The story of my life chapter one

My parents were C & E Christians, (Christmas and Easter)  they went to an Episcopal Church in Salem, VA just outside Roanoke.   we always had blessings before meals but it was a meaningless exercise for me.  I found the whole church scene real empty and rejected it and christianity and the concept of god and the relevance of most of my parents values.  However, I did come to believe in raising hell.  My teenage recreation mostly involved camping and drinking, swimming on the river and drinking, drinking on friday nights and sat afternoon.  I guess you could say I did a lot of drinking. 

I volunteerd for the draft (one of my dummer choices) and entered the army in Nov of 67.  I got out Sept 7, 1970 commited to the notion of not repeating anything like that again.  I had fought the war and returned with some medals, a broken heart, and real distorted emotions.

I had a thirst and a burden to combat the pain of the world. I became political, joined Viet Nam Veterans Against the War (John Kerry was co-founder but I didn't know anything about that) marched, smoked pot, grew long (LOOOOOOOONNNNNGGGGGG) hair and a beard, got arrested, and voted.  One day I was with others handing out leaflets and I discovered the paper was stolen the leaflets were printed on ( a light came on in my head).  I realized the politicos that were my friends were just as manipulitive and deceptive as those we opposed, just in different ways.

I walked away from politics (but still voted).  I came to feel that the only real change for the world could only come from a change in hearts --starting with me. you know,  the L  O  V  EEEEEEEE thing.

I had rejected xtianity but began to think there might be a god and went looking.  I wanted the source material not the testimony of someone who may or may not really believe in whatever religion I was examining.  I got the Quran (a translation of) at the library at the Univ. of GA where I matriculated on the GI bill.  I didn't feel this was a witness of the God I was looking for because I found no help to overcome this darkness in my own heart and no help (that I could see) to overcome the darkness in the world.  Now remember this is my own story, you can examine a translation of the Quran for yourself and and decide for yourself and more power to you.

Chapter two will be more about my search for God

09/06/2004

Posted on 09/06/2004
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