I have forgiven Jesus - Part One
"I was a good kid, I wouldn't do you no harm" - Morrissey
I wouldn't go as far as to say I "grew up in the Church" - not in the way that my whole family were church goers, or our lives centred around it or anything. But I did grow up in the church in the "my Mum put me in the little mini bus from the local Baptist church that went around collecting the local kids for Sunday School" kind of way. I guess it was kind of on the edge of our lives, or we were on the edge of it's.
My mother became a church goer later, after my early stints at Sunday School. Maybe that's why the Baptist Church picked all of us kids up for free - it was a gateway to our parents? I'll never know. My stepfather never attended - a confirmed atheist - he was only ever respectful of our religious tendencies, he loved my mother too much to be anything else.
It would have all remained pretty innocent I think if I hadn't turned into a lonely, scared and confused teenager - one who retrospectively was likely depressed. At the angsty age of 14, I was ripe for the picking, and was quickly pucked, at the arrival of our new church Youth Group Leaders, Jane and Terry.
Jane and Terry were young and charismatic. They were different from everyone else the the church - more alive and real somehow. They were they new kind of Baptist- truly born again. They danced when the spirit took them, spoke in tongues, and for the first time in a long time I felt alive, loved, and in love.
The middle age lesbian me can look back and say that Jane may have been my first love. My suppressed 14 year old self who was being taught about hell, possession of evil spirits, and Armageddon, would never have seen it in a million years. I would have been appalled in fact.
What I do know for sure is that it was and is a dangerous combination. A young lonely person, a dynamic church leader, and a doctrine that was about to tell me that everything I was is wrong.
I wouldn't go as far as to say I "grew up in the Church" - not in the way that my whole family were church goers, or our lives centred around it or anything. But I did grow up in the church in the "my Mum put me in the little mini bus from the local Baptist church that went around collecting the local kids for Sunday School" kind of way. I guess it was kind of on the edge of our lives, or we were on the edge of it's.
My mother became a church goer later, after my early stints at Sunday School. Maybe that's why the Baptist Church picked all of us kids up for free - it was a gateway to our parents? I'll never know. My stepfather never attended - a confirmed atheist - he was only ever respectful of our religious tendencies, he loved my mother too much to be anything else.
It would have all remained pretty innocent I think if I hadn't turned into a lonely, scared and confused teenager - one who retrospectively was likely depressed. At the angsty age of 14, I was ripe for the picking, and was quickly pucked, at the arrival of our new church Youth Group Leaders, Jane and Terry.
Jane and Terry were young and charismatic. They were different from everyone else the the church - more alive and real somehow. They were they new kind of Baptist- truly born again. They danced when the spirit took them, spoke in tongues, and for the first time in a long time I felt alive, loved, and in love.
The middle age lesbian me can look back and say that Jane may have been my first love. My suppressed 14 year old self who was being taught about hell, possession of evil spirits, and Armageddon, would never have seen it in a million years. I would have been appalled in fact.
What I do know for sure is that it was and is a dangerous combination. A young lonely person, a dynamic church leader, and a doctrine that was about to tell me that everything I was is wrong.
Comments
Post a Comment