Regular readers of this blog know that my maternal grandmother was Jewish (which means that I am racially Jewish, just) and may know that my grandparents moved to Glasgow at the start of World War 2 to be further from Hitler's reach because even though she had 'married out' her entire family would have been on his hit-list for extermination. My grandparents, via a convoluted route no doubt, spent most of their lives as active Christian Scientists (often defined as the classic misnomer being neither orthodoxly Christian nor scientific; but who am I to judge?) and were for many years caretakers at their local church in Glasgow. Yesterday I tracked it down, only to discover that it is now a Hindu centre and their former caretaker's flat a suite of offices. It all seemed quite curious and somehow quite fitting given their own history.
So if you ever wondered why I am quite the heretic I am, maybe it is simply in my genes...?!
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Attitudes towards 'religious' heritage can be a funny thing... One of my grandfather's was brought up as a Christian Scientist - and it put him off religion for life when as a teenager he developed a tooth abscess and was told to repent of his sinful thoughts to make the pain go away. My other grandfather has been grand master of his lodge a couple of times. I once shared this information with someone at church, who in all seriousness told me that I needed to receive 'healing' for my family tree. But when I pointed out that my maternal grandfather (the ex-Christian-Scientist) was actually my mother's adopted father, and that my own father (whose father is the 2XGrand-Master) is my adopted father, meaning that there is no direct genetic link to either, she astonishingly told me that this in that case I had nothing to worry about.
So, apparently, it is all genetic!
This still doesn't explain why I am the heretic I am, though...