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A man and a woman stand on a misty cliff, the man full of barely suppressed frustration and the woman stoic and self-contained. The man urges her to free herself from a difficult situation. He is met with this reply: 

“If freedom is all you ever live for, you will never be free of yourself.” 

Every August from infancy on, I’ve been carried or made my way to a quiet beach on the Maine coast, where there’s nothing to do but play in the surf or lie in the sand, gazing at the sea.

From the shore, you can see a small island hugging the horizon off to the east. Two green humps divided by a swath of meadow, just far enough away that you can’t really tell what may or may not be there. Over the years it’s kept watch over my personal stretch of ocean, providing the setting for childhood fantasy, teen daydreams, and adult contemplation.

I grew up steeped in a Christian idea of worship: as humble devotion paid to a perfect, all-powerful God. Such devotion could feel inspiring, promising a kind of ultimate consummation.

But it depended on a level of belief I could not sustain, and dogmas I could not accept. I needed God to be perfect, but reading the Bible put that deeply in question. In the end Christianity seemed to limit my experience rather than complete it.

I left God behind, but not the need to worship, to taste the exaltation of reverence. As a refugee from mainstream religion, to whom could I bow?

Encouraged by my devout sister-in-law, I’ve just finished Surprised at Oxford, a memoir by Carolyn Weber. Attending Oxford University on scholarship in the 1990s, Ms Weber experienced a year of emotional upheaval, leading not only to finding love but to a heartfelt religious conversion. She found her answers in Evangelical Christianity and the promise of eternal life, which, in her telling, gave ultimate meaning to everything.

I shout encouragement at the TV. My partner provides analysis. Their bats are hot and their pitches sharp. But the Blue Jays keep losing. Why?

I knock on wood from habit and superstition. But lately the act has taken on both a Pagan and a Buddhist resonance for me.

Trees stand up like us but are taller and more grounded. Even so we are intimately linked: trees breathe out what we need to breathe in, and we return the favour. Trees are witness to our short lives and beacons directing our attention both above and below.

I was swept away by the healing ritual, chanting with a hundred others as we worked with the energy of Isis. My friend from the other side of Paganism, however, was aghast. 

“You invoke the gods and then do nothing for them. You’re not even properly grateful.” For her the gods existed externally and needed to be honoured and thanked, not used as props in a psychodrama. I just knew that the ritual had worked. I felt alive and uplifted.

As I fumbled to explain, she asked in exasperation, “I mean, what exactly do you believe?”

Well, I don’t. Believe that is.