Don't know why, but four people have written this week and asked both subtly and boldly about my religious beliefs. I did not answer them because I figure it's my very private and peculiar business, not theirs. I don't ask that sort of question of people, any more than I would ask someone "Are you a man or a woman?" because what you see (or hear) is too often not what you get. Pointless questions deserve no answers.

I knew this guy who looked like a man and talked like a man and, as I discovered to my delight, was deliciously equipped as a man, but as I came to know him outside the bedroom, he was more of a stereotypical female than most of the women of my acquaintance. I could have sworn that once a month he even "had the rag on."

Conversely, I have known ladies whose "yielding" femininity quickly gave way to the "iron butterfly" syndrome indelibly marking several of the old-time showbiz queens (like Jeanette McDonald, Bette Davis, Sonja Henie, Ethel Merman, etc) as having bigger balls than any man alive.

In the same vein, I never know what to expect when someone introduces himself or herself as a "Christian." I get even more antsy when I hear "good Christian" as a recommendation.

So what's my religion? Do you really care? I don't. As one of my alter egos, Col. Brock, says (in faint echo of Popeye), "I am what I am and ain't what I ain't." Thanks, Colonel. You said it for me.

We are all influenced throughout our lifetimes by one environment or another. A phrase in "West Side Story" states the case: "from womb to tomb." We are influenced from birth by our parents, our familes, our keepers, our teachers, our preachers, our colleagues, our communities, our cultures, our ethnicity. Somewhere in that mishmash of superimposed identities, we find ourselves and our path, if we are lucky.

Some of us never find the "me" in the "we" but sail on unflinching through the storms of life secure in the knowledge that there is but one "I" or "us," one truth of which we are a part, embodying the answer to all questions, even those we never think to ask.

That is the Good Ship Lollipop of religious devotion. People like me flounder in its wake and are left to swim ashore by ourselves. Here I stand, now happy that it left me behind.

The Dalai Lama, leader of one of the great religious groups of the world, stands nearby. I hear him say, "My religion is simple. My religion is kindness."

I revere the sweet simplicity and truthfulness of that statement. It neither names nor blames any deity. It accepts full responsibility for its own action. It requires no leap of faith. It is an act of faith in itself. It is simple, quiet, undogmatic. It is unriddled by theological self-justifications in the name of some idiotic old demon in the clouds casting down bolts of lightning in Florida to light a few fires to warm the hearts of the hateful. A devilish god like that is not worth knowing, much less worshiping.

Part 1 | Part 2