At the time (1948) it was a safe bet to have a baby baptised as soon after birth as possible because 'infantile mortality' rates were still frighteningly high. For example I was born at home which was normal for those times - the National Health Service was only just about to be created when children would then be born in the production-line hospitals of those early days of the National Health Service. The mortality rate did, however, drop dramatically. But at the time of my birth the Church would not bury an unbaptised child in holy ground. - What nonsence! And it still persists! People who have no belief in the church, who were baptised themselves but chose not to follow religion, are obliged to bring their children for baptism just in case the child should die. No questions are asked when someone dies if they regularly attended church: they receive a Christian burial unless it is otherwise convenient!
So I grew up in a Protestant household being duly instructed to avoid contact with Catholics and Jews. There was little chance of that as they went to their own schools. At the time of my childhood I knew nothing of the other branches of the church.
And so I grew up with the church an important part of my life. Not that my parents were dedicated 'church goers'; they went at Christmas to the Carol Service (My mother liked to sing and had a good voice) and after that there were the usual weddings, Christenings and funeral types.
I attended Sundal school from an early age with my older brother and little sister. I can quite clearly remember it being announced with the provisor of my father "only if we wanted to". Probably something he had learned from his days in the Royal Navy - no one should be forced into religion.
The strangest thing, to me now, was that we were sent to a Methodist Church nearby. Now, as an adult, I can understand my parents' choice. All they had to do was take us over the road and from there we only had to turn left once and had no busy roads to cross, just street ends. Not that there was much traffic in those days in the city of Kingston-upon-Hull.
The church we attended was nothing like a traditional church and more like a school. Maybe that first impression unsetteld me. We sat in hardwood chairs in rows facing whoever was in charge. I was sitting near the back and, as a small person, I could not see too clearly so I moved the chair a little all the better to see. Noticing that my sister, much smaller than me, was worse off, I helped her to move her chair too. In an almost empty and echo-filled hall the scraping of the chair legs was loud.
The disturbance, while completely innocent, was conceived by the speaker as an affront on his authority.
He stormed towards me, almost purple in the face, and gave me a slap that rocked my head. Slapping children, in those days was not the crime it is today; it happened every day to some of us if not all. It was not a hard slap - I had received much worse in the past - but it was enough to tell me that the Methodist Church was not for me. I said nothing to my father until...
Sunday came around as it usually does and after breakfast I went into the back garden to play. It wasn't many minutes before my father came out to me.
"Aren't you going to Sunday school?"
"I don't want to," I replied trying to keep any tone of defiance out of my voice.
"Why not?"
I shrugged. A mistake because my father disliked, detested was his favourite word, that sort of answer.
"You said we should only go if we wanted to, and I don't want to." Though my choice of words was not too bad, and my tone of voice was neutral, my defiance was all too evident and my father 'detested' opposition. However, he did not punish me in any way. He stood and thought. Maybe my sister had said something - she was always a little closer to them than we boys.
"OK, we'll let it go this time."
I could see that he was hurt in some way and it wasn't until I became an adult that I undertood - our being sent to Sunday school had nothing to do with our religious education but more to do with giving our parents the quality time they needed together. They both worked hard to keep our home solvent and they needed some time, Sunday, together to renew their love for each other.
The following week we were despatched to St. John's the Baptist church where mum and dad met at the sixpenny dances, where they were married and where the three of us were baptised. St. John's was 'High Church' in that it was as close as Church of England could come to being Roman.
And there I settled until I reached that age in my teens when we all rebel and I decided I was an atheist. None of the dogma had connected with reality for me and I spent many years in the 'wilderness' not knowing what was true and wishing I could find an answer to the need that burned within me. I am sure that I am not alone in this. Now I think that it was a time well spent in which I could cleanse my soul of the falsehoods and leave it ready to accept the truth. If I ever found it!
I married at an early age. Family was always an important thing for me. Our third child died at the age of six weeks. I was devastated. Parents are not supposed to bury their own children; it was out of kilter with all that was normal. Craig's death made me curse God for the first time because I could not understand why my son had been taken from us.
Not long after I joined the Army and was posted to Germany. Then, not long after calling my family over to join me my other son, Glenn, died. This time I was broken. Glenn was three years old, a real character in his own right; someone I deeply loved and enjoyed to be with. My life began to go down in a slow spiral. I drank too much and, worse of all, I built a defence wall aound me. We were posted back to England and I hacked it as a soldier, making the best of it. Then my marriage failed with divorce close behind. I became a single parent in which I failed terribly but we plodded on.
Later, when I was on my own, having staggered from one bad relationship to another, I lost both my parents within three months of each other.
How much was I supposed to take? Lord, you gave me too much to bear.
Bereavement, I believe, fosters thoughts of mortality - our own! And my thoughts returned to God. It was not long before I ventured into the Catholic Church. I was seeking the roots of my religion and all went well until I moved to Sweden to live. Attending the local Catholic Church held none of the pleasure - the feel-good factor - of St. Mary's in Hull. Now I realise that it was belonging to the congregation that had lifted me out of despair and I felt none of that at the Swedish Catholic Church. I was segregated by a language I hardly understood and they were behind the times and still celebrated the Faith in ways that were pre-Vatican II.
In Vatican II Pope John Paul presented the church with a finite record of what the Catholic Church stood for, and in essence giving back the church at last to the people. This had not happened in Sweden. The clergy still supposed they had some god-given power over the congregation. In addition to this was the fact that the local church served a vast mix of immigrants who each had their own concept of the church. In a lot of cases I noticed disrespect with children allowed to run wild during Mass. When it reached the point where I felt worse coming away from Mass than when I entered I decided it was not for me.
The final straw was on 9/11 when radical Islamists flew those aircraft into the Twin Towers. That such a thing, such a wasteless taking of life, could be done in the name of religion, was enough for me. At first I was angry with Islam until I considered what my own religion had done over the centuries. I decided then that I was finished with 'organised' religion.
But my spirituality did not die. I sought God on my own terms outside of any organised religion and was content with it. I could commune with God wherever I was and saw the ritualistic sacrements of the Church for what they were: theatrical dressing.
And now I have discovered Theosophy.
I don't know where it will lead me but already I have found answers to many questions I have had for many years. Losing my boys is no longer a burden. My disfunctional past has begun to make some sense after all. I am not some sad creature who has failed but one who has gone through a number of trials in order to improve my status in the evolution of both body and soul. Long may the process continue.
No comments:
Post a Comment