Friday, May 18, 2012

Reading between the lines of Matthew 18





My father wasn’t particularly taken by religion. For whatever reason he never made a big production out of attending church. Though he always made it a point to watch the Reverend Billy Graham. Dad would say that was the only man of God he had any respect for. May be it was the experiences Dad had growing up in Harlan, Kentucky from 1929 through the early 1940s that neutered his interest in the church. It could have been the death of his older brother in 1937. Dad wasn’t anti-church; he just wasn’t enthusiastic about it either.
Mom was more likely to encourage our religious curiosity. However, she wasn’t going to turn us completely loose when it came to independent explorations. When I asked about running off with the neighbors to church on Sunday morning, she didn’t support the idea, but she didn’t exactly forbid it—not directly anyway.
Looking back, Mom seemed a bit apprehensive about the Catholic Church. Or may be it was just the holier than thou attitude many churches seem to have. When she was taking us on Sunday morning, it was to a small Lutheran Church. A single storey building, simple glass doors like those you would find on most retail businesses, and a small podium at ground level which the pastor stood behind to deliver his sermon of the day.


“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.”
― Charles Bukowski


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