I would like to tell story of my encounters with faith. It is a story with many chapters so far, and I hope many more to come. Perhaps in what I’ve gone through, there may be something of interest to others.
In my earliest, pre-cognizant years, I was baptized as a Methodist Christian, to the dismay of my catholic grandparents. I believe it was an act of rebellion on the part of my mother. They tell me I handled the event quite peacefully, except for being stubborn about constantly pulling on the minister’s long mustache. Such was my induction into faith.
I remember attending several different Christian churches while growing up, mostly Methodist and Unitarian. All of them were very relaxed – as Protestantism goes – and didn’t stress religion too strongly. On the whole, they were inexpressibly boring. The first step was attending the sermon, which I could never remember, and had a terrible time sitting through. Then would come the children’s classes, where I did learn a few useful things. I still remember some of the lessons I learned about the disciples, and also that hell is a very bad place which I would enter directly if I ever committed suicide. I must say, that class caused me to never to consider suicide as an option, whatever my present beliefs may be.
At one point, our Sunday school teacher told us we should invite Jesus Christ into our hearts, and that if we did so, He would accept us. This was when I was about twelve years old, and represents my only active participation