My Spiritual Journey: The long road

For years my world was a desert, but there was music, and that was what sustained me.

For a long time it seemed rules were all that there was. God was a mean guy in the sky that would smack you down if you sinned. Or at least send you to hell when you died, so you better not die. We were told to get saved and then be good. Or maybe you had to be good first and then be saved. But being good just involved avoiding certain sins. It seemed like a lot of times it was more about not getting caught sinning than actually avoiding the various sins. I wanted answers though, not just platitudes or more rules. I didn't know what I wanted really at the time, i wasn't even a teenager yet, but it was more just wanting to know the whys and hows of things. Even then the rules seemed like an easy answer to a complex question.

I did feel guilty though and perhaps that was what the rules were for. But my guilt was more than the rules. I wasn't smoking, drinking or whatever else there was. The casual eye I was a basic good kid that went to church and did well in school.  I wasn't a problem for the adult authorities. Inside was a very different story.

Overwhelming guilt and shame that soon came to live inside me. Secrets on many levels.

Some things I felt guilty for were not even my doing.  Seeing things no one should see before my teen years began, and secretly enjoying some of the sins of others. These were things no one talked about, and I sure didn't want to talk about it.  Sneaking peeks at forbidden things. Emotions smothering me from all sides. There was no one to turn to.

There were my little secrets. Only they would not have been little if anyone had known. I used to cry out to God for some sort of sense out of all of this. But there were no answers. There was humiliation around every corner. Someone who knew the secrets of things behind closed doors, knew my connection. Mutual embarrassment ensued whenever we would meet. I had to keep secrets. I did, and I even started keeping them from myself by erasing any traces  of things that happened in secret.

That was my own private battle. Much too complicated for me and certainly nothing I could ask anyone about. But then there was the social aspects of religion, church. I wanted to know God because I thought there would be some answers there, and I thought church would be the place to find it. I was mistaken.

The thing I saw was that everyone acted as if they were good, but they were not good. Christianity became a game. To be socially accepted, I did like every one else. I hid my sins, and pretended to be good. Some of my sins were not sins at all, but were just things I had felt guilty about. The hypocrisy of it all bothered me more than anything.  I also resented having to act like I was a good person when I knew I was not. I also resented having to pretend other people were good people when I knew they were not too.

I saw the human condition as one of weakness, sinfulness and despair. Yet religion's heavy hand was upon me. I wanted to know God, but God seemed so far away, so hard to understand. And in my dealings with most religious people, there was just pretending to be good. Now there were exceptions. There were some wise older women - older than me at least - who seemed to understand a little bit. They offered me hope.  A teaspoon of grace in a desert of sinfulness and guilt. It was a medicine I took eagerly, but they were the minority and often they were drowned out by the noise of religiousity.

I seemed miles - even worlds - away from the peace of the multicolored river of my youth. I could no longer see that place where i used to see God, and  could not feel his spirit within me anymore. I could barely even remember the river of rainbows. Were they just something I had imagined? Where was that feeling. Sunsets became just sunsets. I barely cared about the colorful mountains and fire in the sky anymore.

At some point I realized I would have to stop looking to others for answers. I was becoming an angry young man. They - those I had looked to as leaders - either did not know the answers or were refusing to tell me. I knew God. This was not what God was about, I knew, but even if I raised the question I got scolded or shunned. As my teen years began, I knew it was not God that was the problem. Religion just confused the issue - or at least the issues I cared about.

 Anger raged as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s. There was still some fear of the angry God who got mad if you sinned, but even that began to fade. People would say "God loves you." That only made it worse. What the hell did that mean? There were a lot of layers between me and God by then. And it would only get worse.

 There was a numbness that calloused over my heart as it sealed itself off from danger. Apart from anger at the frustration of not being able to find answers, there really wasn't much emotion.

 But it was there I found music. Dylan, Lennon and McCartney, even the Stones to some extent. There were others, but those were the ones that lasted in my mind.  They said the words I wanted to say. They had the feelings I wanted to feel. It almost seemed like they understood the things I felt. My anger was abated by their lyrics, their music. There was also the Allman Brothers Band. Their lyrics were not that much, but they had a sound that soothed my angered soul. The blues influence on 70s rock and roll became my savior.

In despair I was abandoning my search for God. Music at least consoled me. Still the emptiness was always just a step away. Late at night starring at the ceiling. Sometimes I would pray, but nothing ever got beyond the ceiling. God wasn't listening, and certainly wasn't talking.

I knew there was a hole in my soul that only God could fill, but where was God. How could I find God? Why would religion not reveal the secrets? Anger and depression began to rule. Music calmed me. If it were not for music I would not have survived. It was not the real answer, but it was a  life raft in a sea of bewilderment.

I started smoking in these years. The rush of nicotine seemed to fill me up and make me whole. I do remember one day thinking this was what I had needed. Thus began a lifelong addiction.