I'm Rabia. My dad's side of the family is all CoC in Tennessee. My mom is Catholic. She converted from Baptist when she was a teen, before she met my dad. Yes, they're still together, 46 years and counting. When I was growing up, my parents felt I should decide my own path (thanks, mom and dad). I later learned that some of my relatives weren't too happy about that. To this day, my mom gets a little pressure to reconsider Catholicism. It's not happening.
I was baptized by my uncle when I was 13. When I was 17, I attended Juma at a local mosque in Memphis and fell in love with Islam. I didn't tell anyone. Like many of my cousins, my heart left the Church when I left for college and kept that really quiet. My parents were pretty liberal about religion, much more so than my cousins' parents in West Tennessee. I saw enough religious abuse with them to be soured on CoC. We lived near New York City until I was a teenager and attended CoC in NYC. It had a much different flavor from the ones my relatives in Western Tennessee attended. I actually have mostly good memories of going to church. We moved to Memphis when I was 15, but my dad and I never quite found a church home (see next paragraph. Dad does not put up with religious bull crap!). That was fine with me.
I got a bachelor's degree in religion, which became a good excuse to learn about Islam. Still, I was afraid to convert. I have relatives who love to say ignorant things about every other religion, especially Islam. Whenever I would visit my parents, I would find some excuse not to attend church with my dad. As he's gotten older, church has become a really important social outlet and part of his life, although in the past few years, he's left 3 different CoC congregations due to differences with the preacher, deacons, because he thought someone was stealing money, because he disagreed with hardline doctrine, and most recently, all of the above.
I married a non-practicing Quaker. We were married in a local Baptist church. My dad never asked why I didn't want to get married in his church (couldn't marry in a Catholic church), but my husband and my line was that a Baptist church was neutral ground. We (I) attended UU services for a couple of years until church politics annoyed me, and like my dad, I left.
When my kids were little, I started attending Sufi dhikr with a UU/Dances of Universal Peace friend of mine, and after a few months, I finally took shahadah about 10 years ago.
Conservatism in religion still makes me shudder. I've been lucky to find a small decidedly non-conservative Muslim prayer group. However, I rarely go to a "proper" mosque, mostly because the closest one is 40 minutes away and under construction, and the next closest one is a bit too conservative for my hippie Muslim comfort, but the food is good and I never regret going to pray with other people.
My daughters, 11 and 16, have little interest in religion, much to my family's chagrin (in-laws could care less). I've given them an academic education on the major religions and allow them to find their own path. My husband is still a non-practicing Quaker.
I'm a grad student soccer mom working on my masters in education and teaching license for special ed and high school English. I was a freelance writer for many years, and a human resources manager before I started grad school. My younger daughter and I play violin, I sing in the local symphony and chamber choirs (second soprano). Life is good.
