During my twenties and most of my thirties, God was relegated to religion. I seldom went to church, so it wasn’t a matter that troubled me that much. I would engage in an intellectual conversation about the Divine, but I still hadn’t disconnected God from the Roman Catholic church and all its trappings. God, Mary, the Saints, were all lumped into the same heap. There was still the innate feeling that if I went to a church other than a Catholic one, I was doomed. The same went for the bible. So, other than a one time visit to a Baptist church, I basically stayed away. Then the whole “Chariots of the Gods” and “Space Ships of Ezekiel” thing came out and it required a bible to understand. At that time, I was living in a university community and everyone was reading the stuff. No one batted an eye when I went into the College Hill bookstore and bought a bible…not a usual thing in an Ivy league community, unless it was for a course. I read, but it was not with an eye to see truth, but one to see that scripture was written to explain scientific phenomena they couldn’t understand.
I still wanted a spiritual experience…they all came from God, I thought. I read tarot, I did astrology charts, I did other things which I now know were voodoo. Still no spiritual experience. Don’t know what I expected, but I knew I’d know it if I had it…little did I know. I think I was looking for a burning bush or a Damascus road experience and I eventually found some deep experiences…I’m glad I didn’t stop there.
In my late thirties, I had just gotten out of a bad long-term relationship…nothing was going right. I was in my car and I simply called out “God Help!” A week or so later, through a bizarre set of circumstances that I still can’t explain, a trip to the store to buy cleaning supplies found me two cities away in a Christian coffee-house where someone I knew was ministering. Life changed radically, from that moment on. I met the God of the bible…the legalistic one. I met the God of reaping and sowing…Jehovah…or as the faith preachers call Him…the God you make a deal with… everything was cause and effect…obedience. I also encountered healing first hand. I’d had systemic lupus for twenty-six years. I was healed and I began to exhibit healing gifts. Jehovah Rapha was well-known to me. I also learned about demons and the devil and hell and the Jesus of the sinners prayer.
From the beginning, I always questioned…who was Jesus? Who was he really? I was attracted to the mystics. I read Augustine and then found Merton…I found Rumi and hid the books…I inhaled scripture…I learned…but it was always through the lens of the old line Pentecostal church coupled with the faith message. I had the gospel according to Brother Hagin, Brother Copeland, Mike Murdock, Fred Price, with a little Marilyn Hickey thrown in. The healing was working fine for me…the prosperity wasn’t doing so well. I could pray a zillion dollars into your life but it seldom worked for me. Of course, the problem had to be with me. God wanted me to be rich…it was I who couldn’t receive it.
