Besides going to school a great many of my memories center around the church I attended growing up. Since my earliest memories of around four or five years old until I graduated from high school, church family was the Jackson Methodist Church. Sometime in the early to mid-60s it became the Jackson United Methodist Church. Being but a teenager, I did not fathom what the implications might be for our church in joining the UMC organization. Later, my gut feeling from hearing all that the adults had to say was that this may not be a good move. As I approached my adult years, the question did dawn on me, “Why did Martin Luther break from the Catholic Church for Protestants to eventually organize on the same model?” When such organizational shenanigans take place, it is usually for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many. However, my church family has had a lot of influence on the person I was and the person I eventually came to be.
In Proverbs it is written to “raise a child up in the way he should go and he will never turn from it.” He can become lazy though. I do not consider myself a religious person. I have ingrained over my lifetime some sense of spirituality, however. I joined the church when I was 12, but discontinued my church membership when I was 32. I realized that I could never fulfill the requirements of membership as stated in the vows. I had also become jaded by organized religion. Particularly, The United Methodist Church’s involvement with political lobbying for causes and issues which I did not support; issues for which Christian ethics do not support either. The year my young brother died; a self-serving minister was what pushed me over the edge. Even so, I still support the ideals and teachings of Christianity. The way in which people treat each other as stated in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament are sound, common-sense ideals, for the most part. These same ideals are also to be found in other religious teachings and philosophies. I suppose learning these things has made me embrace a common spirituality among all human beings, maybe even all living things. The underpinnings of the universe, I believe, may go even deeper.
When I talk about my “church family,” I see a group of people related by that common spirituality, and who feel the obligation to live what they believe. These are people who have treated me as well as a beloved blood relative. They nurtured and taught me what was right behavior and wrong; they were like extra sets of parents, brothers and sisters; they were a help to my own parents in seeing that I had a set of social skills that would help me lead a respectable life. They are happy when others are happy, and sad and sorrowful whenever tragedy is visited upon anyone. It is not to say that they are without fault or blemish. Many have been good examples to follow and a few, not so good examples. It is to say that they are people who deserve my respect and affection. They are the people I call my church family. They are why I have not totally forsaken my church.
The earliest pastor I remember was Bro. John Shearer. I vaguely remember a minister coming to the “big” house in Goose Hollow one time. I cannot picture the man in my mind, but I do not think he was Bro. Shearer. He may have been Reverend Pennybaker the Baptist minister, who was replaced by Bro. Martin. I had Bro. Martin’s wife for fifth grade teacher. When Mom started to bring my younger sister and me to Sunday School and church service on Sundays, I only remember Bro. Shearer.
Oh, yes. We usually went to the Sunday night service and to Wednesday night prayer meeting. Whenever there were revival services, we went. I learned that it was a duty to go, just like regular school, no matter how much I would have preferred to stay home and play. I grew into it though. You also went because your friends went. Our parents said so, so we were all in the same boat.
When our sons came along, we brought them to church. They were christened in that church. As my parents did, I did. We raised them within our church family. We did not just take them there and leave them, but went with them also. That is how it was. I wanted them to have the same experience I had in seeing what it is to lead a moral life. Once they were grown, then it became their choice to lead whatever kind of life they chose. So far, they have chosen to be good men. The greatest pride a parent can take is to be complemented by others, especially strangers, on how well mannered, considerate, industrious and helpful their grown adult children are. A church family can help make that kind of difference in a person’s life.
I suppose that mine has always been a soul in need of “saving” for some reason or another throughout my lifetime. During a week-long summer Bible School, I killed a girl, or so I thought. At six years of age, it was the first time I experienced such a raging, murderous contempt for a fellow human being. I will attempt to set the stage.
To the right front side of the church yard, when facing the church, there used to be a black metal sign about three-foot square, with white letters with black background on little plastic squares that slid into channels. The letters were so arranged to identify the church, the pastor and meeting times. It was supported by a black metal post on each side about 3 to 4 feet above the ground. At the beginning of the summer, the sign was taken down and a brick enclosure built to match the church tower, and the black sign was taken off the post and installed in the enclosure behind a glass door.
The job had just been completed, but the site still needed a clean-up. Which was all right for us kids because a big pile of sand used for the mortar (with a few pieces of brick lying around) was still there for us to play in.
During a break in Bible School three of us boys hit the sand pile and decided to see how high a mountain we could make. We had a very sizable hill when along come two of the older girls holding up the younger sister of one on them between them and she kicked our mountain flat. The three laughed the whole time we pleaded with them to stop. We were ignored and they went their merry way after the deed was done.
I was so angry at those girls. The girl that destroyed our handiwork was the same age. We would be starting first grade come September. As we three surveyed the sand pile my eyes saw a half brick. I looked up and there she stood about 20 to 25 feet away with her back to me. And even though there were quite a few people around, children and adults, it was a clear shot. Before I knew it, I grabbed the brick and threw it as hard as my six-year-old arm could hurl. (Did I tell you I played baseball?) Lane and Eddie realized what I was about to do. I vaguely remember them saying “Don’t do it!” The brick hit Melissa square between the shoulder blades; knocked her eyeglasses off her face. I think she hit the ground before the brick did.
Things got kind of blurry then. My two companions had become statues with frozen expressions of awe and horror showing on their faces. Just about everyone was around her. A few pointed fingers at me. I eased past the crowd and into the church. I went straight to the room Mom was preparing to start a class of kindergartners. “Mom,” I said in a very wavy voice. “I just killed a girl.” I remember it but I just can’t describe the expression on her face. I remember telling her what happened, then following her out the door to see Melissa. By this time, she had come too and had just about stopped crying. I said nothing while the adults talked; I had been ordered not to before we left the room. I apologized when prompted by Mom. And that seemed to be the end of it.
This was one of those life events that must go into the “Regrettable” category. What was I thinking? What makes a six-year-old child so angry and violent? This was definitely my nature on display because I had not been nurtured to be thus. Why? Fifty plus years removed from this event and I better understand the expression “the better angels of our nature,” because I know that human beings are a most difficult species to deal with. We are much closer to our animal natures than the divine beings we think and pretend we are.
That hair trigger I inherited from the McArthur and/or the Lafontaine side of the family has been at the root of similar such “tragedies” of my life. The thing is that I knew it was wrong, even as I was doing it, but it felt oh so dame good and right at time. As I have aged my soul wanders less in the wasteland, and has come a long way to find that middle ground of compromise that divides angels from assholes.
(The scene of the crime. The promotion card at the top is signed by the victim’s mother.)
Thank you for allowing us to see into some of your life and thoughts. I come into agreement only with Heavenly father His Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ whom said "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:23-24
We are the temples of the living God that He and His holy Spirit inhabits and dwells tabernacling with us.
Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,
“‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
or what is the place of my rest?
Did not my hand make all these things?’
Acts 7:48-50
I'm just wondering Carl did you ever receive being reborn in the Spirit at all? And Holy spirit baptism? And do you still believe Jesus as the Christ the word made flesh and express image of the invisible God made visible & is the only way, the (only) truth, and the life and the only way to the father? John 14:6
And that Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12 There is no other name given under heaven to which mankind can be saved than the name of Jesus Christ. Do you still believe this?
(Romans 8:9) https://www.openbible.info/topics/spiritual_rebirth
There appear to be those broken parts in us all. Got my start as a Methodist also, Carl. Left out about 12; that's another story.