I officially stopped going to church in Virginia where my local choices were strict Methodist or scary Pentecostal. After several years in Germany with its gloomy Romanesque and awe-filled Gothic architecture, there were nine or ten months in Kansas where I continued to attend the generic Christian services on base before we moved to a civilian suburb outside of DC. Into Bible study and singing carols in the school choir, I was part of a crew who painted the Nativity scene on sheer glassine paper for our fake stain glass window backdrops at the Christmas recital. I liked doing it so much, I painted an angel for our living room window. My mother, proud of my work, put it up, much to my father's chagrin. Embarrassed by the subject matter, he asked her, in front of me, why I hadn't done a Santa Claus instead.