Thanks to all who recommended Unitarians to me...

[vi5]

In a thread a few days ago I spoke of my atheism even in the face of severe personal struggle during this past first 10 weeks of my son's life. But I expressed a desire to do something in expression of gratitude to the many people of faith in my son's life who are using that as a source of strength for themselves and for my son. I mentioned the promise I had made last week to myself at my son's bedside, that if he had a good week that I would do something spiritual minded as a show of gratitude to all of those people of varying faiths who have helped us through, even if it didn't mean that I became a believer because of any of this.

Well my son had a good week and at the recommendation of several DUers I attended a Unitarian Universalism service today. There was mention of god, and buddha, and judaism and islam, and there were people there from all of those faiths. But I also met other atheists and agnostics who simply spoke of wanting a like minded liberally spiritual community for their children to learn of different faiths if they should choose to follow that path despite their own atheism/agnosticism. There was talk of gay rights, and peace, and justice, and love for mankind. In short all of the things that despite my not being religious myself, were things I always thought religion should be. It was a free exchange of ideas and thoughts and respect for others. It was spiritual without being religious or dogmatic and it was just what I needed, not only as a source of solace for what I'm going through, but for me to have kept my promise to myself to do something like this.

So thanks to all who pointed me in that direction. It was a moving experience for me and gave me a much needed grounding during this difficult time.