Being a "Not Much of Anything"

My wife and I got married in a lovely Congregational/UCC church. We weren't originally planning to get married in a church, since I don't belong to one and we couldn't get married in hers (Roman Catholic, two girls, you know the drill). But we happened upon this great church that was willing to let us get married there, and it felt right, somehow.

In our conversations with the pastor (she wanted to make sure we weren't totally cuckoo before marrying us, I guess) my wife explained our spiritual backgrounds thus: "I'm Catholic, and Tamara isn't much of anything." I voiced my objections to her phrasing, though for someone coming from a strongly Catholic background, I can understand that's what it looks like.

In the intervening years, I have explored Christianity and gained a new appreciation for it, but have decided that it doesn't completely "fit" me, at least not as it has been presented/explained to me. I attended the church we were married in for a couple of years to check it out, and got to the point where I felt it was time to fish or cut bait, i.e. get baptized and join the church, or look elsewhere for spiritual community.

I pondered my position in the community for several months, and realized that I didn't fit there, for a few different reasons. First, I still felt marginalized in that community as a childless adult, and as a queer person.

Second, I could never wrap my mind about the idea of "believing in" the Trinity. What does it mean to believe in something that seems so abstract? It's very confusing for me, having been raised by pragmatists. I couldn't truthfully say, "I believe in God; I believe in Jesus Christ; I believe in the Holy Spirit," and have it mean the same thing as, "I believe that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius" (at sea level, of course). Maybe it doesn't have to mean the same thing, but I haven't been able to work that one out for myself either.

Third, it bothered me that there were some topics that never seemed to get discussed. For example, it seems inconceivable to me that a liberal spiritual community can go years without discussing sexuality. I'm not talking about the civil rights of GLBT people; they covered that pretty well. I'm talking about actual sex and sexual relationships and what they have to do with God, or spirituality. Sex is an important part of my life, and I think it's weird not to talk about it in a space where we are supposed to be talking about The Important Things In Life.

So I guess I'm back to being a "Not Much of Anything." Apparently, I am in good company. Recently, I read an article about Robert Putnam of Harvard's Kennedy School, who has been studying religious "nones" for the last several years, and I am planning on delving into some of his articles. I've just added All Things Shining by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly to my reading list. All of you "nones" out there, is there anything else I should be reading?

I promise I will get back to writing about lipstick one of these days....