Lately I've been thinking

a lot about my religious identity. My thinking began back in New York when I lived on the same street as a Lutheran Church. Every day, the church would play a familiar song - one that I never identified - but am certain was one of my Grandmother's favorites. She died while I was in the city. There were some horrible things that happened in New York, but the worst was missing the flight that would take me to her death bed. I watched the plane pull away from the gate while pleading with the airline employee to please let me on.

"Woke up late?" she said. I was too sad to even be angry. To this day, I know it was a horrible thing to say, but what overpowers my anger is my anger with myself. Why didn't I take a taxi to the airport? Why didn't I call my friend to give me a ride?

Before I left for New York, my Grandma called. She had this blunt way of talking that offended some people. "I feel like you're going to New York and I'll never see you again," she said. I took the exasperated way that she said it as though she was trying to make me feel guilty. Until I realized she was in so much pain that it hurt her to talk.

Turns out she was right. I didn't see her again. But it's not just that. I'd been hiding from her for years. I was hiding my sexuality, which is complicated and though it no longer has a box, it certainly does not fit into "straight." I was hiding my scarred arms. If I were to visit her in Arizona, I'd have to wear a tank top, and she'd see too much.

More than anything, I was hiding my dwindling faith. She knew that I was a religious studies major - something that troubled her deeply. She didn't know that I'd all but abandoned a belief in the Christian God. Sure, maybe I believed in a "higher power," or "universal consciousness" as much as any other college student. But the God of the Old Testament, the figure of Jesus, the after life? No, that was not anything I wanted or needed.

So, lately I've been thinking about my religious identity. And there's a lot to share, some of which may be interesting to others. Most of it, probably not. The part I want to share is the following: I can't get over the fact that I hid from my grandparents for years because I didn't think they'd be accepting. This is the story of the contemporary Christian.

Of course, there are different ideas about what truly makes a Christian, but one of my favorite quotes is from the German philosopher Meister Eckhart: "If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough."