Saturday, June 04, 2016

Feel free to post your "Religious Autobiography" in the Comments

 Religious Autobiography.  
[Reflect on your past religious experience, including the most significant spiritual event/influence in your life, the role of a redeemer/Christ in your religious experience, your involvement in service, and your reason(s) for attending your church/temple/mosque/forest/desert. (minimum 250 words; maximum 500 words]

Religious Autobiography

Christian Experience

Born again.  In beginning was Word.  And translation issues.  Not born with language.  Baby picks up used tongue and puts in mouth[TK2] . Was third child of missionaries living in Aztec village about 60 miles and 400 years outside Mexico City.  Spoke Spanish, Nahuatl, and English, and none of them.  Father said learn to speak by Grace.  Mother said learn to read by Bible.  Experience constant miracles.

Moved to Bolivia, grew up in tropical jungle of Amazon delta. Visits to  Andes, Pampas, and flights to Mexico City, Guatemala, United States.  Intermittent attendance in public schools of Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas and California.  Sunday schools in synod–approved Presbyterian Bible Schools. Eagle Scout. Music for worship in over 100 Churches. Music creates ecumenical outlook. 

Spiritual experience

Every thought. Thoughts are God to a child always in His Hand.  Could not separate from His Presence, and never so inclined. Listening to others.  Began to understand Power of Prayer.
Learned of Ancient Egyptian civilization.  Now-lost lineages of Pharaoh took up Trinitarian God. Sons of women claimed to be Sons of God, prepared for Eternal Life.  Pharaohs believed Thoughts constituted evidence of divinity: “I think, therefore I am”.

When 17 years old in 1968, traveled  States, living off kindness of strangers and playing music.  Found little “chaos” and rebellion often described now of then.  Found constant generosity and kindness.  Huddled against cold nights, experienced ecstasies and out-of-body visions. (Recently, during hospitalization, saw “Heaven” clearly).  Hard-wired.

Drafted in last month of Vietnam era Draft. (Mexico and US universal Draft). Found, repeatedly, importance of Chapel to Soldiers.  So often facing displacement, boredom and death.

Role of Christ

Limned clearly in earliest Joban literature, great crying need for Redeemer, leitmotif of Whole Story. Christ, exemplar and Numen. Transgression against Name of Iesus Christo brings tear to eye. Message of love, is clear. Why rejected?

Involvement in Christian Service

Led Bible Studies in Claremont College. Before graduating from University of San Diego, began to build Church. Struggled for decades in Ramona.  Supported by farming, soldiering (300th Armor, National Guard), music, and construction. Passed Bar Exam, became Director of law firm with 29 employees.  Service-connected injury lit up deterioration and partial disability.  Led counseling programs for Veterans and their families. Lobbied in Washington DC.

With wife, tried to adopt orphans.  When political economy collapsed in Summer of 2008, clients gone. And Church still not built.  Lost health, peers, property, pride and hopes for family.
Failed so many ways, feels like success. Failure made us free.  Wife close, still have garden home with library. Continuing quietly “in service”.

Reason(s) for attending your Church

This Light beams me toward Unitarian Universalism:  Its creed adopts Christic exemplar.









 [TK2]OR We must pick up a tongue before we crawl.  

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