I have
always believed there was a ‘God’ from as far back as I can remember.
I do remember talking to him for many years... many times in conversation while trudging the long, hot, walk to school and back. This was when we lived in the mid-Western, Australian country town where I did my primary school education. I would wander through the bush on the winding, well used trails that made the short cut from our house on Endersbee Street all the way to the back of the South Merredin Primary School sports oval. I would ask God about the plants and animals, problems at home or with my friends and ask for him to sort things out.
Even then I knew that the answers were always given to me in my dreams. I would awake most mornings with one puzzle or another clearly ‘painted’ in my mind and would know immediately and instinctively how to put the information I had been given into practice.
Sadly, many of my queries about my parents would go unanswered... but I wasn’t to learn about ‘free will’ and ‘spying’ until many years later and after my own divorce!
I do remember talking to him for many years... many times in conversation while trudging the long, hot, walk to school and back. This was when we lived in the mid-Western, Australian country town where I did my primary school education. I would wander through the bush on the winding, well used trails that made the short cut from our house on Endersbee Street all the way to the back of the South Merredin Primary School sports oval. I would ask God about the plants and animals, problems at home or with my friends and ask for him to sort things out.
Even then I knew that the answers were always given to me in my dreams. I would awake most mornings with one puzzle or another clearly ‘painted’ in my mind and would know immediately and instinctively how to put the information I had been given into practice.
Sadly, many of my queries about my parents would go unanswered... but I wasn’t to learn about ‘free will’ and ‘spying’ until many years later and after my own divorce!
I wasn’t
raised in any religion or given any form of religious instruction as a child.
Both my parents were raised with varying degrees of Scottish Presbyterian
practice and belief but both had turned their backs on all forms of faith and
religion by the time they married.
My mother had read books about spirituality and psychic phenomena and had dabbled with some of the practices that they entail... but she had never taken any of it too seriously... and certainly not seriously enough to do anything more than warn me of the inherent dangers of messing irresponsibly with the unknown.
My mother had read books about spirituality and psychic phenomena and had dabbled with some of the practices that they entail... but she had never taken any of it too seriously... and certainly not seriously enough to do anything more than warn me of the inherent dangers of messing irresponsibly with the unknown.
When I was
in about grade three I was invited to the local Anglican Church by the lovely
wife of the local baker. I was so excited that I was finally going to learn
everything about God and to understand ‘his book’ the Bible.
My father caused one hell of a ruckus but my mother persisted and I got to go along to the Sunday school and Church Service the following weekend. Boy... was I disappointed! All the kids got sent into an adjoining room to colour in pictures of someone called Jesus and we got to eat slices of cold apple and orange... and that was it! I wanted to be in with the adults to learn what the preacher was teaching. I even asked if I could go in but was told it was only for ‘mature Christians’ and not for the likes of me who had not even been baptised!
I may not have learned anything about God but I was well set on the path of despair that would lead me through many a religious experience of bigotry and prejudice.
My father caused one hell of a ruckus but my mother persisted and I got to go along to the Sunday school and Church Service the following weekend. Boy... was I disappointed! All the kids got sent into an adjoining room to colour in pictures of someone called Jesus and we got to eat slices of cold apple and orange... and that was it! I wanted to be in with the adults to learn what the preacher was teaching. I even asked if I could go in but was told it was only for ‘mature Christians’ and not for the likes of me who had not even been baptised!
I may not have learned anything about God but I was well set on the path of despair that would lead me through many a religious experience of bigotry and prejudice.
At the age
of sixteen I was invited to a basement meeting of the fledgling Potters House
religious organisation. They were all young and vibrant and so smiley-bright
and enthusiastic when I walked through the door. It felt good to be
acknowledged and welcomed like a familiar friend... and not the stranger that I
really was. The singing, the music, the closed eyes and raised arms in the air while
swaying from side to side looked so ‘spiritual’ that I truly felt I had found
‘God’s people’... until they began the prayers.
The man sitting directly behind me started to utter intelligible words accompanied with guttural grunts and growls. My hackles were up like a razor back pigs... right down my back. I started to feel very sick indeed! The woman across the aisle, next to me turned and shouted at the man to shut up! “You are swearing and cursing God in German you fool!” she yelled before storming out of the basement.
I was hot on her heels and immediately threw all my dinner up in the gutter, which was highly unusual for me as I never throw up unless forced to sit in the back seat of any Falcon, before heading straight for the ‘safety’ of the bus station and my ride home.
The man sitting directly behind me started to utter intelligible words accompanied with guttural grunts and growls. My hackles were up like a razor back pigs... right down my back. I started to feel very sick indeed! The woman across the aisle, next to me turned and shouted at the man to shut up! “You are swearing and cursing God in German you fool!” she yelled before storming out of the basement.
I was hot on her heels and immediately threw all my dinner up in the gutter, which was highly unusual for me as I never throw up unless forced to sit in the back seat of any Falcon, before heading straight for the ‘safety’ of the bus station and my ride home.
It was also
at about this time that I was given a copy of the Scientology book by a
handsome young man in Hay Street Mall. I think I got to about the third chapter
before I threw it in the bin. Young and gullible I may have been but I certainly
wasn’t an idiot!
It wasn’t
until I was 20 that I actually opened my first Bible and had a go at reading
it. I would like to say that it was due to my spiritual fervour and unbridled
interest that had, so far, gone unquenched. But, it was actually fear that
caused me to go out and buy one from the Christian book shop in the city. I had
been told to leave one open on my bedside table while I slept as I had been visited
by a shadowy spectre in the middle of the night that had left me afraid to
close my eyes.
But that experience, as well as many others much worse, are for later!
But that experience, as well as many others much worse, are for later!
If you have
ever tried to read the bible like you would a normal book, starting at the
beginning, then you were probably doing a much better job than the majority of
religious folk who only bother to open their Bible when directed to a
particular scripture.
The problem is that any minister, preacher or pretentious fool can take any text and use it in any way they want... manipulation and coercion using ‘fact’ is not for the exclusionist science world alone... religious organisations are masters of both and have been for thousands of years!
But to take a scriptural text out of the context of those it was meant for... when it was written... who was speaking and to whom... and from its position within the chapter, is blasphemy at its worst. But all religious organisations do it!
The problem is that any minister, preacher or pretentious fool can take any text and use it in any way they want... manipulation and coercion using ‘fact’ is not for the exclusionist science world alone... religious organisations are masters of both and have been for thousands of years!
But to take a scriptural text out of the context of those it was meant for... when it was written... who was speaking and to whom... and from its position within the chapter, is blasphemy at its worst. But all religious organisations do it!
The only
thing worse than Contextual Scriptural Blasphemy is... Translational Blasphemy!
This is the ‘fine art’ of mistranslating something to suit one’s own bigoted
and religiously intolerant agenda!
So, for better or for worse... here is my ‘take’ on the first book of the
Bible - GENESIS.__/\__ <3
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