Buddhists think you should work out what you believe. I guess I'm still in that process. (I think that's what they believe. The Zen Buddhist I know tells me this anyway.) I am still in the process. I'm beginning to think it's not a destination at all but a journey.

All I know is I know to much to go back to where I started and I'm not sure I'd want to.