In college I remember a class in education where the professor made us write our 'reading autobiography'. We all felt strange having an assignment such as this, like this was a colossal waste of time and totally didn't see the purpose whatsoever. When it was over however, and we looked at the process it took to stand back and view how our earliest memories/experiences w/literature formed how we view reading, we saw the value. Our attitudes and methods reflected each of our unique experience bases and formed the very foundation that our classrooms would be built upon. Our students would be helped or hindered as a result of who we were and what we brought to the classroom. Turned out to be a very useful assignment...and I still have a copy of that reading autobiography. Only a few items survived college but this was one of them.
In the same way, I've found myself looking back over the years to my earliest memories of God, of church, and of the Bible and stepping back to see how those earliest experiences and memories have shaped so much of who I am and how the journey of faith has played out in my own life. As I was living the moments I was not really aware of how God was working in the moment yet looking back at the experiences of 37+ years, I can now see in retrospect that God, in his mercy, has always been there for me w/a plan much larger than me, yet allowing me to participate in a tiny way in the Gospel plan that was in his mind before the foundation of the world. It is humbling. I hope the next few blogs will be my 'spiritual autobiography'...mainly for my own therapeutic purposes...but also something to leave my children to read someday...and hopefully something that can help those w/ similar backgrounds to read and feel a certain kinship. It will be funny in part, serious in part...but in the end it is my story. Much of it is of course, biased. It will be what I saw and experienced from the time I was about 3 years old and after...so experiences and church, etc, as seen through the eyes of myself *as a child*. Keep that in mind as you read. How a child saw church, God and the Bible...
The earliest memories I have of church is a giant crack. Yep. But I'll get to that in a sec. Our church building was a tiny building and for some reason every church that was like ours had the same architecture...a big room w/pulpit in front, baptistry behind...door on each side of the baptistry. The pews, or in our church...it was the horrifyingly uncomfortable wooden fold chairs that were connected like a pew...so 'pew-chairs' that literally were a pain in the backside. Mom would bring a mat to lay on the floor and beg me to sleep through church. There was no nursery, there as no 'children's church'. There were no Bible classes. All of these things were considered 'unscriptural innovations' so my earliest memories was that church was not and I mean NOT for kids. You just sat down, shut up, and behaved or you'd get carried out and no joke, you'd get swats from a tree switch if you misbehaved. Yes, I have very distinct memories of being swatted w/a tree switch, as many kids did back then.
I remember a lot of feet....I'd lay on that mat mom brought and look at all the feet...I liked to look at shoes. There was one gal about 4-5 years older than me...I loved her sandals and would always search them out and look at them while laying on the mat. Then I'd look up at the ceiling....from the pulpit all the way to the front door was a huge crack down the ceiling. NO JOKE. I would look at that crack and think "Am I the only one afraid the ceiling is about to cave in?? Why does NO ONE SEEM TO NOTICE THE CRACK???" I even ask Mom about the crack. She'd didn't know anything about it other than it was there and it never caved in so it must be okay. Not a Sunday passed that that crack didn't bother me.
Don't remember any sermons except I could have sworn one was about Mork and Mindy but remember, I was a kid...most likely it was an illustration in the sermon but all all I remember of years of sermons was something about Mork and Mindy.
I remember there was always a strange 2nd sermon...when this older fellow would get up and talk, talk, talk before dismissing...and he'd be tinkering w/the hymn book and I just remember thinking "Please make him stop...I'm so tired..what is he talking about?? Is he going to ever address the crack in the ceiling??". To this day I don't know what he talked about....maybe it was announcements but gee whiz, it seemed to be longer than the sermon but no mention about that crack.
I remember communion because we kids like to follow the same older gentleman after church because he would throw the left over grape juice down the restroom sink and for some reason we liked to watch it do down the drain spiraling all purple like that, and sometimes he'd let us pour it down the drain, which we thought was 'way cool'.
After church I'd go climb on our car...yes ON THE CAR. I'd lay on the windshield looking over the roof of the car and watch passing cars and 'preach to them'. I'd tell them all about Hell and how not to go there...and I'd just preach, preach, preach. To this day, I have no idea why I did that. I think I was always a mimic-er. I liked to mimic. And I did a fine job...lots and lots about Hell. I never remember preaching about Heaven.
My knowledge base for the Bible did not come from church at all until I was a teenager. Mom taught me all I knew about the Lord and his word. She'd tell me story after story after story...while washing dishes, while folding clothes, while cleaning house. Jesus was her 1st love. Honestly, she taught me a great deal. I would ask her to tell me another story. One day I said "Mom, tell me one I haven't heard before". That was the day she told me about Balaam and his talking donkey. My mother. She was the one who taught me Jesus and to love Him and his word above everything else. Though I thought church was not for kids, it didn't bother me because I didn't know there were alternatives to this set-up. I looked forward to growing up and having church but in the meantime, one thing I knew. Jesus was for kids.
I talked to God as a kid...probably more in line w/how kids talk to invisible playmates but the wonderful thing was, was that I felt I could talk to Him. I loved him and wanted to know him more and more. Those were my earliest memories of him.
Even though church wasn't for kids back then, my sister and I sure played church at home...we even played communion w/saltines and grape juice. We'd lead songs, we'd preach. Other friends even tell me they played baptisms...like w/cats and dogs. Baptizing a cat. I wish I would have thought of that...that would have made a great memory indeed. LOL We didn't baptize animals but we still played church nonetheless.
It never occurred to me that anything was really amiss. It was what it was. A kid doesn't think to analyze and ask is there another way or better way. It is what it is. Like the crack going down the entire building. It didn't bother anyone else. It bothered me. I couldn't quite define why...but there was always something in my soul gently whispering that something was very very wrong..this would develop over many years but at that young and innocent age, it simply was what it was...yet even then I realized a crack like that shouldn't be ignored. Maybe just maybe, there was something better, something more but would be years before I would mature enough to begin to see it and address it.
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