“My image of God,” he said, “is what Michaelangelo painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. God is a man stronger and more powerful than everybody else. I also believe that if you think about God, if you say his name all the time, then you will believe in him. It will be in your subconscious”

I had intended to write about what I had taught my child about God. But this piece instead is about what Quinn has taught me about God.

I had not really believed in God from the time I was a small child. My father was in the Army in Germany during WWII. He was there the day they liberated Dachau, one of the worst concentration camps. He had the unit photographer take pictures of the inmates, both living and dead. Those pictures were in a scrapbook that I grew up with.

How could there be a God who would allow that, I wondered?

But I really stopped believing in God when I was ten. I was sick in a military hospital in Tokyo and my father was fighting on the front lines in Korea. Tokyo General Hospital was where they sent the badly wounded. I was there for about eight months. My parents were never allowed to visit me, except once when they thought I was dying. During that time, seeing all of those young soldiers maimed and dying themselves only confirmed that there could not possibly be a God.

My atheism was never an issue until Quinn, my only child, was born with a hole in his heart. After heart surgery at age three months, he spent many years in and out of Children’s National Medical Center here in Washington, many times near death. He also had severe learning problems and has attended special schools all his life. Over the years I spent a lot of time at Children’s, watching children suffer and die -- yet another confirmation that there could not possibly be a God.

And yet…and yet, when Quinn was six months old, having recovered from heart surgery and having survived myriad other problems, I wanted to have him baptized. My parents were religious but didn’t go to church so there was no real family place to have the ceremony. My husband, Ben Bradlee is a believing Episcopalian but not a churchgoer. His closest friend was the Episcopal Bishop of New York, Paul Moore. But Moore wouldn’t officiate because two of the godparents were Jewish, one was Catholic and the only Episcopalian was married to a Jew.

We ended up having the ceremony at Nora’s Restaurant. An Episcopalian priest, whose views were radical at that time, performed the most beautiful, magical and unorthodox ceremony I had ever seen. I might not have been religious but I loved ritual.

Over the years I struggled with what to tell Quinn about God. I couldn’t teach him but I wanted him to be exposed to religion so he could eventually choose for himself. I sent him to my parents once or twice a week to spend the night and they read him Bible stories and talked to him about God.

I didn’t want to lie to him. When he was old enough I told him I didn’t believe in God, I couldn’t, but that believing gave many people a lot of comfort. I didn’t know how much he understood or was taking in. Ben told him he believed in God but did not elaborate much on this with Quinn. We just didn’t talk about it.

“I knew you and Dad were not very religious people,” Quinn says now. “I just assumed with Dad it was going through the war. (He fought in the Pacific in WW II.) Seeing so many terrible things can either make you believe in God or take your faith away. I think when Dad saw all those Japanese jump off of cliffs, well, where is the God in that?”

As for me, he says, “I didn’t really understand that you didn’t believe in God until a few years ago. I didn’t know what ‘atheist’ meant. It’s a very harsh word, very ugly word. It’s like calling a black person the “N” word. And yet you can’t help being an atheist. We all have choices in life. Something traumatic can happen in your life to make you believe in God, like your son is dying and then he lives. It can change your mind. But most of the time you believe what you believe. You can’t really change that.”

Quinn continued: “In a way now, I think everyone is agnostic. Some people say that they aren’t because they believe. But you can’t know for sure because nobody’s ever seen God.”
My son says he remembers my telling him that I was happy for him that he believed in God “if it gives you comfort.” But sometimes, he adds, “it was hard for me knowing that you didn’t believe in God. I would think that because of all the difficulties that I’ve been through that you might. Then again, I almost died. What kind of God makes your son almost die?”

All his medical and learning problems, Quinn says, has made him think that “everything happens for a reason. Maybe it’s God’s plan for me to go through this because I can handle it. We are strong enough to deal with it.”

With great trepidation, I asked him if he was angry at Ben or me for not giving him a real religious education.

“Not at all, “he said. “I’m happy the way I was brought up religiously. If you had taught me there was only one thing I was supposed to believe then I wouldn’t have options. You taught me I could believe in anything I wanted to believe. I could choose what I wanted to believe in. In a way, believing in God is like having a girlfriend that you love and care about. You feel safe with her. You feel safe with God , the way you would with your girlfriend. When you get married she will be with you in sickness and in health. That’s what I believe God will do when I’m going through the hard times of life.”

Quinn does not go to church but he does meditate. And he is, if I may say this as his mother, the kindest, most loving, most affectionate person I have ever known. He has more integrity than anyone I know. He has never lied, and he is completely without malice. That’s saying a lot in such a cynical town as Washington, D.C.

I asked Quinn what he thinks about my new venture in religion as a moderator of “On Faith.”

“Well,” he says with a mischievous grin, “you started out as an atheist. Now you’re a free thinker. I think you’re on your way to believing in God.”

Stay tuned.