What’s For Dinner

Theosophy with a Side of Questions

Having been a churchman all his life, and born and raised in a very religious Christian family, there were few people outside the Theosophical group with whom my father could speak openly about these new ideas and beliefs. Dinner became the time when he raised questions with his two eldest children. We were a captive audience. Both of us were precocious readers, and we would never have refused the chance to talk with our very busy businessman father. This was often the only time of day we ever saw him.

These books changed my life in significant ways. They expanded my view of the world enormously. In the Buddhist book, I found parables similar to those I had read in Sunday school. In the Bhagavad Gita, a lifelong interest in other countries began to grow, particularly India and its rich array of gods and goddesses. But it was Edith Hamilton’s fascinating book Greek Mythology that changed everything.

There was a rather frightening image of Perseus holding the severed head of Medusa that prompted me to ask my father the most significant question of my life. “This book is about stories, right, Dad?” Yes. “About gods and goddesses?” Yes. “Does that mean the Bible is a book of stories about God too?” Yes. I remember saying “Oh,” while glancing at my Presbyterian mother, who had likely been listening all along. “Then the Greek myths were about Greek religion too?” Yes.

In that moment, my nine-year-old mind exploded. The questions I once carried about religion, belief, and faith in Sunday school were transformed into an ongoing dialogue with my father about religion as culture, and culture as religion. My mother assured me that I still had a friend in Jesus, but the look in her eyes suggested she knew this would change everything for me, and it did.

Here I am sixty-one years later, with a master’s degree in Religion and Culture, wearing the robes of a Buddhist nun, surrounded by Indian and Tibetan iconography, and still convinced beyond any doubt that I have a friend in Jesus. Because, as my mother assured me, Jesus is Love. The conundrum of my life.