My Spirit Walk, Part Two: The Quiz

When we last left our heroine, she delving into the details of her spiritual awakening, assisted by the almighty Internet. The story continues....

I wish I could remember exactly what I typed into the search engine. I tend to frequent Ask.com, so I'm guessing it was somewhere along the lines of, "What religion am I? AND quiz." Whatever the case, it got me where I needed to go.

After weeding through results both bogus and goofy, I found a site called Beliefnet. It's actually a wealth of information on religions from all over the world: their beliefs, their rituals, and the issues pertinent to them. Somewhere on this site could be what I was looking for. I was psyched!

I browsed through and found the quiz I was looking for. Granted, the name of the exercise, "Belief-O-Matic," didn't exactly inspire oodles of confidence, but I had nothing to lose. I clicked on the link and set to work.

What followed was a 20-question quiz that I thought was actually pretty thorough and well executed. It was multiple choice, giving about six different answer choices for most questions. You choose your response based how to feel about the issue/belief in question.

About a third of the way into it, I was amazed. I was able to find answers to the questions that I actually agreed with. (Yes, I feel the same as answer C. Oh my goodness, I agree with choice D!) And if it's an option, that means that there's a religion out there that feels this way, believes this way. Someone also believes that the Old Testament is for guidance and morals, not the exact account of events. Someone else believes that all are already saved. Someone believes that being a member of a lesbian wedding party isn't a Hell-worthy trespass! Woo-HOO!!

The quiz was over, and I was pumped. I was sooo looking forward to seeing what faith I was matched up with. It was like waiting for my online dating profile on eHarmony to be finalized, except for the soul. The results were going to be listed in descending order of how well you matched with the religion. After each religion, a percentage would state exactly how much of your belief structure agreed with the religion tenets of that selection.

I could hardly wait for the page to load. Maybe I was more Catholic than I thought. Maybe I would find my home in the Methodist church, possibly United Church of Christ. Maybe Buddhism! I was ready to feel the warmth of knowledge spread over me, to feel some healing of sorts. I was finally going to have some direction, a place to start. The results came up, and I slowly scrolled down to see what topped my list:

1. Reform Judaism - 100%

I felt the earth move below me as my uber-Catholic Grandma Eckerle spun in her grave, kicking the top of the coffin on her way 'round to emphasize her displeasure.

Excuse me?! This wasn't what I was ready for. How...who...when...huh?!

I know very little about Judaism. I know it's deeply set in ritual and self-sacrifice (as in giving of yourself, not driving into a mall). I know it's not just a religion but a culture. I know Adam Sandler wrote a song about being one. That's all well and good. My head knows that all religions are the means to the same end: bringing one closer to spiritual wholeness. However, this boggled my mind and went straight to my heart.

I had somehow traveled from the Ultimate Church of Christian Guilt to disbelieving the holy lineage of Jesus Christ. He had been transported in my mind's eye from rank of "Savior" to somewhere between "Good Guy with Really Bad Timing" and "Blasphemous Schmuck." Had I really turned away from my upbringing to that extreme?

Searching for some solace, I looked down my list. My next best matches were Liberal Quaker (oxymoron?), Unitarian Universalist (sounds...big), and Baha'i (umm, what?). This was a little more than I had bargained for. I may be a little too out there, I felt. A little too far from the status quo. I scrolled down the list searching for Roman Catholicism, and I finally found it at the very end, #27. My match was 20%. Maybe I hadn't just hacked off the bud of the plant but killed my roots as well.

Before I tried to figure out where the heck I could go to Temple in southern Indiana, I did some reading on my "new" religion. I was in for a few surprises.