Admittedly I am a cradle Catholic schooled for twelve years in the parochial tradition. Yet, my family was anything but traditionally Catholic which I won’t go into here other than to say there were conversions made for love or conviction - I don’t know which. I will say that even at an early age (seven, the age of reason) in my First Holy Communion preparation I began having doubts about what I was being taught as dogma of the Catholic faith. The claim was made that the Roman Catholic Church was the only true religion and only Catholics are saved. Hmm. Even as a second grader with a Jewish grandfather and a Lutheran grandmother, I knew that wasn’t kosher! I went home upset and told my parents that the teacher said Papa and Grandma wouldn’t be with me when I died and went to heaven because they weren't Catholic, and that if this was true, I wanted no part of heaven. And to make matters worse, the teacher informed me that I could not love animals as they had no souls and could never love me back. That was just plain wrong and heresy in my book. Apparently, I must have vocalized this to my teacher that day in class as my parents were quickly called into school for a parent teacher conference to prevent me from further outbursts in religion class. So began my love-hate relationship with organized religion and in particular with the Catholic Church. It is a relationship that I struggle with to this day. Now, I am a deist with my whole heart and soul. My faith in God has never wavered even if the darkest nights of my soul, but my faith in religion or, more accurately stated, religious practices, has wavered, and still wavers. I am just not sure that organized religion always has humankind’s best interests at heart. I find organized religions to be more divisive than unifying. I find it troublesome to think that people who believe in a merciful, kind, loving God can believe that their way of religious practice is far superior to another group’s way of religious practice. I also know that faith and spirituality needs to be practiced in relationship to others and within a context of a community. Yet, finding a community that can be authentic and free of rigidity has been difficult. Yet, to this day I would still call myself Catholic. It is as much a part of my identity as my gender, race, and cultural ancestry. However, I also feel free enough to practice my faith along side any denomination of my choosing. And I want to practice along side as many denominations as I can because that it what makes me a "practicing" Catholic. And somehow I think Jesus Christ would agree with me. Authentic discipleship begins with authentic fellowship with others. This does not happen easily unless you are willing to step out of the “dogma” box without losing your true identity.