Growing up my parents always encouraged my brother and I to think for ourselves. I didn't realize until college how important that would be to my journey. During my middle school years my family were regular church-goers. Every Sunday we would attend the church where mom had attended Sunday school as a child and where my parents had been married. I remember sitting in the family pew in my normal spot and looking outside. My seat was on the end near a window and now as I write I realize that it was the farthest possible seat from the pulpit! I remember during the spring sitting in my normal seat listening to the sermon and looking out the window. There was a small meadow with a creek outside of the church. Of course in memory it looks much more idyllic than it probably was because memory expands what is doesn't shrink.
I always felt guilty for looking out the window when I was supposed to be paying attention to the sermon. Then over the course of the spring of my family's last year of steady church going I realized how absurd it was to praise the creator of heaven and earth from inside a building. It seemed somehow demeaning to god to be locking out his creation, the world. As if man could create something to rival the beauty of nature. The more I thought about it the more absurd it seemed. I stopped feeling guilty about looking outside because I started to feel like I was supplementing the sermons. I was hearing about god's mercy, strength and compassion and I was watching it at the same time. That act of freeing myself from the guilt of looking outside during church opened a flood gate in my mind. It was the first time I had questioned what I had been taught regarding religion.
This discovery was powerful, the discovery that I reached a decision that was, seemingly, counter to what I had been taught. Realize, please, that none of this was concious. I just started down a path and kept following it, my twelve year-old self didn't realize the importance. It may sound like a small matter but the decision to judge things internally rather than accepting what others told you was a big decision for me. This idea that I had the ability to decide things for myself. Now I realize that I was making the choice to seek god (and myself) on my own terms rather than accepting what others believed. I realized that I could set up the criteria for judging things as important as religion. This was a big step for me. A big step. It really set up how I would live my life. It helped me to accept who I was because I set up my own criteria for judgement. Now that I write this it makes me sound like my teenage years were painless which is not true, but they could have been much worse. It's hard enough to look different in high school but to know that you are different inside is huge idea. If I had hated myself I don't think I would have survived high school.
What if my parents hadn't encouraged me to think for myself? I wouldn't have had that "a ha moment" sitting in church looking at the field. If that hadn't happened would I have been another teenage suicide statistic? Would I have accepted who I was so early? I don't think my parents realize how amazing they were. The idea that they planted in my brother and I, the idea that we had the ability to think for ourselves.

Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kindom is in heaven,' then the birds of heaven will precede you. If they say to you 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. But the kingdom of heaven is inside of you. And it is outside of you. When you become acquainted with yoursleves, then you will be recognized. And you will understand that it is you who are children of the living father. But if you do not become acquainted with yourselves, then you are in poverty, and it is you who are the poverty." The Gospel According To Thomas (gnostic scripture)