For most of my life, I believed I was an Episcopalian — the gracious, peace-seeking kind whose faith feels like sunlight through stained glass.

My identity was shaped by quiet sanctuaries, hymns rising like soft tides, and a community that trusts in the holiness of calm voices and thoughtful pauses.

Episcopalians don’t go looking for fights; we prefer coffee and liturgy that moves like a well-worn river.

Beneath that calm, though, is a thoughtful Christianity — one that wrestles with justice, honors mystery, and carries a quiet courage that doesn’t need to announce itself.

So imagine my surprise when, much later in life, I discovered that my mother — and her mother — were Jewish.

Not “we light a candle at Hanukkah” Jewish. Not “we have a cousin in Brooklyn” Jewish. But German Jewish — the kind of Jewish that comes with history, danger, and a long tradition of keeping your head down when the neighbors get loud.

They kept it secret. Not out of shame, but out of survival. And so I grew up with a kind of theological misdirection: Episcopalian on the outside, Jewish on the inside, like a spiritual croissant.

Now Yom Kippur approaches, and I find myself wondering what it means to embrace both traditions fully.

I’ve learned that Yom Kippur doesn’t just appear; it’s preceded by Elul — a month devoted to quiet introspection and small repairs.

Elul whispers, “Start early. Don’t wait for the big day to figure out who you want to be.” I can feel its usefulness settling into my life like a soft reminder: you can begin again long before the shofar sounds.

I like being a hybrid. A spiritual dual citizen. A person who can say “forgive me” in two religions and mean it twice.

Daily life becomes instantly funnier. Shopping at Gelson’s turns into an interfaith pilgrimage. I stand in the produce aisle wondering whether the apples should be blessed Episcopalian style (quietly, with dignity) or Jewish style (with commentary, a story, and possibly a small apology to the orchard).

Trader Joe’s becomes a theological obstacle course: Do I buy the challah because of my heritage, or the frozen mac and cheese because I’m still an American with taste buds?

Either way, I leave with a cart full of paradox and carbohydrates.

My friends don’t blink. Santa Barbara loves a hybrid. We’re a town built on blended identities — surfers who meditate, retirees who do pilates, Presbyterians who keep crystals in their glove compartments.

My friends simply say, “Of course you’re Jewish. We suspected it from the way you worry.”

And the comedy continues. I apologize like an Episcopalian but worry like a Jew. I bless the meal with quiet dignity and then immediately ask if everyone is warm enough.

I light a candle for reflection and then check the smoke alarm twice. I attend church on Sunday and feel mysteriously drawn to bagels on Monday.

My humor — already bent from age and university teaching — takes on a new flavor. I become the kind of person who says, “I’m fasting for Yom Kippur, but only spiritually. My stomach is still Episcopalian.”

Even my relationship to Israel shifts. I don’t suddenly become an expert in geopolitics — I can barely keep track of my hearing aids — but I feel a tug, a thread, a sense of belonging to a story larger than my own.

Not political belonging. Human belonging. The kind that says: Your ancestors walked here. You carry them in your bones.

And yet, I’m not giving up my Episcopalian life. I like the hymns. The liturgy is steady, thoughtful, and shaped by centuries of people trying to live with grace.

I embrace the thoughtful sermons, appreciate the gifted clergy, and feel blessed by a community that truly embraces.

My Sundays remain holy in the familiar way — gentle liturgy, honest prayers, and a community that knows how to hold both reverence and humor.

But now, beneath the Anglican calm, there’s a Jewish heartbeat — older, deeper, more weathered. A sense of resilience. A sense of humor forged in history.

My Episcopalian life becomes richer, funnier and slightly more neurotic. Frankly, it could use the excitement.

Somewhere in all this late life discovery, I realize something else: on Sunday mornings, sitting in my familiar pew, I am — quite literally — the Jew in the Pew.

I say it with affection, not cleverness. It’s my way of reminding myself, and perhaps my fellow Episcopalians, that identity can be both inherited and chosen, both ancient and newly discovered.

Of course, beneath all the humor, there’s a quieter truth. When your heritage is kept secret, you lose something — the stories, the rituals, the right to say, “This is mine.”

You lose the thread that ties you to a people who survived by remembering.

And so, in late life, I find myself reclaiming what was hidden — not to replace my Episcopalian upbringing, but to enrich it. To become a person who can hold two traditions without dropping either.

This Yom Kippur, I sit quietly. I reflect. I forgive myself for not knowing sooner. I forgive the world for making secrecy necessary.

And I let both heritages — the Episcopal depth and the Jewish resilience — settle into my life like two hands resting on my shoulders.

What I feel now isn’t pride or accomplishment. It’s something quieter: the steady recognition that my life carries two lineages, two histories, two ways of enduring.

I am the product of liturgy and resilience, of quiet sanctuaries and longkept secrets, of hymns that rise gently and stories that survived because someone held them close.

And standing here, late in life, I finally feel all of it — not as a performance, not as a claim, but simply as the truth of who I am.

A person shaped by two heritages that were always waiting for me to fully embrace.