My mother became a Christian when I was eleven. She grew up in a culturally Jewish but non-religious family. It was when my father would not join my mother in converting to Christianity that she decided to divorce him. My father was culturally Jewish but did not practice.
I imagine that there were other complications in their marriage, because marriage involves issues that are separate from a core belief system that determines your way of regulating your relationship to what happens in your life, and influences what you think will happen after you die.
My mother found community in Christianity, as well as a new partner. After my mother started going to church, my little brother and I started going to Saturday school at a reform temple. It was never about worship, and it didn't last long, but my we did learn the basics. I also learned, over the years, to love traditional Jewish music and the sound of biblical Hebrew.
My mother died in 2016, after having decades of support from her very liberal Episcopalian community, who valued her for her intelligence and wit. My brother died in a car accident in 2014, a few days after trying to connect with a Jewish community close to where our mother lived, and making peace with the pastor of our mother's congregation, who he had issues with in the past because of her sexual orientation. My father died almost two weeks ago at ninety-four under hospice care after a very long life.
During the mid 1979s when I was studying at Juilliard I had a Christian roommate who sometimes had prayer meetings in our apartment. She saw me as a person to convert. It messed with my mind. I spent far too much time resisting Christianity than I should have had to. Good thing my flute teacher, who was a secular Jew, was there for me to identify with.
In addition to the mid 1970s born again Christian presence that was everywhere, there were various cults popping up, like the Soka Gakkai "chant for what you want" kind of Buddahism, and the followers of Sun Myung Moon. Because I didn't want any future children of mine to be swept up in those movements (or cults), I decided in the mid 1970s that if I ever had children I would let them know that they had a Jewish identity and, if asked to, wouldn't need to follow another belief system. And I also knew that it would be best for them to be able to make up their own minds about whether they wanted to be religious.
That's what I did, and that's what they did.
My father was not a practicing Jew. I choose to honor his memory for the things that he did that made me (make me) happy and made me (make me) proud of him. While he was alive we shared many of the same musical beliefs, and we both embraced the idea of doubt when it came to religion. My credo has always been musical.
I live in a predominantly Christian area of Illinois, where many of the believing Christians I know here are very kind people (because they are very kind people). And I enjoy playing "holiday" music for them and with them. I enjoy the happiness that it brings to people (as music is wont to do), but the underlying local acceptance of the texts of the songs as history tends to bug me. It bugs me particularly when I witness it in the public schools. The inclusivity that schools in these parts once tried to incorporate into the winter holiday season has declined during the past few years.
The holiday season has already started, and I approach it with my usual sense of dread. I'm happy to have musical work, and I'm happy to participate in musical events that make people happy (including religious services), but it is still something that I look forward to being over.
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