They were born east of the Sierras, raised in different states and didn’t know each other. Because they settled in three California towns where I had dropped sea anchors during stages of my life, I got to know each of their stories.

The Catholic was a druggie. When she paid the Church of Scientology to “clear” her, her parents were thrilled that it worked even though she began proselytizing for L. Ron Hubbard.

The Jew spent his teenage years looking down his noise at all pious types, especially Christian evangelicals, but suddenly after high school there he was on street corners proclaiming Jesus as Messiah. His parents were dumbstruck. They didn’t know how to talk him out of it, but they got him to promise never to discuss his new faith around other family members. “Because if it gets back to your grandfather, it will kill him.”

The Baptist dropped dead first. He grew up in a Mormon family. When his estranged brother, an LDS bishop from Utah, pitched up to claim the remains, friends pointed out that he had converted to another faith. “Oh that’s OK,” the brother said. “We look at that like joining Rotary.” The deceased lived what his generation called a misspent youth (which I understood extended pretty far into middle age), but according to Baptist doctrine, all of his sins were washed away in “the blood of the Lamb.” Because he never talked about religion, I can’t say how strongly he believed that, but I know his brother the bishop meant exactly what he said. He presided over the Mormon funeral.

Differences greater than Rotary versus Lions Club separate religions. The key issues that divide Catholics from Protestants put them both on the same side of a wider schism with Mormons. The best the proverbial rabbi might say of the minister and the priest going down in the same joke is that they’re followers of an heretical cult of Judaism.

C.S. Lewis wrote about The Tao, borrowing the Chinese word to emphasize the similarities, not the differences, among all religions, including the paganism of the Vikings. Today’s post-modern Scandinavian may claim to be a strict materialist, a secular humanist, a moral relativist, an environmentalist who believes there should be more nude beaches. The hoary Dane may say he believes only in free drugs. But when you steal their pot or break up their ménage à trois, they sound objections that are, wittingly or not, rooted in The Ten Commandments, not to mention Norse mythology and Buddhism.

All of which goes to say that the parents of the Jewish convert to Christianity, as well as the parents of the former Catholic addict, were more or less in the same ballpark. They didn’t believe a thing about their religions that they could pass on to their children. They showed up to temple or to church only on the highest of holy days, had Crucifix or a Menorah merely as household decoration, possibly could tell some confused stories about their respective parts of the Bible, and were more animated in saying things like, “I don’t believe in organized religion, but I am spiritual,” or (my personal favorite), “We don’t want to force feed our children religion. They can make up their own minds when they get to college.” Translation: the loopiest professors at U.C. Santa Cruz have carte blanche to fill the kiddies’ minds with anything at all. (If you still believe there are some fundamentals that will hold up the little darlings, all you need to do is pick any high school teacher and have a five-minute chat. There’s a good chance you’ll discern just one of many chisels chipping away at the base.)

What the parents did demonstrate to their children were good works. The good was defined by secular values, or peer pressure, with some readings from The Los Angeles Times and The San Francisco Chronicle. A generation or so removed good from the unvarnished teachings of prophets and saints. The Jewish Grandfather might have had that kind of grounding.

In Defense of Reason by poet and critic Yvor Winters the argument is brilliantly made that one generation’s faith becomes another generation’s habit of goodness. A habit that requires effort is easy to break, and when goodness is broken there is room for all sorts of things. There are the madness and confusion that had Winter’s contemporary Hart Crane jumping off a steamship, never to be seen again. Most of the rest of us paddle along in ignorance. We don’t know the difference between animism and Islam. Good works for the PTA and hard work in Yoga class become as religion. We tithe a few bucks to the homeless fellow huddling in the doorway of our office block (and here we just signed a petition to the building management to turn on the sprinklers at night so that bums can’t sleep on the sidewalk). Maybe we have given hundreds to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Maybe thousands. Maybe there is this karma thing, and we gave away exactly what a bank robber took in his last stick-up. He’s just doing his part, you know. His ideas of goodness are different from yours, that's all, and he has plenty of peers who think yours are nuts.

“There is eternity,” Solomon said, “in men’s hearts.” The statement generally is taken to mean that there is a built-in place for God. If the Lord is not allowed that place, the emptiness seeks a boarder. There are full-page ads in the paper, signs stuck along the meridian, a day worker on the corner wagging a huge foam rubber arrow that reads, “Open House.” No one necessarily asked your permission, but then there is that boarder who caught the vibe and showed up at your door. He probably didn’t say right away that he wants a lifelong lease with option to buy. But now that he’s inside, he goes about redecorating the whole house no matter what you think the fine print says.

Of the Catholic, the Baptist and the Jew, the Jew had the hardest row to hoe. He had to keep silent about what he loved. He moved the farthest from home and returned the least to visit. His contact with his grandfather was minimal, and he could sense the old man’s awareness that some invisible wedge had split their relationship. When Grandpa died (of natural causes in his sleep), the young man came home in a frenzy of grief and guilt. At the funeral he spotted a favorite aunt, and in her kindness she took him aside, urgently whispering, “Why have you stayed away so long? How are you doing? What’s going on?”

He poured out his heart. Before Abraham there was Jesus. After Abraham there were Jesus. Didn’t she see? God Himself really was the sacrifice for Isaac and for the whole sick world.

Her eyes had widened, and her mouth was slightly open.

“Don’t you get it? I’m a Christian. I couldn’t tell that to Grandpa.”

She looked around to make sure they weren’t overheard. “I understand, dearie.” Then lowering her voice, she spoke as to a priest in a confessional, hoping that here at last would be understanding: “I believe we we’ve been put here by extraterrestrials.”