Hello, everyone. I will go ahead and introduce myself. I am a middle-aged woman reared in an Evangelical Christian tradition. Lost my faith in college and then began to trundle back toward it like a stunned and addled beast of burden when I had children because I was not at all sure I could be a good mom, so I followed my internal "good mom formula" and that included taking my children to church. Was all over the map for several years due to "poor fit" between my beliefs and the dogmas of every church I tried. Eventually settled on Catholicism in 2006 due to the mystical elements which I was quite drawn to at the time--relics, incense, rosaries, prayers to the dead (saints)--SIGN ME UP. My woo-woo side loved all of this, and I deliberately tuned out the distasteful things I did not agree with in order to "go along to get along" (such as contraception bans and "holy days of obligation", and Marian adoration). During the Pandemic I realized how relieved I was to have a "pass" on attending Mass weekly and how quiet and internally peaceful I felt without any religion at all. And that is basically where I am to this day. I do not attend church. I do not pray. I feel very much at peace with the state of my soul and I get along well with both people of faith and those without. I consider myself to be NEITHER a believer nor a non-believer. I don't have enough evidence to call it, so I will sit out the religion debates and just live my life the best way I know how without stressing about questions I can't answer.
