A few years back, after I'd finished work on my MA, I was set to send in my app & GRE scores to Berkeley Theological Union. There was just one hitch--you have to apply to a specific religious school, or in the case of Christianity, you have to apply to a denominational school. If I remember right, there were schools for Judaism (which I'm not), Buddhism (which is probably closest to me), Methodism (which I was raised as), Lutheranism, Presbyterianism/Calvinism, and then the Catholics had 3 schools of their own (Augustinian, Jesuit and Benedictine, I think). Raised Methodist but by then very unorthodox in my beliefs, I couldn't in good conscience apply there; sympathetic to Buddhism but not truly a dedicated Buddhist, I couldn't apply there, and none of the others came close, so I delayed and delayed, and then life moved on in a different direction. Actually, in a weird way, it might have been a better way of learning how to let go of the dross and just live and let live (more of the Taoist way--tell me, when you drink vinegar, do you wince or do you smile? I'm learning to smile--after all, what would you expect vinegar to taste like besides vinegar?). Back in grad school, I took a seminar hosted by a professor who had actually written a book about the women in a branch of my great-grandma's family, a section of which was identifying your own biases and prejudices and confronting them to test their validity. I've had a lot of time to do just that the past few years, and the vast majority I've let slip away (except for those gosh darn teenagers--they won't stay off the grass, dag nabbit!!! ha ha.). I've read a lot of theological texts, from the Christian Bible (in various translations), the Jewish Talmud (which is an eye-opener, especially when you see how Rabbis debate the meanings of the Torah as opposed to how Christians of various denominations view those same passages), the Qur'an, Tao te Ching, Upanishads, Baghavad Gita, the Gnostic Gospels (i.e., the Nag Hammadi library, Dead Sea Scrolls), plus other words like Eisenman's James: The Brother of Jesus (960+/- pages of text plus endnotes & The Historical Jesus by Crossan (which is actually a discussion of 1st Century Judea and Hebrews (at the time they still saw themselves as Jews, Benjamites, Levites, Danites and so on). I set that study aside a few years back because it, frankly, started hurting my brain! I've never studied the Satanists, but I have been quite intrigued by the Wiccas (maybe has something to do with my Salem connection--scarcely a day goes by that I don't think of Rebecca or Sarah). Right now, with a 2 1/2 year old niece, I'm reading more Dr. Seuss than anything, other than my Smithsonian & Nat'l Geographics. For me, the theological studies went hand in hand with my general interest in how people build social and cultural structures, including politics, and how they're all founded on the basic family structure. I took a lot of cultural anthro & social psych courses in my early years at college. By the way, I heartily recommend Black Elk Speaks if you find an interest in Nativa American and specifically Lakota Sioux beliefs--there is a large part of me that is animist, somewhere between what I understand of Shinto & what I gleaned from Black Elk Speaks. I'm a hodge-podge of mixed beliefs, but it seems to work more or less for me. Tomorrow, when my sis-in-law's off and I have some quiet time, I'll start my day with some Tai Chi, then maybe unroll my bean bag (my yoga matt--its cotton batting in a hemp case--like a big, firm pillow) and just work on posture and breathing for a while and let my mind wander here and there and un-knot itself. I can use it, too--there's only so much the meds I take can do for me (like I said, life threw a monkey wrench at me and I've had to learn how to adapt a bit).
Cheers--geo