I realized that despite my relentless study of everything non-European—Taoism, Buddhism, Sufism, and Native American culture, I was irrevocably steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition. My mother was an Easter and Christmas Anglican, my father a reluctant atheist who tagged along to church when he had to. After leaving England as a kid, I’d been dumped in Catholic school, so I’d spent ten years observing their strange customs too—from First Communion, to Confession, to the macabre Stations of the Cross.
