When I was young God was just there.
I wasn’t absolutely sure what his name was and who was the father and who was the son but I spoke to him and was in no doubt he listened.
I went to Sunday school of my own volition. I can’t say I learnt a great deal more than sensible advise on what surface it is best to build ones house upon, or that Jacob had a ladder that we, and apparently servicemen, were encouraged to climb, but there was something nice about singing and clapping ensemble and being a child of God. The smartly dressed ladies smiled at me a lot. I liked that.
I wasn’t sure either as I grew up, whose churches I had attended. I never studied the boards outside. Jesus always came up and saved the day, so I knew we were Christain.
It smelt nice. Incense or civic hall. I didn’t mind which. Polish or dust. They all smelt safe.
At some point I discovered that in France I had in fact been christened Catholic.
I found that exciting. I was a signed up team member after all. Colour and statues and noble fellows waving smoking golden balls and making shapes in the the air with two bendy fingers.
Apparently we had an official spirit…great!…candles, history and each a personal saint, superb.
A devout Irish Aunt came to visit and offered to take me to mass. I was thrilled and jumped at the chance, but soon found out it was a club to which I could lay no claim. They had secret squirrel speak. The priest said something that I gathered was not off the top of his head, and everyone but me knew what was coming next and replied in unison.
I felt as I always did when I couldn’t recite my times tables in class, and half expected being asked to leave the room again, to the same sound of laughter.
Some people got to eat and drink something up front like prefects, and made an orderly queue. They didn’t invite me or some of the others, who seemed to know why.
My aunt went too without a by your leave. Rude!
I had never had my white dress day which wasn’t my fault, so I had to stay put.
I felt foreign. I didn’t know any of the songs.
I decided I should stick with the gang that owned the hymns in school assembly. The songs I knew well. Theirs was a benign God, an inclusive God and a charitable God. We had only to listen. We had to say Amen after the finale and learn one prayer. All were welcome and Jesus loved us each and everyone.
Were they Protestant?
Is everyone that follows Jesus’ teachings, who is not a Catholic – a Protestant?
Even the nutters who kiss snakes in His name and have Beelzebub
bitch slapped from their temples?
Who tells you what the difference is between a Baptist and a Methodist and an Evangelist and an Anglican and a Seventh Day who ever they are, and do that last lot have anything to do with Craig David?
I left school and lost touch with my class mates. I lost too any chance I had to ask who we were.
I miss the God of my enfance.
Well, I wrote you and it got lost. Sorry to post here but I really hope you read this comment. Off the subject, just needed to tell you once that since ALF, you meant a lot to me and your voice is always with me. You are so freaking special and I just wanted to thank you for what you gave me with that voice and your lyrics.
Love, Chris
citichris@gmail.com
God used to live next door to Nana. When I was very young in the early Seventies before Nana and Dada emigrated to Tasmania, I used to go to see them with my brothers. We would play in their garden and feed Dada’s hens. We would make up games to play. I would paint the Gnomes around the pond a multitude of colours, and we would eat my Nanas home baking which was gorgeous. We were always good boys though at Nanas. Nana would come outside and say ‘I hope you’re behaving’, then point up over next doors sky-high fence and declare, ‘Cos he’s watching you!’
one question i wanted answered as a kid was “where did god sit on a cloudless day..?”
‘Twas kinda funny reading citichris’s comment after your piece…it read a bit like a reply to your question “Where’s my childhood God gone?”…”Well I wrote you and it got lost…” (assuming God writes anyone and speaks like a middle-aged American Jewish woman…”I wrote you, enough already!”).
I’m reading your latest blog, having got an RSS feed (MS2007, love it). iTunes is selecting random tracks…”On earth as it is in heaven” (Ennio Morricone, The Mission). Suddenly I’m back in church, aged 10, a catholic choristor and all…
Now this is spooky on a number of fronts. The whole God-atmospheric moment for one, of course. Where I was in my life when this film was released (living in Manchester, aged 19, living with some geeze called Duncan, ten years my elder and an avid AM fan also. Hoodoo was the other soundtrack to that time. You played a tiny venue in Manchester, I stood 10 feet away and you blew me away (leather jacket, can of Red Stripe in hand). Fond memories, 17 years before now. Oh Christ, I can remember as a child thinking there would never be “17 years”: an unimaginable distance in time and space. Now there are over 2 “17 years” in my life so far and I can recall an event as tiny as you getting interrupted mid “Ne me quitte pas” by some pissed bloke in a club in Manchesterford in 1990 asking for your number.
And so to God. I get cross when I get onto God. I may start ranting.
It’s a great idea, don’t get me wrong. Sprituality, I think I’ve got that. A sense of right and wrong and compassion (for self and others…does that sound like psychobabble?). And the pagentry is great…long robes, different colours (all equally glam), incense, flowers on the altar, the smell of a well-buffed pew (sorry, awfully Graham Norton of me). But organised religion I struggle with.
Like you, a brought-up catholic. Confirmed and all. “Benedict” was my chosen name. I told the Archbishop it was to do with St Benedict. It was actually that I had a terrible crush on an actor called Benedict Taylor (who played a soldier in ‘Barriers’, a Sunday afternoon WW2 drama series). Maybe my fate was sealed there and then…accidentally confirmed a homosexualist who (mis-)spent his Sundays worshipping a young soldier not a young carpenter who gave his life to save us all from ourselves. How utterly selfish of me. Well, I was 9 going on 10…
I guess that sealed my fate, religion-wise. That and Songs of Praise.
Seriously, though. Call me old fashioned, but I find it hard to reconcile millenia of ethnic cleansing, persecution of women, mass genocide and the near-sponsorship of paedophilia with anything godly, good or even vaguely humane. I may be a fag but I don’t need half the forgiving the church does for the crimes its committed down the years in the name of God. It’s putrid.
So if I need incense I can pop down to Neal’s Yard. And if it’s a sense of theatre and a nice frock I want, I can get out my Boy George videos. I no longer queue for wine and bread (except in Waitrose).
And as for my sense of self…it’s taken years of making mistakes and learning not to judge myself as harshly as others in the Church would judge, a fair deal of therapy and the love of a good man (the best) to bring me where I am now. 2 x 17 years (and a bit) later I’ve no need to seek comfort in the scriptures.
Don’t get me wrong. Whatever floats others’ boats is cool with me (just not in my face, ta). Two years ago Mum died suddenly. Full catholic burial, the works. I bore the coffin, wept uncontrollably and sang the church roof off (the same church I’d gone to with such reverance as a child). For Mum and for Dad.
For me, I read Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet. For me, my partner stood by my side and read a eulogy, then held my hand in front of the congregation. This wasn’t posturing, or political. Just pure emotion. What felt right. I’ve never been prouder.
I’ve just realised…this isn’t so much a rant as a book. I hope I haven’t used your wordpress word limit for the year.
Have a great non-denominational winter holiday season y’all!
Glen xxx
…and just when I thought that religion couldn’t parody itself…
check out:
http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/984_13_ways_to_bless_missionaries_without_paying_for_postage/
I don’t actually think they’re attempting humour. It’s worrying.
Great post.
I am with you when it comes to every humanist crime that religion has committed being that which separates us ultimately from God. I don’t know if it is that as an English/French hybrid, and a freak at that, I have never had a sense of where my salmon home is …where I should return to. I want clan. I want brethren. I am eternally disappointed in the absense of supreme love. As a child, for a short while you understand, I thought in the word, in the church there would be kindness and acceptance, when you are a child the words are few and the truths concealed and of course I grew up. I read the bible and did not see the word of God…only of man. Patriarchal, feudal, cruel. I hope one day to by-pass the stains of these institutions…to salmon swim to my infancy and die there connected to the purity I had no reason to see beyond.
Mine is still a Christmas…and it fuckin wants to be an ‘appy one.
LOL xxxx
Amen to that.
…and lets hope it is a ‘appy one….
I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I was raised Jehovah’s Witness, which meant no Christmas, no birthdays(so do I get to erase 14 years off my actual age?). The reasoning was that, a person’s birthday was so incredibly less important that Christ’s, that they should not be celebrated. But then, no Christmas either. So how important was Christ’s birth then?
I spent many years thinking “Somebody needs to make up their fuckin’ mind, so I can get a damn present!” Mind you, if I’d said that aloud, my diet for the week would have been dishwashing liquid, and I’d still be farting bubbles…