Religion

When I was in Toastmasters, we were told that there were three subjects we should avoid. Sex, religion and politics. Of course, these are the most interesting topics for adults in the United States, and the most discussed. Today I want to talk about religion.

My first religious experience was attending a quaker church in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. If my memory serves me, the women and men were separated within a square around the central part of the church room. The children were segregated and watched over by an old man with a long stick. If the children started to fidget during the two hour "service", the old guy would tap the miscreants on the head with the stick to quiet them down.

Quaker meeting was very quiet. Everyone mediated upon their life and when the spirit moved them they would speak up. For instance, after 35 minutes of utter silence, Elder Smith might stand and up and say: "On Saturday, John Jones sold me a mule. The mule died the next day, and the Lord moved John and he refunded my money. Amen." And the congregation would respond: AMEN. Those meetings were tough times for young children.

My next religious experience occured when we street kids visited the downtown Salvation Army meeting hall. Once a week, we would listen to a sermon about morality, and then we could see movies, usually cartoons. We would watch them frontwards and then backwards.. we liked backwards the best. Between movies, we were expected to deposit ten cents into a collection plate that was passed around. Very few of us had ten cents, so, instead of depositing a dime, we would withdraw a dime.

A little time later, my cousin Charlie began to attend the First Baptist Church. His parents invited me to go along. When I entered the church, I noticed that they had a library! They had all of the copies of the Hardy Boys mysteries. I had been reading comic books up to this point, and now I just dropped them and began to read real books. I devoured them. Every day, I would read a Hardy Boy book to conclusion. I loved those stories.

Along the way, in addition to reading all the books in the library, I began to attend Sunday School. We were often given homework assignments. One was: memorize the books of the bible. At the time, I had unbelievable stage fright. I could not read two paragraphs in my schoolbooks without almost fainting. So, even though I had actually memorized the books of the Bible, and even though I could recite them backwards, I did not speak up, I was too scared.

Also, in the neighborhood I lived in at the time, it was not wise to be too smart.. so I played dumb a lot. After a while though, and because I bonded to a Sunday School teacher, I submitted to religious study and was baptised. This is a big thing in the Baptist religion, and those who have experienced it would probably never be afraid of waterboarding..

However, after Baptism I got a bit discouraged because the preacher unashamedly sat in his rocking chair each Sunday leering at my Aunt Mary. He really liked her, even though he was married, and at one point got her a spot with him on Sunday religious radio. He was supposed to answer questions phoned in by listeners. Actually, all of the questions were provided to my aunt Mary by him, to be phoned in to the show. She was supposed to disguise her voice each time. Somehow, this did not seem to me to be ethical.

In addition, the assistant Pastor at the time kept his window open in the early morning, as I delivered milk to his house. Some of the things he was saying to his wife were not what I expected a Pastor to say. However, to make up for it, every week he came forward when the word went out for sinners to repent.

Around this time, the men's club paid my way to a few weeks at a Baptist place in Maine called Royal Ambassador Camp. This was a nice place filled with the smell of pine trees. At this camp, the life of Paul was studied very closely and I still remember lots of the teachings. However, every night a couple of us would steal out after night fell and go to Old Orchard Beach and view whatever the equivalent of naughty videos were in those days. We never got caught.

The next preacher at the Baptist Church was more ethical than the former one, but he had some businesses in New Hampshire and spent most of his time up there instead of at the church. I lost track of him for four years while I was in the service in Germany. When I came back, I looked him up. He didn't remember me, but pretended to. He handed me an autographed bible and told me to get down on my knees and pray. I did so, but kept my eyes slightly open. As he quickly spoke a loud prayer, I saw him repeatedly glance at his watch and shake his head. As soon as he could, he grabbed my arm and hustled me out so that he could make his schedule for a trip to his holdings up north.

When I got married, since I wasn't Catholic like my wife, I agreed to bring my kids up in that religion, and I did so. When my son was born, my wife asked me to go to the Catholic Church and arrange for his baptism. I went to the Church that my wife went to and knocked on the door of a residence. A nun came to the door and told me that I needed to go to the rectory, which was three miles up the road.

I arrived at the rectory and knocked on the door. It was immediately opened and a German Shepherd suddenly grabbed my wrist in his mouth. I dared not move. Just then, a lady came out laughing and said: "You ain't Catholic are you?" She was right.

The young Priest that owned the dog came out and rescued me from his dog. We had a nice talk and he agreed to baptise my son.

I later found out that the Shephard was given to the priest by some friends of ours. (It's a small world. ) The priest went on a lot of Freedom Marches, and took the dog along for protection.

We were able to hire a wonderful young babysitter for my son. A beautiful girl who was part of a family with eleven children. She sat for us many times. One nite she didn't show up. We couldn't believe it because she was so conscientious. Later, we found out that the reason she didn't show up was because she had eloped with the young priest and his German Shephard. They spent a lot of time after that on protest trips down south.

So, this is probably the extent of my religious experience.. except for the fact that I am an ordained minister in the Church of the Modern Apostles. But that is another story.