my background narrative

BACKGROUND - CHILDHOOD
As a small child in the 1950s, I attended a liberal Episcopal church. The prayers in teh old version of the Book of Common Prayer were written in King James language. The prayers were recited by the priest or congregation. That was NOT very inspiring or engaging for an impressionable child. It as an expression of religion without spirituality.

At my home, the only prayer was the same one said by my father at the start of a formal dinner. It was as follows: "Bless on Lord this food to the nourishment of our bodies and ourselves to thy service. Amen." My dad and our family had no interest in serving God. Such a prayer was the proper thing to do before a Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter dinner.

There was zero mention of God, Jesus, Bible, prayer, or any Christian subject by my parents. 

I attended Sunday School classes regularly until I was about 8 years old. Then my parents' marriage went from bad to horrible. They saw a secular counselor that did not value Christianity.

During Sunday School there was no mention or modeling of prayer. There were Bible stories and related crafts.

From ages 13 to 21 I was a seeker and an agnostic.

I was not sure if God existed or not. I was surrounded by people that grew up in the church. I had lively discussions with them during high school and college.


BACKGROUND - COLLEGE
I attended the campus ministries of the Baptists, Methodists, and the Presbertereians many times. But they did not address my apologetic questions.

I was privately searching to know if God existed or not. That question troubled me because there were peer pressure and media programing to become promiscuous. This was the early 1970s. So it was shortly after the sexual revolution and long before the craziness that is normal these days. 

My disappointments with my experiences at the Christian campus ministries left a hole in my soul.

I attended Georgia Tech in Atlanta Georgia. I had graduated from high school in Houston Texas. My family relationships were strained. And all my high school friends attended colleges in other cities.

The Greek social fraternities had appealing outreach events to enroll new brothers.

I could drink all the beer I wanted at the keg parties. And that was even though I was underage.

There were attractive single women at the beer busts and dances.

I joined a small fraternity where my frat brothers became my expended family. The fraternity house was my home on campus.

Soon I became the social chairman. I organized and led the beer busts and dances. But I needed to take along frat brother that was older than 21 to sign the check at the liquor store.

I had a few girlfriends in sequence. I was sexually active with most of them.

Here was my issue that fueled my seeking as an agnostic. If God does exist then I knew intuitively that sleeping around would not please God. If there was no God then my death is the end of my existence. There is no ultimate accountability to a nonexistent God.

My parents did not present a moral standard about sexuality.

My peers at the fraternity were obeying the impulses of their hormones.

My conscious troubled me.

God in His mercy gave me peculiar private experiences that led me to think that just might exist.

Over the years I went to visit the families of the girls I dated long-term. And I suspect that the mothers had prayed much for me. That would be no surprise.

I suspect that due to their answered prayers I had encounters with God that made sense to me.

Note that 2 of the girls that I dated long-term were from a Jewish family. But they were not practicing on campus. I hardly knew about their heritage until I went to visit their families.

How's it going to be married to one of the girls with Jewish background. Then she went home for the summer to Miami. I went home to Houston for the summer. Her summer job was as a receptionist in the office of her aunt who was a surgeon. She decided to become a surgeon too. She announced she had no time for me. She needed to get her grades up to get ready to go to medical school. So she dumped me and I went into a very very deep depression.

(Note that I have been engaged three times but never married. )

Two other events happened in my life at that same I will go into here. The result was I dropped out of college.

(Note too that I have dropped college three times. )

Then I moved from the dorms to an apartment with a fraternity brother.

I got a job in a health food store. Thankfully I learned a lot about nutrition and healthy living.

There I was at 20 years old. I was depressed, confused, mixed up, and much more.

I was trying to work out who I am, where I'm going, and what will I do with my life.

At that time my plan was to hitchhike out to California and join the hippies camping out in the woods. But it was January so I would wait till got warmer because I don't want to go start camping while it was cold.

So into this set of circumstances I was ripe to join a cult.

I was still receiving my mail at the Student Center. When I went there someone passed to me a flyer. That invited me to a demonstration seminar that I attended. Then there for the first time, I experienced meditation, yoga, eastern philosophy, and so much more. This was long before what's now called The New Age.

The bottom line is that I knew from my apartment into their commune. I became an immersed learner in their lessons and lifestyle. I took the first two of their trainings. I was on track to becoming a trainer with our organization. I explored a few of our communes. I was trying to find a place that I wanted to settle and become a trainer.

The founder of the organization did not believe in God or prayer.

In my questing to advance in my spiritual life, I smoked some pot and I dropped lots of LSD. My intention with my acid trips was to my meditations and spiritual advancement. But the result was that it scrambled up my mind.

I would call my mother from the communes. She was very concerned about me.  Sometimes when I was high while talking with her my voice was slurred.

Then after a strange chain of events I wound up moving in with my moving back to Houston and in with my mother.

There I learned she and her friends have been praying earnestly for me for months.

This was the first of dozens of testimonies of answered prayers that tell me to never underestimate the power of a mother's prayers.



BACKGROUND - CULT




BACKGROUND - REHAB




BACKGROUND - CHURCHES



BACKGROUND - BIBLE COLLEGE

BACKGROUND - SEMINARY

BACKGROUND - RECOVERY