What fishbowl are you in?

I was born and raised in a small town Protestant  fish bowl.   It was the only bowl that I knew.  When I got into high school I discovered another part of that fish bowl where the people seemed  (in my adolescent perspective) to be more serious about their spiritual life, and they were a little edgy and slightly countercultural  (which was a good thing in the mid-1970's) .  I swam around in this bowl until I found a comfortable part where one could feed on Dispensationalism.  Later, I found the Calvinistic area. It was the only bowl that I knew, and I had no idea that there was another suitable bowl that one  could swim around in and be happy.  

One day my bowl fell off the table,  exploded,  and sent me flopping across the floor looking for another bowl.   I know that unless this had happened I would have never looked for another bowl.   I was all but out of breath when I finally made it into the Orthodox bowl.  I have been much more happy---no, that's the wrong word.  I have been filled, satisfied, and been given all that I could possibly need for life---this life, and any life to come.  

When I explain to people that this bowl is much better, in fact that  it is the original bowl that all others have come from, they  sometimes take offense.  My daughter  is happy with the first fish bowl, and she exclaimed, "But, Dad, this is the fish bowl you put me in."  And here is the point:  We can't help the fish bowl that we start in, but we certainly can do something about the one that we finish in.