Tradition, Culture, and Doctrine

*******Here is an interesting blog post that I never published because I never finished writing it.  It was started in 2008.  Interesting that it foreshadows what was to come (I highlighted the last sentence today before publishing)!!!*******


My kids and I have decided to study religion this year. We have started with Christianity. Of course, we are Christians, and while we share much with mainstream Christian belief, there are differences.

I just got off the phone from a very uplifting phone call with my good friend Angie. She is a Catholic and I am a Mormon. We were both talking about how closed minded we had been in our younger years. In fact, as I reconsider our conversation, I'm pretty sure we couldn't have had it as our former selves.

It seems we have both grown spiritually in the past several years. I can only speak for myself, but it seems that we have experienced a similar growth pattern. I grew up in a Mormon family (she grew up in a Catholic family). I accepted what I was taught at face value, for the most part. My memories are vague now, but I know that there were inklings of those warm feelings which in my experience have guided me on the path to truth. In these last years as I have worked to shed some of my trouble spots, I have gone through the process of questioning, praying, reading to further distill my beliefs and knowledge. This can be a difficult. What if, for instance, I were to find out that what I have believed my whole life to be correct, really isn't?