My History with the Lord (Pretense)

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Pretense: “An attempt to make something that is not the case appear true” or “A false display of feelings, attitudes, or intentions.”

After looking at that definition, I don’t think I was even at the pretense level with my church activities. I never said I believed in God, or Jesus, or the Bible, or goodness, or rightness, or anything.  I did many right things because that was the pattern established in my life and there were just some things you did and some things you didn’t do because it was just the right thing (or, conversely, the wrong thing) to do. To be quite honest, I didn’t like church, or Sunday school, or MYF.  I didn’t like any of it. So as soon as it was my choice to not go, I didn’t.

I went the three different schools in three different towns in 3^rd grade and another new school and town by 6^th grade. I have never made friends easily and I was never the “best” friend of anyone I knew.  So I ended up tagging along with whatever group would have me.   By the end of 5^th grade I had been exposed to pornography and had occasionally smoked.  (There was a Catholic family that lived near us in Algona, IA whose kids went to the Catholic School.  They would steal their parents’ cigarettes and put them in church offering envelopes box.  We would go down to the creek, catch frogs, and smoke.)  I also remember riding my bike all over town and never being home.  Which led to petty shoplifting, throwing rocks at cars (and cats), going into abandoned houses and doing damage, all stuff I thought was typical.  I didn’t feel guilty.  I knew it was “wrong” in a sense, but that really never touched me.  I knew my dad would be mad if he found out (and he often did because I was good at causing trouble) but if he never found out, I never felt bad about it.

Into Junior High I was done.  I saw no purpose in church of church activities.  I occasionally went because there were some girls I liked, but the content was at first irrelevant, then irritating, then hostile.   I became agnostic.  Whether god existed or not was irrelevant.  There was no way to know anything about god.  I loved George Carlin because he had a lot of angst and anger directed toward religion.  He had this comedy bit about god being too big, too busy and too far away, “Forget about earth, man…I’m too busy throwing gas balls on the edge of the firmament.”

Once I affirmed the fact that I really didn’t believe in anything, I threw off restraint.  Even that twinge of regret for lying to my parents was gone.  In 8^th grade I started drinking beer.  That led me to a two year slide where I ended up sitting in jail, kicked out of school, and on the absolute bottom.

chris