Well, I don’t know about regrets. In the words of Willie Nelson, “Regrets are just a memory / Written on my brow / And there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

But there is one thing I’m pretty sure would have changed my life for the better: paying attention to the little voice inside instead of shushing it because it was saying things Mama and Daddy wouldn’t approve of.

Daddy was a preacher, and Mama (I learned much later) was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as paranoid schizophrenic. Both my parents agreed that there was an invisible man in the sky who turned himself into a human so he could have other people kill him to “atone” for everybody’s “sins” if they would silently mumble an undefined incantation about “asking Him to come into your heart”. This seemed to me like a huge stretch, but everybody at church and Sunday School said it was so, so I sat there and told myself to believe it … even as a tween progressing to become an outspoken proponent, imagining myself to grow up and become a captivating evangelist like Billy Graham.

Okay, I wasn’t alone, and I can see that millions of people are still falling for the bullshit … to say nothing of the millions (or is it billions?) that are buying into similar bullshit about the “Prophet” who commanded his followers to go kill infidels … or be nice to them, depending on which mood he was apparently in.

I don’t feel like I need to wear a hair shirt about my childhood lapse, but I’m pretty sure my life would have turned out far different and, I can’t help but imagine, more exciting and fulfilling if I had stood fast and said, “Sorry, Mama and Daddy, but I think you’re wrong.”