Over 50 years ago, at the age of 16, I wrote an essay published in the original This I Believe series. Since then I’ve advanced through much of the life cycle, including college, marriage to the same man for over 40 years, two daughters plus a scientific career, two lively grandsons and death of parents…

This essay aired as a This I Believe segment circa 1954. Elizabeth Earle was sixteen years old at the time. At the age of sixteen, many of my friends have already chosen a religion to follow (usually that of their parents), and are bound to it by many ties. I am still “freelancing” in religion,…